It is highly recommended that you give the Blocksy theme a shot if you are looking for a WordPress theme that is both quick and compatible with the upcoming Gutenberg editor. In addition, the Blocksy theme comes loaded to the gills with a tonne of different customization options and cutting-edge features.
In this review of Blocksy, I’m going to provide an introduction of the Blocksy theme, discuss its price structure, and highlight all of the free and pro features that are at your disposal.
Let’s examine the possibilities with the Blocksy theme.
Blocksy Theme Review -- Free Features
- Personalizable Interface for WordPress
- Header and Footer Builder
- Header that is Sticky and Transparent
- Global Color Palette
- Case for Social Sharing (without a plugin)
- Notice about Related and Trending Posts that is
- Integrated into Cookies (GDPR)
- Sticky Sidebar
- Live Search Results
The free Blocksy theme offers a significant number of additional features in comparison to other available free WordPress themes. In point of fact, it provides access to a greater number of free features than the majority of commercial WordPress themes provide. There are a lot of great free features, but I’m going to focus on the ones that I consider to be the most important.
Individualized WordPress Configuration Editor
Custom customizer? What exactly does that entail?! When you use the Blocksy theme on your website and go into the WordPress customizer, you will notice that the interface seems… different from the interface of any other WordPress theme that you are accustomed to using.
I could explain it to you, but as the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words, right? Here are two pictures of the Blocksy WordPress customizer. You will note that the layout and the settings appear differently compared to other themes’ utilisation of the default WordPress styling.
In addition to that, at the very bottom of the customizer is a sun and moon symbol, which, when clicked, allows you to toggle between a light mode and a dark mode with the flick of a switch. That is just awesome!
General Options
- General
- Header
- Footer
- Sidebar
- Colors
- Typography
- Performance
Post Types
- Blog Posts
- Single Posts
- Categories
Pages
- Author Page
- Search Page
Visitor Engagement
- General
- Social Networks
Core
- Site Identity
- Menus
- Widgets
- Homepage Settings
- Additional CSS
When you have a WordPress customizer organised up like this, it is incredibly straightforward to know where to go when you want to customise a certain element of your website.
If you haven’t already guessed… I really like the Blocksy custom customizer!
Header and footer features
Next, the free Blocksy theme has a fantastic header and footer builder that allows you to effortlessly drag and drop different components into your header or footer to create a completely working header for your website in minutes.
This is a lot faster approach to generate a header than using a theme without a header builder, such as GeneratePress.
The following is a list of all the header builder elements available in the free Blocksy theme:
- Account
- Button
- HTML 1
- Logo
- Menu 1
- Menu 2
- Search
- Socials
The picture below shows all of the draggable header elements:
You can then take any of these header elements and drag them onto the header builder to easily create your desired header.
One of the best parts is you get three rows (top, main, and bottom) to use as you desire.
Let’s create a sample header for the desktop version of our site.
I drop the Logo, Menu 1, Button, and Account components into the header builder, and presto! Within a minute, I had a fully functional header like this.
One item that should be brought to your attention is the fact that the Account component is included in the free Blocksy theme. This is a feature that is normally only available for a fee on other WordPress themes (if they even have the feature at all).
Users are able to log in and out of your site and have their own personalised avatar appear thanks to this function, which is one of the many reasons why it is so very good.
Now that we’ve shown how simple it is to construct a menu for the desktop version of our website, the question is: what about the mobile version?
In case you haven’t figured it out yet, it’s as simple as that. Let’s construct our mobile header by selecting the “Mobile Header” tab located at the bottom of the page.
After inserting the Logo and the Trigger element into the mobile header builder, I am presented with the mobile header that reads as follows:
That takes care of it! But what about the box that’s been highlighted over there on the left? What exactly is that?
When you choose the menu trigger with your finger, the mobile menu that you see will appear.
Within the mobile menu, you can see that it displays your menu (the Offcanvas Menu element), your contact information, and your socials in an organised manner all at the same time. Looks amazing!
The global colour palette for Blocksy presently consists of five different hues. The following is a condensed summary of the various functions that they serve:
- Color 1 is the primary colour of your brand.
- Color 2 is an optional or “hover” shade that complements your primary brand colour.
- Color 3 is the colour that is most frequently utilised for the text in your paragraphs.
- Color 4 is the text colour that is utilised most frequently for headings, subheadings, and titles.
- Color 5 is an alternative colour for you to make use of anyway you see fit.
You will see that there is also a space below the three colour palettes that are made available to you where you may specify the colour of your base font, the colour of your links, the colour of your headings, the colour of your text selection, and the colour of your website’s backdrop.
When you’re constructing a new website, using a global colour palette will save you hours of time since you won’t have to manually alter the colours of each and every section the way you do with a theme like Astra. Instead, you can just modify the palette once and apply it everywhere. Blocksy is much superior in that regard.
I do wish that Blocksy offered more colours in their global colour palette to give you even greater flexibility with the colours that you use on your site; however, they must have read my mind because there is a feature that will soon be added to Blocksy PRO that will give users access to a central colour palette.
Checkbox for Social Sharing (without a plugin)
This is a really great feature, but unfortunately, it is not included with any of the most popular WordPress themes available today. Blocksy has it, and better still, it’s completely free.
Have you ever wished that your article included social sharing buttons so that people could simply share content they like with their friends? If so, you are not alone.
Blocksy, to your good fortune, offers a solution that is both tasteful and unobtrusive. Examine it carefully.
On individual posts (blog articles), you have the option of displaying a gorgeous share box in a variety of locations on your post by going straight into the “Share Box” settings.
For instance, in the snapshot that you can see above, I selected the option that allows me to display the share box within the content. You will be given the option to select whether you want it to appear at the top of your post, the bottom of your post, or both.
Then, down below, all you need to do to show the different share networks that you want to show in the box is switch on the various share networks that you want to show, and voila! You’re done!
The following is an illustration of the Blocksy share box:
Doesn’t it seem clean?
It’s a good thing that you don’t require any kind of plugin to obtain this capability because it’s all included straight into the free Blocksy theme that you can download.
Have you ever used a plugin to have social sharing icons integrated into your theme? If so, what kind of plugin did you use? If this is the case, you may already be aware that many of those plugins are highly bulky due to the fact that they utilise JavaScript to acquire social share numbers or they employ an icon font, both of which load an entire font file and cause your website to run more slowly.
However, if you use the Blocksy share box, you won’t have to be concerned about load times because performance was taken into consideration from the very beginning.
There are no bloated share numbers to display, and each icon is made with SVG icons, which are the simplest and least resource-intensive way to display icons.
Therefore, you can now have lovely post sharing icons within your blog posts without sacrificing any speed in the process.
Blocksy Theme Review -- Pro Features
If you thought the free Blocksy theme was nice, you should wait until you see all of the incredible premium features that come with the Blocksy PRO upgrade before making your decision.
Blocksy possesses some of the very best premium features currently available for WordPress themes, and the developers have done an excellent job of implementing those features.
Let’s talk about the most important aspects of the Blocksy PRO theme.
Care and Support
There is a good reason why care and support is featured as the very first feature in the comprehensive features summary that can be seen on their website for Blocksy PRO.
In the Blocksy Facebook Community, the two Blocksy creators, Sergiu and Andrei, are quick to respond to questions and comments. I would recommend that you become a member of that organisation so that you may judge for yourself. They respond to concerns or requests in an exceedingly nice and professional manner, and they do so in an exceptionally quick time frame.
Because of how sensitive they are, in point of fact, I’m not even sure whether they ever rest. Sergiu and Andrei, do you guys sleep?! 😜
While we’re on the topic of Facebook groups, you might also consider being a member of my totally free Start Blogging 101 Facebook Community. Here, we discuss all there is to know about blogging and WordPress.
In any case, the attention and assistance that the Blocksy staff provides are outstanding and clearly demonstrate their quality. One of the most potent ingredients for commercial success is having a fantastic product backed by an equally fantastic support system.
Enhanced Header and Footer Builder
You will have access to the improved header and footer builder after making the investment in Blocksy PRO and ensuring that the plugin is properly installed and active on your website.
You may view all of the extra header components that are accessible to you by going to the area of your website that is dedicated to the header or footer.
When you activate Blocksy PRO, you will see that a number of new header pro components are added to your collection.
Check out all the arrows that are pointing in the direction of the duplicate feature as well. You are now able to generate three more copies of each of the following items: the button, the divider, HTML, and social elements. This indicates that you are allowed a maximum of four instances of each of those components.
The following is a list of all of the Blocksy Header Pro Elements that are included with the Blocksy PRO upgrade:
- Contacts element
- Language switcher
- Desktop menu drawer
- Search box
- Widgets
- Button 2
- Button 3
- Button 4
- HTML 2
- HTML 3
- HTML 4
- Divider 2
- Divider 3
- Divider 4
- Social 2
- Social 3
- Social 4
After making use of some extra pieces that were provided to me, I came to the conclusion that the example header that is displayed in the free Blocksy features area might use some sprucing up.
After rapidly adding some more header pro features to my Blocksy header, I now have a header that looks even better than it did before. It also includes an offer above the header as well as social symbol links.
If you use any of the header pro components that are provided in the Blocksy PRO theme, you can whip up a header that is virtually identical to this one in a matter of minutes.
All of this discussion has focused on the header of your website; but, what does Blocksy provide for your website’s footer?
In any case, the power of the footer builder is comparable to that of the header builder.
Let’s have a look at an example of the Blocksy PRO footer by utilising the footer builder together with the footer pro parts.
The Blocksy footer pro elements that have been included are the button elements, the search box elements, and the logo elements. This enables you to quickly position your website’s logo, a search box for articles or pages, and even a CTA (Call To Action) button wherever in your footer, according to your whims and needs.
Even if you don’t add any of those footer pro components, you can still construct a powerful footer by including a variety of widget spaces, contact information, copyright information, and social icons.
You may make an appealing footer by including the Blocksy copyright information and social media links, as well as adding four widget sections. The finished product should look something like this:
Wow! This footer style appears to be superior than the patterns that I see on ninety-five percent of other websites, and it can be constructed in an extremely simple manner by utilising the Blocksy footer builder.
Conditional Headers and Footers
Blocksy not only provides an improved header and footer builder, but also an astonishing conditional headers and footers feature. The expanded header and footer builder comes with new header and footer pro parts.
This feature is incredibly nicely designed, and it provides a clear benefit over some of the other WordPress themes that I enjoy using.
You are able to generate an endless number of sophisticated headers and footers using Conditional Headers and Footers, and then display those headers and footers on specific web pages of your site based on the circumstances you specify.
Not sure what I mean? Let’s say you want to display the same global header on all of the pages of your website, with the exception of the About Us page, where you want to display a completely different heading in order to incorporate additional information about your business in the header.
Or, let’s assume you don’t display any contact information in your global header, but you still want to include the Contact element in your header while people are on the Contact Us page of your website. You are just as capable as I am!
Let’s have a look at a working example of the conditional headers functionality that Blocksy has to offer.
Once you have Blocksy PRO active on your website, navigate to the Header area of the WordPress customizer. You should notice a tab labelled “Headers” next to the bar labelled “Elements.” After making that selection, you will be presented with your Global Header as well as an option labelled “Create new header.”
As soon as you select “Create New Header,” the Blocksy WordPress customizer will add a fresh new header to your website. This header will be titled “About Page Header,” and it will be located in the headers tab.
You’ll also notice that the headline that appears above the Elements and Headers tab reads “Customizing: About Page Header,” which confirms that you are now altering a whole new header.
Okay, so we now have a new header, but how do we tell the website that we only want this header to appear on the page that is dedicated to our About us section? To be honest, it’s not hard at all.
After selecting the “About Page Header” arrow from the navigation menu, you will be sent to the settings for the About Page Header, where you will see a button labelled “Add/Edit Conditions.” At this point, we can set the circumstances that will cause this header to only appear on our About page.
At this point, you will need to select the “Add Display Condition” button, which will provide you with the options necessary to select your About page.
I check the Include box, then pick Page ID, and finally I select the About page, which appears as follows:
After clicking the “Save Conditions” button, you will have successfully configured the new About Page Header to appear exclusively on the About page. This will take effect once you refresh the About page.
Now, navigate back to the Header area inside your WordPress customizer. Once there, select the Components tab, and then you will be able to drag and drop any of the newly added elements into your freshly created About Page Header.
Go to the About page of your website once you have finished creating your new header, and have a look at how it looks with your fresh new header!
Take note of how I updated the banner and the button at the top of the page. I also included the Contact element to display the firm address and phone number in the header, which makes more sense for an About page than displaying the typical Global Header. I did this by using the Contact element.
The conditional header and footer functionality offered by the Blocksy PRO Companion is an absolute game-changer. Excellent effort, all of you on the Blocksy team!
Content Blocks (Hooks)
Time to get started with Content Blocks, which is my favourite feature that Blocksy PRO has to offer (Hooks). Those of you who are familiar with several other popular WordPress themes have most likely seen these themes in the past.
The version offered by Astra is referred to as Custom Layouts, whereas the one offered by GeneratePress is referred to as Elements, by Kadence as Hooked Elements, and by Blocksy as Content Blocks.
In practise, they are all fundamentally equivalent, with the exception that certain WordPress themes implement it more well than others and provide access to a greater variety of capabilities.
This is a brief introduction of what you can accomplish using Blocksy Content Blocks in case you are not familiar with their capabilities.
You may simply construct custom sections (using Gutenberg blocks, any block extension plugin, or your page builder) that you can then hook into other portions of your site using conditionals. You can do this by utilising your page builder, any block extension plugin, or Gutenberg blocks.
You may think of Blocksy Content Blocks as being comparable to conditional headers and footers, with the exception that you now have the ability to build individual block sections and position them wherever on your website (even replace headers and footers along with placing them in your content, sidebar, WooCommerce cart, and more).
Take, for instance, the scenario in which you want to place a countdown timer that is permanently affixed above your header for an offer that you are now running. Blocksy makes it simple for you to generate a fixed content block that will appear on top of your header and be visible to the visitor even as they scroll farther down the page.
Blocksy content blocks include a number of great features, one of the finest of which is an expiration function that lets you select a date for your content block to expire, after which the block will automatically be removed from your site. This is one of the nicest things about Blocksy content blocks. This would be ideal for a limited-time countdown timer offer that is only available until a particular time!
It is UNBELIEVABLE how many Blocksy hooks you can employ to incorporate your own own content into those platforms. There are a great number of hooks.
It is safe to say that if you want to incorporate a piece of custom content that you develop into your site, you can link it up almost anywhere on your website. This allows for a virtually endless degree of flexibility when using the Blocksy PRO theme on your website.
Advanced Menu (Mega Menu)
Blocksy PRO broadens the range of menu choices available to you by supplying you with an Advanced Menu. This menu has a number of beneficial features, one of which is the capacity to incorporate a Mega Menu.
After adding a new menu, you will be able to construct a custom Mega Menu by going into each menu item and configuring the options for that item.
I could go into more into regarding the Blocksy Advanced Menu, but the Mega Menus are relatively straightforward to understand on their own. You have the ability to develop multi-column menus that contain icons, badges, or anything else that you can construct.
To put the finishing touches on your Blocksy Mega Menu, you have the option to replace the overlay column with a content block, as seen in the image to the right.
Custom Sidebars
Have you ever wished that you could generate a lot of unique sidebars and then apply those sidebars to a variety of different pages? Take, for instance, the scenario in which you want to present your readers with a particular set of related posts or a unique offer depending on the WordPress category that they are presently reading about.
You have nothing to worry about now that Blocksy Pro is here.
It feels like I’m repeating myself, but this feature operates in the same way as the conditional headers and hooters and in a manner comparable to that of Blocksy content blocks. The only difference is that you are able to create an unlimited number of sidebars and show them conditionally on posts or pages.
Let’s look at some custom sidebars in Blocksy, shall we?
You may access the Widgets menu in the Appearance menu once the Multiple Sidebars Blocksy PRO extension has been configured on your site. You will notice a place where you may add a new sidebar there.
I made a new sidebar and gave it the name Custom Sidebar 1, and now you can put any widgets you want in that new sidebar I made for you. For illustration purposes, I am now compiling a new list of articles that fall under the News category and are arranged in descending order of the number of comments each post has received.
After that, you’ll be able to access the conditional settings by clicking the gear icon that’s located next to the title of the sidebar.
In this particular illustration, I am stating that I want this particular Custom Sidebar 1 to only appear on those of my pages and articles that are categorised as “News.”
You should now be able to get a better idea of how strong this feature is. Let’s say you want the “related articles” section of your sidebar to display different content depending on the category that the visitor is now viewing.
Or, let’s imagine that you want to show a certain advertisement or affiliate banner in the “Tech” category of your website, but you want to show a different banner in the “Gaming” category of your website. You are able to perform all of that and a great deal more too.
Custom Sidebars is a feature that unquestionably separates Blocksy from the other WordPress themes available on the market at this time and helps to make it one of the best WordPress themes available.
Custom Fonts + Local Google Fonts
You will have the opportunity to upload an unlimited number of custom fonts when you purchase Blocksy PRO, and you will be able to utilise those fonts inside the Blocksy theme customization settings for your typography options.
You can upload an unlimited number of WOFF fonts.
Create individualised variants for each typeface.
Make use of variable typefaces in order to get flexible weights.
You are not only able to submit your own unique fonts, but you also have the option of using Adobe Typekit. Pasting in your Project ID is all that is required of you, and then you will have instant access to all of the typefaces contained inside it for usage.
Last but not least, there is an extension for Blocksy PRO that lets you select Google Fonts and then download them to your computer so that they may be provided from your own server. This enables you to continue to comply with the requirements of the GDPR.
Select only the Google Fonts that you require, synchronise them, and Blocksy will handle the rest of the work for you.
Your website will benefit from a convenient performance improvement that will just take one minute to set up when you use the Blocksy PRO extension, which gives you the possibility to use local Google Fonts.
White Label
White label is a feature that is extremely sought after, particularly for those who own companies that specialise in the creation of websites for other people. This section is going to be brief.
It is important to keep in mind that in order to use the Blocksy White Label functionality, you will need to purchase the Agency plan (annual or lifetime). In my perspective, the plan proposed by the Agency offers incredible value for the price.
The quantity of value that is provided by the Blocksy theme is crazy, especially considering that the cost to acquire the theme for a lifetime is only $300. I have no doubt that the prices will be raised at some time in the future.
In light of the aforementioned, if you are subscribed to the Agency plan, you will have access to a Blocksy PRO plugin that allows you to activate White Label. After clicking the Configure button, the following screen will appear for you to review.
You will find a General tab under the Blocksy White Label settings, and this tab will provide you with dropdown menu options for Agency Details, Theme Details, and Plugin Details, respectively.
Agency Details
- Agency Name
- Agency URL
- Agency Support/Contact Form URL
Theme Details
- Theme Name
- Theme Description
- Theme Screenshot URL
Plugin Details
- Plugin Name
- Plugin Description
All of these choices provide you, as an agency, the ability to override settings and replace Blocksy branding with your own logo and name in place of Blocksy’s.
In addition, there are sophisticated settings available through Blocksy White Label.
Custom Code Snippets
When it comes to Custom Code Snippets, the Blocksy theme really gives you a handful of different alternatives to choose from.
Scripts for the header and footer should be added globally.
Include scripts for the header and footer on the post and page levels.
The first choice provides you with the ability to globally add header and footer scripts to your website, which will cause them to load on each and every page of your site.
This is a very helpful tool for loading multiple libraries or other components, such as Google Analytics, onto your website.
In point of fact, Google Analytics and Google Analytics 4 are both compatible with the Blocksy theme. The Blocksy WordPress customizer settings are displayed here, showcasing the Google Analytics and Custom Code Snippets pages respectively.
In addition to the Global Custom Code Snippets that are provided by Blocksy, you now have the option of adding scripts at the page or post level. This enables you to insert customised code solely for specific pages in your website.
Take, for instance, the scenario in which you wish to implement analytics or the Facebook pixel on certain WooCommerce checkout pages. That is an option for you.
Simply navigate to the post or page that you wish to edit, click on the Blocksy Page Settings button located in the upper-right corner of the screen, and scroll all the way down the page.
You will notice a Custom Code Snippets section that you may click into. It seems exactly the same as the global version, with the exception that it only applies to the specific post or page you are now viewing.
WooCommerce Additional Features
If all of the free and premium features that the Blocksy theme provides haven’t already blown your mind, there are even more features that can be used with Blocksy to supercharge your WooCommerce website.
Let’s take a look at a table that compares the features of the free and paid versions of the Blocksy WooCommerce theme.
As you can see from the comparison table between Blocksy free and Blocksy PRO for WooCommerce, Blocksy PRO comes with an insane number of additional features that are compatible with WooCommerce.
A gallery slider, multi-step checkout, distraction-free checkout, and a wishlist are just some of the extremely fantastic things that the Blocksy team is currently working on and will be releasing very soon. I can’t wait to meet them in person!
Blocksy Theme Pricing Review
As was discussed in the part before this one, the Blocksy theme provides users with an alternative that is both free of charge and abundant in features. It is possible to obtain it by downloading it straight from the WordPress repository.
Having said that, the Blocksy development team introduced Blocksy PRO in November 2020. Blocksy PRO is an upgrade to the Blocksy theme that includes a considerable number of additional paid features.
When compared to the prices of some of the other finest WordPress themes that are currently available on the market, Blocksy’s prices are really reasonable.
The Blocksy prices for both their yearly and lifetime plans are outlined in the following table for your reference.
Blocksy Theme Review -- Conclusion
The conclusion is as follows: A comprehensive analysis of Blocksy that focuses on both the free version of the theme and the paid version, Blocksy PRO, and highlights all of the most valuable aspects of both.
The quantity of options that the Blocksy theme gives, particularly the pro features, really astounded me. I don’t know about you, but this was certainly the case for me.
Blocksy is one of the greatest WordPress themes available on the market today because it has a number of premium features that set it apart from the competition. These features include conditional headers/footers/sidebars, incredible customization possibilities, numerous archive/page layouts, and so much more.
You shouldn’t pass up the opportunity to test out the Blocksy theme if you haven’t done so previously. The free Blocksy theme is quite remarkable on its own, but adding Blocksy PRO is like giving your website superpowers in order to compete with other websites.
Have you already experimented with the Blocksy theme? If that’s the case, what kinds of topics have you covered in the past? Do you prefer another theme more, or do you prefer Blocksy? Leave a comment below letting me know what you think.
