Before I give out the reasons why I rate this product so highly and provide you some insights on how I use it, I would like to briefly tell you about Semiologic Pro …

First of all don't be mistaken … although many refer to Semiologic Pro as a Wordpress theme, it is not to be confused with a 'typical' Wordpress theme.

Semiologic Pro is a software that turns the WordPress content management system (CMS) into a powerful and comprehensive website builder. Initially released in 2005, Semiologic Pro comprises a stable version of WordPress combined with a suite of powerful plugins and widgets designed to support the ease and speed of use for both technical and non-technical Internet marketers.

In the words of Denis De Bernardy -

"Semiologic Pro is a carefully prepared combination of WordPress, tweaked with proprietary Semiologic code, and integrated with over 70 tools and plugins, each selected for both utility and SEO considerations – then tested to work harmoniously with each other and within the Semiologic framework".

Here's what I like about Semiologic Pro -

1. Design inherent search engine optimization – I'm truly amazed by Semiologic Pro's ability to generate organic traffic from the search engines – you can see proof of it as most of my blog posts are ranked in the top 1-3 pages of Google for the select keywords, without any/much of promotion or link building.

If you are wondering how this is possible, here's how -

Many WordPress implementations load pages left to right, making the sidebar appear before the content. Not Semiologic! Denis Bernardy created an optimized layout which serves your content first, then the sidebars. While you may not notice this 'sleight of hand', the search engines do notice, reading and indexing your content faster, because they see it sooner.

2. Quick, Easy and sophisticated website building – I use XsitePro to build corporate php/html sites but prefer Wordpress for my Internet marketing sites. Semiologic provides the the same simplicity and power (as XsitePro) to build Wordpress sites. You will find everything you need, in one cohesive framework. One-click feature customization, advanced page templates, built-in SEO, ad management, newsletter subscriptions, visitor tracking, author images, podcasting, video casting, comment subscriptions, spam control, advanced caching, are some of the many out-of-the-box functionality provided by Semiologic Pro!

3. Suite of powerful, common-sense plugins – The plugins that are bundled as part of the software is a treat. The best news is that it can be used with most Wordpress themes (I use 25 of these plugins by default). You cannot find the range of functionality that the entire suite of Semiologic Wordpress plugins provides anywhere else. And the best part is that the support for these plugins and their seamless integration with the Wordpress platform is simply outstanding. They are well tested and designed to work cleanly with Worpress and upgrades are a regular feature.

Click here to read my post on the Semiologic Pro (and other) plugins I use most on my blogs!

4. The Blog Cloning and Theme/Plugins Update Wizard – When I am putting up multiple mini blogs on a domain, I use the same theme, widgets, header, footer, etc. and I'm able to save a significant amount of time by simply cloning the 'parent' blog using the Semiologic Cloner tool. Simply enter the url of the blog you need to clone and enter the unique site identifier code and sit back and wait for a couple of minutes while Semiologic goes about cloning your blog. All you have left to do is add posts and pages and you're ready to go.

The latest version of Semiologic Pro's Version Checker tool enables one click upgrade to the latest version of Semiologic as well as one-click mass upgrade of all the plugins … a significant time saver.

5. Website Layout & Customization – This is the icing on the cake, so to speak. The variations you can implement with the Semiologic theme is simply mind boggling. Some examples -

a) Layouts and Skins

Semiologic Pro includes 18 layouts, 24 skins, 3 width options, 12 font options and 3 font size options. Ideally, you will probably choose one or two combinations as favorites, but it is good to know that you have so much variety, and that each one has built-in SEO. (If these are not enough, you can also use other WordPress themes and take advantage of the powerful plugins).

b) Advanced Templates

In addition to the standard template based upon your choice in the Layout and Skin switchers, you can also select a sales page or a single-column template to create some variety and override the "blog" look for those particular pages that need it.

c) Header Customization

With Semiologic you can have a different header on any page/every page, if you wish. You want can also have the navigation bar above the header by simply dragging the respective widget within the Header area.

d) Widget Contexts

This feature is not available anywhere else. If you wish to control the display of the content specified in one of your widgets, you simply deselect the box where you do not wish the content to appear. The selection is done totally within the widget. Just to give you and example of how practically useful this feature is, if you don't want the say, multi-language translator widget on the home page of your blog (for the obvious reason that the home page is constantly changing and you can't cache it), all you have to do is to deselect the Home page box and you're done. As simple as that!

e) Widget Management

This is even more powerful stuff – how Semiologic uses Widgets. Widgets can be anywhere: in the header, before the entry, in the content, in header and footer blocks, in the footer, and in the sidebars. You would be hard pressed to find an area where you could not insert a widget. Imagine, every area of every page can be reordered and is reconfigurable (see sample image below). Your imagination becomes your only limitation.

Furthermore, Semiologic provides for generalized or fuzzy widgets which can be used for posts, pages, and links. They can also be further customized to show only certain categories, allowing contextual sidebar navigation.

For easy entry of widgeted content into posts and pages, Semiologic has inline widgets, a virtual widget location which can be accessed from a drop down menu within the editor to effortlessly insert a widget any place within the content. For example, adding an optin form within your post.

6. Siloed website -  Siloing your website with themed content is one of the key requirements of good SEO. Semiologic serves this design best practice with Silo Widgets.

There are three types of silo widgets:

- A Silo Page Widget outputs what amounts to an automatically generated navigation menu for your static pages.

- A Silo Stub widget, which you can use as an inline widget when you'd like to automatically generate the contents of a page whose only purpose is to link to its children and

- A Silo Map widget, which you can use as an inline widget to automatically output a full site map of your site.

7. Many More Features – There are many, many more features which make Semiologic the outstanding product that it has become. My favorites are -

- The Redirect Manager which lets you create a site that redirects affiliate links as well as pages
- Built-in auto tagging
- RSS and Social Bookmarking
- Google Sitemap Generator
- Plugin for Google Analytics Integration
- Script Manager – to add various scripts site-wide or to specific pages.

I also like the tools that allow you to easily insert content using our Article Uploader, the Search Reloaded which is without doubt the most powerful improvement to WordPress's built-in search in the market, and Advanced Cache, the easiest to use, and most advanced caching plugin for WordPress.

The Bottomline:

Quality & Support - To add to all the above goodies, Semiologic Pro is, undoubtedly, the best maintained piece of software in the internet marketing world. Denis and his team are extremely professional and proficient. The product is in continuous upgrade mode, both to parallel the releases of the underlying WordPress platform, and also to implement features and modifications suggested by users and research staff.

Semiologic Pro Pricing:

Priced at $295 for unlimited site license plus and annual maintenance fee of $175/year, Semiologic Pro is definitely an excellent investment for any serious Internet marketer.

To order you copy of Semiologic Pro, CLICK HERE.