WordPress Themes Revolution
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The reason I’m writing about this, is because it’s not a free wordpress theme (and no, this is not a sponsored review).
Many of you reading my blog are bloggers and web designers, so look at it this way:
You create wordpress themes, people download your themes for free, and since you put your link in the footer, you get tons of incoming links (kinda), but you make no money. So, of course, many bloggers are offering people to sponsor their themes. Which helps those designers make some money. Some agree with this, some don’t.
But some of you already know this, sponsored themes are no longer available on the wordpress theme viewer, and Mark Ghosh announced he will not list sponsored themes on Weblog Tools Collection anymore.
Next Best Thing
Many bloggers I know, like Anthony Baggett, decided to offer their themes for download on their own blogs for free, even if those themes do not contain any sponsored links, instead of directing people to the WordPress Theme Viewer (for now), since they decided to remove sponsored themes, the theme upload is closed until they’re done and people can’t upload themes, even if they are free of sponsored links. Other designers are selling their WordPress themes. Excellent initiatives on both sides I think.
So, if you design wordpress themes, do you think selling some of them could make you money?
I’m sure it would. You offer some for free, and the nicer ones, you sell them, even if you sell those cool themes for $25 each, it’s still better than buying one off of TemplateMonster, since most of those templates are poorly coded anyway.
I think what Brian Gardner did is awesome. You create a premium WordPress theme, sell it, and offer support, and build a community. See, I just spent $60 and bought Brian’s Revolution theme (and I bought it just cause I wanted to play with it a little).
There are 2 packages available:
- Personal Package: $59.95
- Developer Package: $249.95
Your Turn To Talk
Since a lot of bloggers are talking about monetization strategies, and how to make money online (I know, I do sometimes), is selling a WordPress theme something you find interesting, would you consider building a theme for the sole purpose of selling it? Many are doing it, others prefer to offer all their themes for free. What about you? ;)
Take care
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28 Responses to “WordPress Themes Revolution”
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Hey Jon,
Just for clarification, even though I’m offering my themes from my site, they still do not contain sponsored links.
I think Brian’s Revolution theme is awesome. It’s exciting to see the boundaries of Wordpress pushed a little, huh?
Hey Anthony, oops sorry ’bout that buddy, I fixed this in the post ;)
Yeah, that theme really is something, I’ve been playing with it all evening and I have to say it has a lot of potential :)
I’d never sell the themes I have up at the moment, the coding’s not exactly amazing and neither are the designs!
I think its quite a good idea to sell wp themes and its something I might look into but they’d have to be amazing!
It also makes the themes more exclusive doesn’t it not everyone has it.
Which one of your blogs will you be implementing the theme on jon ?
Han, I think you’re right, coding has to be perfect, and they have to offer something unique, like Brian’s Revolution theme, it’s something really unique :)
Hi Marc, I’m not sure yet, I really really like the Networker theme from Anthony that I use on SWR and on FreelanceFolder, , but I might use Revolution on my personal blog, since it’s not updated often, a magazine-like layout would be cool, I think :)
Wow, I’m loving the new theme! As always, great work from a rockin’ designer. Love the layout, it’s so magazine-like…very very nice!
Brian Gardner is a class act, I love his themes, and I use one on my own blog. I don’t think I would ever pay for a theme, but if I was going to it would be one of his.
brian gardner is a great developer, the cms layout is great but the blog layout is ok - I like 3 columns more so - just because I can add more content and not have it cluttered.
my theme on my blog is by brian with the exception that I edited the CSS a little to fit a banner and some aspects of the code was change a little, but tis still brians’
Wow, thanks for such kind words from you all - glad that everyone thinks the theme is great!
@ Ian - I will soon be adding a 3 column version of the single page to that theme, so it will include both a 2 and 3 column for people such as yourself who want a third column.
@ Jon - thanks for the writeup regarding my theme - I appreciate the exposure!
Hey Roberta, yeah it looks really good, I’ve started customizing it a little, playing with graphics and moving things around, awesome work Brian did :)
Pingable, I know what you mean, I bought the theme :)
Ian, I added a second sidebar without much problems. The theme is quite something though, but still very easy to find your way through the code :)
Brian, you’re very welcome, you did an awesome job on that one, raising the bar! :)
I totaly agree with you Jon,I used to design theme some of them sponsored ones and others without the sponsorship, now I think it’s time to follow your advice! ;) BTW did you received my email?
Hey George, yep I got your e-mail, replied ;)
Your themes are awesome bro, are you still selling some of them? (I remember you were selling the California one, if I’m not mistaken)
I’d more look forward to the three column single page theme from Brian. His themes have always been professional looking and very easy to tinker with. I really like the CMS one for $60, too. It’s a great bargain for such a nice theme. I wish I knew more about CSS and PHP, so I could make one.
Maybe a theme tutorial for making a butt kickin’ theme should be an idea? I’m sure people would pay for that, especially for advice from professionals.
Just my .02……
Roberta - the three column is up now - and can be viewed here:
http://www.revolutiontheme.com/demo/single-page-2
Still tinkering with it a bit, but this shows you what I am up to!
B
The Revolution theme looks great. Great job designing it Brian. I’m pretty sure designers would be better off selling their themes, especially premium ones such as this. When they’re cheap and exactly what people are looking for it works.
I know when I was looking for a theme to use I couldn’t find one that fit all of my needs.
-Gregg
Brian, I’m working on customizing the theme, so far I customized it so it looks more like a blog than a magazine, but I’ll use the page features for sure. Will be great for some sections of the blog (I’ll use it on freelancefolder.com and included a lot of stuff from Anthony Baggett’s Networker theme also) I’m thinking of designing my own themes now :)
Gregg, totally, the Revolution theme for 60 bucks, that’s pretty cheap :)
Jon - shoot me an email when you have the finished product, I’d love to see it!
The problem, as unfortunately is the case with many popular themes, the sidebar loads first.
I Did not use woedpress in my works
Revolution is a beautiful theme. I’m adding it to my short list of possible new themes for my blog.
It seems like there’s a big void out there for a new theme directory that mimics the WordPress Theme Viewer, but allows sponsored themes. I can’t believe no one is doing that? I know from my search for themes when I first started blogging that it’s exhausting to go to individual them authors’ homepages to explore each them you’re interested in…assuming you can find them in the first place.
Andy, you’re right, still it loads pretty quick. But what would you suggest to fix that?
meditation, what did you use?
Zen, same thing here, that’s why I usually stick to the same themes, and learn to customize them. :)
It only loads as fast as what you place in your sidebar.
If you include advertising, widgets, I have seen people suggest including tracking code instead of using the footer, etc, you might end up waiting 15 seconds before seeing content.
To fix it?
I think any competent theme designer knows how to fix it if they care about it. It is just a case of theme structure and floats or negative offsets to achieve it on most theme designs.
1. not showing content first is generally looked on as bad for SEO
2. it is bad for load time
3. it is bad for applications like Megite, because pictures and content from your sidebar tend to be displayed rather than your new posts. It is to do with the way they scrape stuff.
Hey Andy,
I’m not convinced that a sidebar loading before content has an impact on SEO. However, it can be a frustrating experience if the sidebar takes long to load. One of the worst examples of this I’ve come across recently is camcorderinfo.com Every time you load the page it takes an age, and the content is the last thing to load.
Hey Jon,
If you installed this somewhere can you shoot me a link to it? I’d like to take a look. I’m moving to wordpress soon for my personal blog but I also want to create a business blog and this theme looks like it might be exactly what I need for that blog.
I have a couple of questions about how customizable it is, but I’ll leave them for after I’ve moved house. ;)
Cheers!
Snoskred
http://www.snoskred.org/
By the way just so you know, this post of yours stuck with me for the last 15 days or so, I’ve thought about it at least once a day. :)
Snoskred
http://www.snoskred.org/
same question as above on which blog are you using the theme
Hello, I use it on FreelanceFolder.com, but it doesn’t look like a magazine theme at all now :)
seems like there is a competition upcoming in market. check the site http://wpremix.com/home/