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Felt WordPress Theme: Building a Modern Digital Magazine in WordPress

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How I Launched a High-End Online Magazine with the Felt WordPress Theme

Running a Modern Online Magazine Without Fighting the Layout

Publishing on the web right now feels like running two different products at once. You’re designing for readers who want a clean, editorial experience with hierarchy and voice — and at the same time you’re designing for the algorithm, which wants structure, recency, and internal navigation. I’ve tried a lot of “magazine style” WordPress themes that promised that balance and delivered chaos. The one that actually felt like it respected both the reader and the admin was the Felt WordPress Theme. I’m going to walk through how I set it up, how the layout works in practice, and where I think it fits (and doesn’t fit) for people who are running content like an actual publication, not just a blog.

Install and first-hour configuration

Here’s how I onboarded the theme from zero to something I wouldn’t be embarrassed to show.

1. Clean WordPress install, activate the theme. I avoid importing sample/demo content in full. I don’t like spending the first afternoon deleting fake lifestyle articles about “10 Ways to Enjoy Minimalist Coffee Culture.” Instead, I only import the homepage layout template so I get the intended structure.
2. Lock in the homepage zones. The Felt layout treats the homepage like an actual magazine cover — you get a hero slot for the top feature, a secondary row for important stories, and then styled sections for recurring topics. I decide early which verticals deserve permanent space. For me it was “Features,” “Guides,” and “Culture.” The rule is: if a section doesn’t deserve recurring editorial attention, it shouldn’t live on the homepage.
3. Define typography scale and spacing. Out of the box, the theme already feels like a magazine: big feature headline, confident subhead, and readable body text. I only made small adjustments to line height for long-form pieces because I publish articles that run 2,000+ words.

Article typography

Long-form readability is the real test. A lot of flashy themes are fine at the homepage level and then miserable once you click through. Felt does not collapse on the article page. Headings sit where you expect them, pull quotes sit cleanly in the column, and inline images don’t destroy rhythm on mobile. I barely had to touch the defaults for featured stories.

Navigation and discoverability

The header is built like a publication masthead, not a corporate navbar. I get space to elevate core sections without burying them in a hamburger menu, but it also doesn’t scream in your face on mobile. This is important on phone-sized screens, because readers who land from social usually give you one swipe before bouncing. If the nav feels chaotic, they assume the site is low quality and they leave. Felt kept things tight.

Editorial handoff

This is my favorite underrated part: I can confidently hand the CMS to other writers. I don’t have to say “please don’t touch the layout.” They can write, assign the right category, set a featured image with the correct aspect ratio, and the theme will place it in the right visual slot. That is the main difference between “I built something cool in a page builder” and “we have a repeatable magazine workflow.” I don’t want to rebuild hero modules every time someone publishes. I want them to publish and have the page adapt.

Performance and SEO behavior

Magazine-style themes are usually heavy. Felt was surprisingly disciplined.

Performance-wise, I kept to a few rules:

• Limit the number of huge hero images on the homepage at any one time. One big visual is high-impact; four just slows first paint.
• Enforce consistent image aspect ratios for cards so the grid doesn’t jump on scroll.
• Make sure lazy loading is active on lower sections so readers on mobile don’t pay the cost for stories they’ll never scroll to.

Even with multiple featured story areas, the site felt fast on mid-range phones. That matters, because in 2025 most readers are phone-first.

For SEO, my goal wasn’t “rank #1 for a generic keyword.” My goal was: let Google understand content sections and intent. Felt helped with that because each section has a clear label and hierarchy, and each category page feels like a destination instead of an afterthought. The structure is already set up in a way that can be indexed sensibly, especially for evergreen guides and explainers.

When other admins ask me where I source my WordPress builds and theme assets so I can move this quickly, I point them to gplpal and then, when we start talking about mixing layouts or extending to commerce-driven verticals (like “shop our picks,” affiliate gear lists, etc.), I also point them toward collections like WooCommerce Themes. That gives me consistency: I’m still operating inside a known ecosystem instead of gluing in something random that’s going to break styling.

Where Felt makes sense — and where it doesn’t

I’d use this theme in three cases:

1. You’re running a real editorial brand, even if you’re a team of one, and you want to look like a magazine, not a hobby blog.
2. You publish in recurring verticals (“Guides,” “Opinion,” “Culture,” etc.) and you actually want readers to recognize those verticals and follow them.
3. You plan to work with multiple writers and you need a homepage that can adapt without manual design every single day.

I would not use this theme if all you want is a single landing page or a brochure site. It’s honestly overpowered for that. Felt shines when you have a publishing rhythm and you care about hierarchy: which story leads, which category matters this week, what gets promoted, what gets buried.