In today’s time, where most businesses have their website, you should create one that will help your brand stand out in the competition, whether online or offline. When building a website, you need to consider its overall appearance and brand aesthetic.
You can find that some websites have themes that only work on a desktop while others don’t look good when browsed on handheld devices, such as mobile phones. Fortunately, a tool will help you create a website theme that works on almost every device available.
There are lots of things you will love about OceanWP. That is why we have compiled everything you should know about this tool so you can decide whether it is worth the money.
Read further to learn more about OceanWP, in our review we will detail its features, pros and cons with our rating, and a conclusion about why you should use it.
Click on “open” if you want to see exactly what we will talk about in the rest of this article.
Quick Overview
What is OceanWP?
If you have been building a website for several years, you have probably used different tools that generate appealing themes. But, you are somehow not fully satisfied with their services.
You are here because you want to try OceanWP but are still hesitant whether its themes are worth the money. If you don’t know yet, OceanWP is a WordPress theme tool that offers you more than 400,000 fast-loading themes for your website. Aside from that, you can also use it with other third-party plug-ins you usually use. Moreover, OceanWP is a popular tool because of its drag-and-drop page builder feature.
In addition, it also features a theme demo system. This feature lets you make your website more convenient to access in just a few clicks. This WordPress theme offers you great functionalities and features you have never seen in other tools. If you are willing to spend an extra amount of money, you can access more advanced features and premium plug-in extensions of the device.
Upgrading to the tool’s Core Extensions Bundle will also give you access to thousands of world-class and professionally-designed website themes. That is why OceanWP is undoubtedly one of the most popular theme generators.
In fact, over 300,000 website builders use the available themes in the tool’s free plan. If you also check this tool on WordPress.org, you will see that most of its users gave it a perfect score.
OceanWP specifications
Features | Wordpress theme |
Best suited for | Individuals, Freelancers, Small businesses |
Website languages | English |
Website URL | Visit official website |
Support link | Support page |
Live chat | No |
Company address | 2730 Mulberry Ln, Miami, Florida, 33131, United States. |
Year founded | 2016 |
Pricing
OceanWP pricing: How much does OceanWP cost?
OceanWP costs from $35 to $79 per year but you can also pay lifetime plan.
Pricing range | From $35 to $79 per year |
Pricing types | Annual subscription / Lifetime payment |
Free plan | No |
Free trial | No |
Money back guarantee | Yes, 14 days |
Pricing page link | See plans |
OceanWP pricing plans
You will love OceanWP because it is one of the few themes you can use free of charge. Its free plan allows you to integrate at least 13 demos and eight extensions to your website for free. This will help your site visitors access your page without any hassle. Moreover, OceanWP also offers a paid plan, enabling you to use more than 13 premium extensions. These extensions can be purchased individually. But, if you want to save some bucks, we highly recommend you upgrade to the Core Extension Bundle to access these premium extensions. Aside from that, the tool’s paid plan also offers 60 professional demos. Using the free and paid extensions offered by OceanWP allows you to make your website look more customized. The good thing here is that either of the two extensions is easy to use and can be downloaded conveniently.
Features
OceanWP features: What can you do with it?
If you prefer to use the OceanWP free extensions, here are some of the features you can use:
Important Features Included In OceanWP Free Extensions
Posts Slider
The posts slider offers you different options on how you want the texts and images to look on your website. Beyond that, you can also select a specific number of texts you want to show on your page. This feature will also help you to display pictures of any size.
The posts slider will also allow you to alter the space between the content and the slider. Moreover, you can also insert a pop-up to enable your site visitors to read more text, browse other categories, order of posts, and the transition speed.
Modal Window
The modal window features an opening button where your visitors can access your post or website content. This feature is the best because it allows you to create several modals with customized colors, content, and widths.
Stick Anything
This feature allows you to group every element available on your website. This plug-in is also designed to add spacing offsets surrounding the sticky element.
Product Sharing
Product sharing is a unique feature that will let you add share buttons to your website. You can even place one share button in every item you sell so your site visitors can share them to their social media accounts, such as Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and more.
Custom Sidebar
Most website owners want to add different sidebars to their pages. If you are one of them, you will surely love OceanWP’s custom sidebar feature. This feature lets you add multiple sidebars in different areas of your website.
Demo Import
As its name suggests, this tool will let you import the demo content.
Ocean Extra
This feature lets you place additional features, including panels, meta boxes, exports, and imports, designed to activate pro extensions.
Social Sharing
This feature works almost similarly to product sharing. This plug-in will help you place share buttons on your website posts. The social sharing feature lets your website visitors share your content and posts to different social media sites, including the ones mentioned above and Viadeo, Tumblr, Viber, Reddit, and LinkedIn.
These features are designed to help you modify your website’s theme styles, scripts, images, titles, and layout.
Important Features Included In The Premium Extensions
You can purchase paid extensions individually or invest in a bundle to access all. If you want your website to look more appealing, we highly recommend you to invest in some of the features available in paid extensions, including the following:
Cookie Notice
The cookie notice is a feature available in paid extensions designed according to guidelines set by GDPR. This feature passed the EU cookie law. So, you can securely install a notice that discusses the guidelines of using cookies.
You can also customize the content in the cookie notice. Beyond that, this feature will also let you modify other styling settings, including the icon and button text, to make your site look more stylish.
Full Screen
OceanWP’s paid extension also offers its users a full-screen feature that will let you change the scrolling speed. Moreover, it is also designed to have customized navigation colors and access various navigation tooltips.
If you think that the share button or social network button is still not enough to grow your website, adding the Instagram feed to your web page is a great idea.
This allows you to show the number of your followers, posts, and photos on Instagram. Moreover, this feature will also let you manage the number of comments, likes, and captions on your Instagram.
Pop-Up Login
A pop-up log-in is an essential feature that you should have if your website requires you to enter a password to log in. This will help your website visitors to register and log in to your link. The good thing about this extension is that you can place it anywhere on your website. Furthermore, you can also customize it by changing its background image and even modifying its description.
Portfolio
If your website is designed to promote your business, using the portfolio extension from OceanWP would be best. This extension lets you display your business highlights, including item sorting, location, page templates, filter bars, and image adjustments.
White Label
You may want to place your business logo on your website. Compared to free extensions, the paid ones allow you to change the OceanWP logo and name. You can include the post’s author, branding name, description, author URL, and even screenshot.
This extension is what you need if you want to customize your website footer or header conveniently. You can stick this extension manually with fixed or customized effects and styles. Aside from that, this extension will also let you select the specific opacity and background you want your customers to see while scrolling on your website.
Woo Pop-Up
In most cases, someone builds a website to advertise products and services. This extension will occur every time someone adds a product to their cart. Aside from that, the Woo pop-up will also give you access to pop-up elements, colors, sizing, and content.
Ocean Hooks
If you are not a fan of using any WordPress child theme, you may consider using the Ocean Hooks plug-in. This feature will let you make specific areas in your website more customized without affecting other parts.
Aside from that, this plug-in will also help you add different content, shortcodes, PHP codes, and other content that will encourage users to constantly visit your website.
This might be the add-on you have been looking for if you want to put additional information regarding your business in the footer. Similar to the sticky footer and header, this plug-in is customizable, where you can change the padding, color, and content. Moreover, you can also change the display for the callout button and the callout box.
Elementor Widgets
One of the best things about the Elementor Widgets feature is that all plug-ins available here are fully customizable. With that in mind, you may need to download the OceanWP theme where this plug-in is enabled.
Steps To Use OceanWP Theme
You only need to follow simple and easy steps to use the OceanWP theme. Obviously, the first thing you should do is to download the tool through WordPress.org. On the other hand, this is also available on your themes page, allowing you to install it directly from your WordPress website.
Upon downloading and installing the tool, a message will pop up containing a recommendation message to install the three WordPress plug-ins: WPForms, Ocean Extra, and Elementor. If you are undecided between the three to install, we recommend you opt for Ocean Extra to ensure that all features work properly.
Other than that, downloading and installing WPForms and Elementor is only optional. The pop-up recommendation may confuse new users. Thus, it would be better if the developer emphasized that downloading Ocean Extra is a requirement, not a recommendation.
If you do not install Ocean Extra, you may have difficulty accessing vital theme features and functionality, including the OceanWP control panel. This tool is also ideal for beginners as it comes with an OceanWP set-up wizard, which will guide you throughout the theme.
It is essential that new users should activate and install the Ocean Extra plug-in to ensure that the wizard will work. The second page contains the different theme designs that you can choose from. After that, the 13 premium theme demos will be available. But if you purchased individual premium plug-ins, only the ones you bought will be available.
At this point, you can now install the theme demos you have purchased. But, you can also skip it and do the work later on. The third page contains the settings, where you can change the appearance and context of your tagline, title, and logo. This page will also let you modify your website links and colors.
Using a color picker is essential to select your desired color considering most hues are grayed out. On this page, we highly recommend the developer create preset color schemes so that non-designers can pick their colors easily and conveniently.
Users will see a sign-up option for the theme’s email list on the fourth page. Once you subscribe to it, the developer will offer you a bonus video for free. The set-up wizard is one of the ideal features offered by the tool, especially for new beginners who are setting up their website for the first time.
Unfortunately, this might not be a suitable WordPress theme for individuals who are on a tight budget and prefer using its free features. This is because free demos will only function correctly if you switch to premium extensions.
In line with that, most free demos require you to download at least four premium extensions to work. This is a requirement, especially if you want to ensure that you will achieve the design you wish to have. If you are not using essential premium plug-ins, you are more likely to lose some of the intricate details of your dream website design.
How To Customize Your OceanWP Website
After activating the Ocean Extra plug-in, you can now create a more customized website using the OceanWP tool. To do so, the first thing you should do is access the Theme Panel in the admin menu.
The first page will let you disable and enable different sections to customize the WordPress theme. It would be best to ensure that all units are allowed. At the theme panel’s bottom, you will see all the basic customizing settings, including header modification and logo alteration settings. You can also run the set-up wizard on this page to get the most out of these customization settings.
The integration tab will also let you integrate different third-party services with OceanWP. On the other hand, if you do not activate premium extensions, only the MailChimp integration will occur in this tab.
One of the best things about OceanWP is that it comes with a unique templating system. This feature allows you to make new sets of templates through the WordPress built-in visual editor. Beyond that, you can reuse your newly designed templates using a shortcode. This feature is highly beneficial, especially if you add similar content to different pages and posts.
For instance, if you prepared a new template for promotion content, you can reuse it on other pages and posts using the same shortcode. This is best especially you can change and reuse the content from one place to another.
Another thing you will love about OceanWP is the lesser-known features. This can be found on the scripts and styles page of the theme. This feature will help you disable and enable multiple CSS and Javascript elements.
You can disable some elements in the scripts and styles page to minimize the size of your website. Aside from that, the lesser the enabled elements, the faster the loading speed of your page will be. You can also export the theme settings through a .dat file. Exporting your theme settings is beneficial, especially if you want to use the OceanWP theme to a live website from a test environment.
Conclusion
OceanWP review: Why you should use it?
If you are looking for a WordPress design with free and paid versions, OceanWP might be the best choice. This tool allows you to customize the style and design of your WordPress theme website. Moreover, it is also equipped with a set-up wizard, which will guide you throughout the entire process.
Aside from that, the tool also supports other page builders. This is because you can enable and disable certain elements, including the sidebars, footer, and heater, in just a few clicks. It is also worth noting that downloading the Ocean Extra so you can access all the premium extensions you have purchased.
If you need a WordPress theme design that works efficiently for beginners, OceanWP is one of the best.