Applied – Essential Blog theme for Modern Content Creators

Applied is an essential blog theme for modern content creators. Uncomplicated & easy to use, Applied has extensive theme options, easy monetization with dedicated advertising areas and is Google Pagespeed and Core Web Vitals optimized.

New for 2025: Advanced Reviews & Ratings

Review & rate anything with the new Applied Ratings plugin, Stars, Bar, Circle and sash, scale configuration and light and dark scheme color editing. See the new reviews demo here

Toggle Everything

Toggle post elements (global or each post), theme elements, sidebars and plugin elements to create the look that’s perfect for you all with live preview in the WordPress customizer.

Dedicated mobile settings

Optimize the mobile viewing experience with Applied’s dedicated mobile settings. Toggle post elements and configure the layout just for mobile devices. Set a big and bold layout for desktop displays and a minimal space saving layout for mobile devices, it’s easy with Applied.

Fully Customizable Colour Scheme with Dark Mode

With separate light and dark colour scheme settings you can create the perfect colour scheme for any device in all viewing modes. Dynamic mode detection, toggle light/dark mode or set a permanent colour mode. Applied includes a pre-configured light and dark colour scheme to help get you started.

SEO, Core Web Vitals & Google Pagespeed

Performance, SEO, accessibility and best practices. Applied shines in all areas ensuring your users don’t have to wait and you achieve the best possible rankings in search results. Core web vitals passed and up to 99 Google pagespeed. Full optimization guide is provided to help you get the best performance.

Earn money from your content

Maximise your advertising effectiveness with dedicated advertising areas 7 theme sidebars, between post advertising and Google Autoads support. Upload your own banners or add your advertising code.

Check out the advertising demos

• After Header
• Before Footer
• After Single Content
• Between Posts
• Sidebar

Plus 4 footer sidebars and toggle/mobile sidebars available for advertising.

Thumbnail Aspect Ratio

Choose a thumbnail aspect ratio that suits you; landscape, wide, portrait, square and uncropped with an additional hero aspect ratio for single posts. Applied works with your existing images, no need to upload new images or regenerate thumbnails and with Applied’s smart thumbnail selection you can be sure the correct thumbnail size is displayed for all layouts.

Add widgets between posts

Add widgets between posts in home, blog and archive displays, perfect for adverts, Google AdSense or any other widget.

One Click Demo Import

Quickly and Easily import your favourite demo with one click demo import. Optional demo content is included to help get you started.

Want to mix and match theme elements & demos? No problem. Install a demo to get you started then head on over to the customizer to configure each element just the way you want it. Change the header, footer, sidebars, layouts, widgets and post styles to get exactly what you want.

Applied Theme Plugin

Applied requires no plugins but a dedicated theme plugin is included to give your theme a boost (should you want to). It’s less than 1mb in size and packs in a lot for such a small package.

Applied theme plugin includes:

• Featured Posts
• Related Posts
• Social media and sharing icons
• Social media widget
• Posts display widget
• About widget
• Dedicated Advertising Areas

Featured Posts

Create an impact with Applied’s Featured posts. Showcase your favourite posts in a choice of dynamic layouts choose the location and style for an extensive combination of eye catching displays.

Related Posts

Keep your readers engaged with Applied’s related posts. Posts can be related by category, author or tag and configured in a choice of styles and layouts. You can even choose the location; after post content or before the footer

Applied also supports the following plugins, some are used in the Applied theme demos but you don’t have to install them if you don’t want to.

• MailChimp
• Yoast SEO
• Autoptimize
• NavXT
• Contact Form 7
• Post Views Counter

More Features

• PHP8 Ready
• Optimized for Gutenberg
• Sticky Header Menu
• 30+ Blog Layouts
• Masonry (2, 3 & 4 column)
• Grid (2, 3 & 4 column)
• List
• JetPack Infinite Scroll Support
• 3 header Layouts
• 9 Footer Layouts
• 7 Sidebars
• 3 Blog Post Styles
• 20 Single Post Layouts
• Standard, Video, Audio, Gallery & Image Post Formats
• Google Fonts
• Fontello Icons
• Support for all standard wordpress blocks & widgets
• Fully Responsive
• Detailed Documentation
• Demo data included with One Click Demo Import
• Child theme included
• Translation ready

Support

For theme support simply post a comment in the theme comments section and I’ll be happy to help. You can also send a message through my profile page.

Online Documentation

FAQ

Please note: Due to licensing restrictions featured images used in the demos are not included. Placeholder images are included in all demo data.

Changelog

View Changelog here