Total WordPress Theme Review 2023

Total is a best-selling multi-purpose WordPress theme. It can be used to create any type of website from blogs and business sites to online portfolios and ecommerce stores, Total can do it all. This tried and tested WordPress theme is packed with tools and demo websites to give you the assistance and creative freedom you need to build the perfect website.

It’s a popular theme, but is it a good one? Let’s find out in our hands-on Total WordPress theme review.

Who Should Choose the Total Theme?

Before we get started with our Total WordPress theme review, let’s quickly go over who this product is aimed at. Well, to be honest, anyone should be able to make good use of this theme. It really is a multi-purpose WordPress theme.

Total can be fully customized as well as having a varied selection of demos that cover a wide range of projects. It’s also compatible with all the best third party WordPress plugins, helping you create online stores, membership sites, communities, social networking platforms, multilingual projects and much more.

Who Shouldn’t Choose Total?

The only people who probably shouldn’t consider Total are those unfamiliar with WordPress, unprepared to learn how to use WordPress, and not confident in their computer skills. Although WordPress is fairly easy to use, especially considering how powerful it is, it’s not for everyone. If you’re just planning to create a very basic website and don’t have the time or inclination to learn how to start a WordPress website and use a theme like Total to design a custom site then using a WordPress alternative like Squarespace might be a better option.

But for everyone else, if you’re willing to get to learn how to grips with WordPress or already have some WordPress skills, Total can probably help you build the website you need. However, to find out if that really is the case, read on for the rest of our Total WordPress theme review.

Total WordPress Theme Features

As a multi-purpose WordPress theme, Total has lots to offer. In this section of our hands-on Total WordPress theme review, we’ll be exploring the best features of this theme so that you can decide if it’s the right tool to help you build the perfect website for your project.

Multiple Pre-Built Website Demos

Total now has over 50 website demos to choose from. The Total theme demos have all be designed to a high standard and cover a wide range of projects. In this review section, we’ll take a quick look at some of the best Total demos you could use if you choose this theme.

Base Original Master Demo

This is the original theme demo. It does a great job of showing off what Total can do. It’s a neutral demo so it would be good for many different types of website. However, business focused websites could use this demo with very little modified required. The large homepage slider gives you a good opportunity to share the best features of your business or services, while the long form homepage layout can be used to display all the most important information about your project.

Note: if you would like to use this demo to start the theme authors recommend importing the Base Lite demo, which includes all the of same page layouts but with slimmed down assets to speed up the import.

Boost Business Demo

Boost is another business focused demo that would be ideal for an agency or freelancer website. The Boost demo could be a good choice if you want to welcome your website visitors with a large slider. Again, the long form homepage layout is used to great effect. As your visitors scroll down the page they can find out more about your main features, view client logos, and testimonials, and any other content you think they might be interested in.

Café Demo

If you want to create a café website with WordPress, then the Total Café demo is the obvious choice. Any food or beverage related business could make great use of this demo. The homepage slider displays your specials and the highlights from your menu. The homepage layout has a section for sharing the rest of your menu and photos from your café.

SEO Agency Demo

If you’re starting an SEO agency or your existing marketing agency website needs an upgrade, this demo is for you. As your visitors explore your homepage, they can find out what you can do for them and how you can help. A pricing table on the default homepage layout gives you a quick way to compare your packages.

Agent Demo

The Total Agent demo has been designed for creating agency websites. Whether that’s a marketing and branding agency or a website for some other service being provided, the Agent demo will lay a solid foundation for your custom website. As well as the stylish homepage layout, you’ll also find a page template dedicated to displaying your pricing plans and service packages. The team page templates can then be used to introduce your staff.

Classy Demo

The Classy demo would be a great choice for bloggers. The clean and spacious design gives you plenty of room to get your point across. All the popular page and post templates are included, helping you publish your content in the right way.

Graphix

If you need to create a website to promote your skills and services online, then the Graphix demo could be a good option. Whether you’re working as a freelancer or looking for new employment opportunities, Graphix will help you build a website that displays your key skills and what you have to offer.

Tiny Folio

Tiny Folio is a very minimal portfolio demo. There’s little here to distract from your work, helping you create an online portfolio that’s easy for your visitors to access. While this demo is very simplistic, any of the other features and tools that make up Total can easily be used to upgrade your site and add extra functionality.

As you can see, Total has a library of demos that can be used for various websites. To see if your project is covered, you can view the full selection of Total demos here.

Fast Loading Times

Everyone needs a fast loading website. Google reportedly looks at site speed when deciding where to rank a website in their search engines. Even if they didn’t, you’d still want a fast website. Slow sites can repel visitors quicker than bad design.

A slow loading website can also significantly affect your conversion rates. If you’re selling products from your website this can be bad for business. But even if you’re just blogging for fun, a fast loading website will encourage your visitors to read more of your content, stick around for longer, and maybe even subscribe and come back later. With a slow loading blog, that’s highly unlikely. So how fast is the Total WordPress theme? Let’s find out.

As you can see Total scored respectable results in the speed test. This was using a Total demo containing a slider and some images on the homepage and a selection of text.

To test the speed of Total, after one of the demos was imported the site was put through the Pingdom speed testing tool. WPX Hosting was used to host the website. Your results will vary depending on your web host, the contents of your website, and many other factors. However, with this particular configuration, the website loaded quickly.

Other Total WordPress Theme Features

The above are just some of the best features of the Total WordPress theme. Here are some other reasons to consider this theme for your website:

• Fully Customizable
• Front-end Drag-and-Drop Page Builder
• 80+ Page Builder Blocks
• Slider Revolution Slideshow Plugin
• WooCommerce Ready
• Events Calendar Plugin
• Multiple Header Layouts
• Library of Page Templates
• Built-in Social Sharing
• Portfolio Builder
• Online Documentation
• Mobile Responsive
• Retina Ready

Furthermore, the Total theme has been created by the WPExplorer team who also run the busy WPExplorer WordPress blog.

Total WordPress Theme User Experience

As Total has so many high-quality demos, it’s very likely that you will want to use one on your website. So how easy are they to import? Not all WordPress themes make importing their demo content straightforward. This can be frustrating. Especially if you’ve chosen a theme based on its demo content.

In this section of our Total WordPress theme review, we’ll walk through the process of importing one of the website demos. Hopefully, you’ll get a good idea of how easy it will be for you to set up your new website with Total and its demo content.

Importing the Total Demo Content

From the Demo Importer section of the Total theme panel, you can view, preview, and import any of the current selection of website demos. Being able to preview a demo directly from the theme panel makes the process of making a decision a lot faster.

Once you’ve made a decision, clicking on a demo starts the import process.

The demo content importer gives you the option of choosing what to import. However, if you want your website to match the demo version as closely as possible, it’s best to import all of the content.

In less than a minute or two, the import process will have finished. You can then view your website to see the results.

Hopefully, all will have gone well and you’ll have imported one of the Total demos into your WordPress website.

Customizing the Demo Content

Now it’s time to go and edit the demo content by adding your own text and images. Thanks to the inclusion of the WPBakery page builder plugin, you can easily customize the demo content.

You can click on any of the page elements through WPBakery’s drag-and-drop interface and start customizing them. You can also use WPBakery Page Builder to create your own advanced page designs from scratch. As well as using the page builder to customize the individual pieces of content on your site, you can also make site-wide changes through the WordPress Customizer.

Personalizing Your Website

The WordPress Customizer gives you a live preview of your changes as you make them. Therefore it’s great to see Total making full use of the WordPress Customizer.

You really can personalize almost every aspect of your website with Total. The WordPress Customizer is very easy to use, giving you real-time feedback for any changes you make. This makes it quick and efficient to try out different settings. There’s no need to switch browser tabs and refresh windows in order to see how your changes will look. You can also add custom CSS to your site through the WordPress Customizer, giving you a greater level of control over the appearance of your website.

Once you’ve finished customizing your website, it’s time to start publishing your own content on your new website.

Total WordPress Theme Pricing Options

Total is available from the ThemeForest marketplace for $59. This price includes six months of support from WPExplorer, the theme’s creators. This support period can be extended to 12 months for extra peace of mind by paying an additional $17.63. All purchases include lifetime access to theme updates.

ThemeForest also offers website hosting and theme setup service for $19 per month. This could be a good option if you are new to WordPress or haven’t chosen a web host already.

Total WordPress Theme Review Final Thoughts

Total has a lot going for it. It’s a well-established theme that has a proven track record. When it comes to receiving updates and being well supported, you can trace the history of Total back to 2013 when it was first launched. Since then it’s been regularly updated to become one of the best-selling options in the popular WordPress multi-purpose themes category. Over 1,100 ratings have been left by customers, bringing the overall average score to 4.9 out of 5

Furthermore, as we saw earlier in this Total WordPress theme review, you really can create any type of website with Total. Whether you import one of the demos or create your own custom design using the page builder tool and a library of templates, Total is very flexible.

Find out more about Total today