Visual page builders roundup review that I mentioned in the video.
Please leave a comment below.
Note that I don’t reply to all comments, but I do read them all. If I don’t reply to your comment, it most likely means that I agree with what you say and don’t have anything meaningful to add, myself. I appreciate and read all comments and your comments play an important part in what I write about, so keep them coming.
Spammy comments are always filtered or removed. No surprise there.
Hi Shane! I’m excited to see what you’re doing. I have ideas and would love to share them with you.
Thanks, Sonya! I’ll send you a message so we can have a chat.
I’m not a WP “theme junkie” but I am wanting to find an efficient e-commerce theme. So far there seems to be too many issues and compromises that have to be made with the available themes or the costs are too high for add-on features. Can’t seem to decide on one. Are you planning on making your theme adaptable to e-commerce?
Dennis
Hi Dennis,
Our first themes won’t be made for e-commerce, but it is something we want to tackle at some point down the line. I’d love to learn about what you need from a good e-commerce theme.
Hi Shane,
I have a couple hundred WordPress sites and I continually test different themes.
When I first started, the look of the theme mattered most to me. As a result, Elegant Themes was my primary source for themes. But every once in awhile, I bought other themes.
Later, I started to look for themes that were advertised to be Google-friendly. That is, clean code and fast performance.
Now I am more into paid traffic, so I am mainly interested in themes that are designed for conversions.
Dave
Thanks for the reply, Dave! Looks like your values are in line with the ones we have for our themes. :)
I’ll send you a message so you can get in touch, if you want to discuss more details.
I’m not so excited about the WP themes project, but I hope you get a lot of interest! I AM excited about the content builder if it will allow for control of the layout of a WP post or page, and if it will play nice with WP themes. It takes a lot of time to lay things out with tables and CSS layouts don’t always work correctly. Make it possible to easily create a drag-and-drop layout? I’ll be all over that!
I use Genesis and its child themes and while I love the simplicity of these themes and their fast load time, I know that Genesis does not always play nice with other plugins. It has some argument with your Viral Quiz Builder plugin, for example.
Thanks for the reply, Jeffrey!
I wish the content builder was closer to done… I think you’ll love what we’ve come up with.
We’ll have to take a look at the VQB issue you described. Have you contacted our support about this? (http://imimpact.freshdesk.com/)
Yes I’ve been in contact with support, but I had to do my launch with the glitch intact. Support was very responsive though. I just sent them a copy of my theme and child theme for them to test.
Okay, good to know.
This is very exciting news Shane. Looking forward to your first theme!
Thanks, Eric! Hopefully, the wait won’t be too long. :)
I’m a template junkie, and think I can bring some great advise to the table, just email me and we’ll hook up on Skype, cheers and all the best.
Sounds good! Check your inbox for a message from me. :)
Shane, Thanks for keeping us in the loop. even though it is a tease (read Save Your Money for me!).
I am in the e-commerce camp, so that’s important. Obviously mobile responsive is a factor, and it would be nice to have goggle friendly font choices or variety.
Please count me in for beta permissions.
Scott, the wineboxguy
Thanks, Scott!
E-commerce is not first in line. However, I recognize the importance of it and we definitely want to create themes that are made for e-commerce at some point.
I’m open to chatting with you.
One thing that’s happening to WordPress themes in general is the homogenization of them. It’s usually like a slider at the top and then like three columns at the bottom. I’m sick to death of that type of design…
Hi Chad,
You are so right about the homogenization of the designs. Slider plus columns really seems to cover about 90% of the themes out there, right now!
I’ll send you a message so we can get in touch.
Hi Shane,
Thanks for the update. I work helping fitness professionals around the world with their websites.
I currently use ithemes builder, mysitemyway packages + about 30 other one-off themes for clients so have experience with a number of different themes and would be happy to talk. I have very little coding knowledge so my biggest thing is a) easy to use and teach. 2) easy integration with opt-in forms to convert. Aweber, leadpages and of course my favourite, Hybrid Connect. :)
Cheers,
Liam
Good stuff, Liam! This kind of specialized knowledge could be really good for us. I’d love to talk about what would make the ultimate site for a fitness pro. :)
Hi Shane.
I think it is an excellent idea for you to start the WP Theme club.
I only use WP and Themes and have a few ideas of what I would like to see in your great themes. Happy to share ideas with you.
Cheers, Andreas
Thanks, Andreas! Check your inbox for an email, so we can get in touch. :)
Hi Shane,
I have bought over the time a lot of wp themes, mainly big frameworks (Thesis, Genesis, Catalyst, Headway ao) but right now i am using almost exclusively Studiopress and their child themes for my projects and my clients sites. Studiopress is, in my opinion, the big million gorilla in the market, especially since the Catalyst guy have decided to convert it’s framwork in a Genesis customisation solution – see Cobaltapps project and it’s Dynamik Website Builder.
I’d love to know more about what makes you prefer the Genesis framework over others. I’ll send you a message, so we can get in touch.
Shane, the “themes” game is a very tough one. I’ve been a marketer for just over ten years. I bought Studio Press ($300) and all it’s child themes as well as Flex Pro back in the day. However, the best themes I’ve ever found are: Response theme (free) or Response pro ($24), Optimize Press ($97 but hard learning curve) and ACME theme ($18).
If you are going to design a theme, I’d suggest you use the responsive code as a start. Check out my test site at http://stoneadams.com When you get there, drag your browser’s bottom corner so that the page gets smaller and smaller until it’s finally the size of a mobile device. You’ll notice that the content is dynamic and adjusts automatically for mobile. This will be a huge bonus for you if you build this feature in. Marketers will then automatically have sites that are good for the 5 billion mobile devices currently in use.
Secondly, you need to address the issue with side bars. People creating banners for CPA often only create 250 pixel wide graphics, while others make 300 pixel wide graphics. And Amazon is all over the map on this, so we need to be able to chose the sidebar size for each page.
The next thing you’ll need to address is the skin. You’ll need to have several color options available plus typography options. Newbies just can’t be hacking around with the php code in the page templates.
I’d be happy to discuss this with you any time.
Lucidboomer on Skype.
Thank you, Nick! Interesting point about the ads and sidebars. It’s impractical to have different sidebar widths on different pages, but having an ads/banner widget that is suitable for different ad dimensions would be fairly easy to do. Something we’ll look into.
Hi Shane,
I am very excited about your new project! I am an absolute WordPress Theme addict and would love to chat with you about your new theme club.
Awesome, Kolleen! I’ll send you a message so we can have a chat.
Shane,
Sounds good to me. I hope that you also come up with a membership site solution too.
Always love your stuff. You are one of the good guys out there in a sea of sharks!
Anton
Hi Anton,
Actually, I’d love to create a membership/product delivery type solution, but I don’t know if it’s worth it. This is one of the markets I’ve been eyeing for a long time, but I’ve never seen a killer opportunity. Mostly looks like a whole lot of work with not that much potential payoff, to me. In short: I don’t know if this is something I’ll ever pursue.
Hey Shane,
Love the backdrop for this video – well done.
Our niche is dealing with local business clients – and they perhaps more than any other online group are very far behind in implementing landing pages, tracking, social media, online advertising, lead generation… etc. let alone the knowledge of why, what and how to implement.
They never have enough time. Yet, they need to implement these actions to survive.
So the niche is huge, the opportunity is huge, and I need to be able to scale sites out to serve these folks… sites that have useful “local” landing page integration, and are able to use schema data, do not conflict with “wordpress seo” or other plugins and are clean, quick loading, well coded (not barfing css code on every page!) that require minimal customization at the code level to make work.
Maybe this is a “bridge to far.” I pray not!
Digging through thousands of themes (paid or not) to find well coded stuff has gotten really tedious.
Thanks, Mark!
It is a tough challenge that you pose; high flexibility and ease of use are usually at odds with each other. However, I do have some ideas that might be helpful, for the kind of scenario you deal with. I’ll drop you a message, so you can get in touch.
Hi Shane,
My personal thoughts:
As I tell you on your fanpage I bought several themes on themeforest and StudioPress, and recently I bought a six months membership on theme-junkie.
I agree wit Dan about StudioPress, I love the Genesis framework, it’s easy to customize and I don’t need to worry when upgrading (WP or the framework itself) because my customizations are on “child files” and not on the theme or WP core files.
Unfortunately, theme-junkie use its own “framework”.
My personal opinion is that if I was creating some themes I would use some pre-existing framework on the market, not building from scratch.
When I find a good theme with good features, I want to put it online fast, not loosing time to find how to use, where to configure 999 things, etc. Find it, upload it, configure some things, put my content and get it on.
I’m not very fan of changing layouts, but I always need to hide or add some features, and I love get that fast, as LeadPages.net magically let you do. (In limited way of course, but it’s interface is fast and very easy to use. You point what you want to modify, customize fast with online preview and publish it. I love that.)
Some important things I always need to customize/configure on my WP websites (I have ~12 personal website):
– Hide post date/time (kind of things you do fast and easily with Genesis without modifying WP core files)
– Hide post comments date/time
– Customize how the frontpage show
– SEO features (Genesis built-in or Yoast plugin)
– Optinboxes (HybridConnect :)
– Cache
– Localization
I’m certainly forgetting lot of other stuff but I want to share some points of my experiences.
If needed, I’m interested to enter on your beta testing.
Good job.
Thank you for the detailed reply, Christophe!
Already some very interesting insights, in there. I’ll also send you a message, so we can discuss more details, if you’d like to.
Sounds great! Can’t wait for the survey so I can talk about all the things I *hate* about the drag-and-drop interface that’s now part of Thesis 2, Headway themes, etc. They made so much more sense before.
Thanks for the comment, Mary!
Learning what you dislike about other themes would also be really valuable to me, of course. I don’t know if the survey will contain the right questions to get to the bottom of that, so I’ll send you an email, if you want to respond directly or hop on a skype call.
Hi Shane good the hear from you again. I always look forward to your newsletters.
Good product idea but as one of your readers (students?) I have to say this is not for me. You taught me not to be distracted by products that do not forward my goals.
Having many themes would mean I would have to have many blogs and I’m done with that noise. Just takes too much of my time away from my products.
Okay so what I CAN do for you is share an idea. I have noticed something about WP themes that I know people who have a lot of sites (your target market) are having a problem with. I have yet to see anybody do this so you could be the first and I do think it is very marketable. Might just be what you need to stand out from the crowd. Email me at sdgator954(at)gmail.com and I’ll be happy to share my idea with you.
Thank you, Steve! I’ve sent you an email.
Hi Shane,
While using in the past another CMS, I’m using WordPress for all new sites. I’m using the Genesis framework with the Dynamik Website Builder. In a theme I’m mainly looking for really good mobile responsiveness and great flexibility in layout. The theme must be clean and have focus on what I want the visitor to see without distractions.
Looking forward to see the themes and club setup, plus the visual layout builder. I’ve been using some of those visual layout builders, but none of them made me fully happy.
Greetings,
David
Thanks for the insights, David!
It would be very interesting to know more about what you like about the theme and builder you are currently using. Check your inbox for a message from me. :)
Hi Shane
I’m a fan of your work and your transparency…. I have a small client base that I build websites for, I have used Elegant Themes but find them limiting. Clean, responsive and easy for the client to use would be my top requirements. I really want my clients to take ownership of their sites and feel confident in using them AND have them look great.
Hope this helps
Yvonne
Thank you very much for your comment, Yvonne!
I’d love to talk about how your clients use the themes and how that process could be improved.
Hey Shane,
This is great news. I expect that this will be something totally different from what is currently available in a already saturated marketplace. As mentioned by yourself and others, the big players like StudioPress and Elegant Themes as well as many others offer developers affordable solutions with on-going support and lifetime licenses. I’m not a big fan of monthly subscription models given support ceases once your subscription is up or you decide not to renew. I’d rather spend more upfront to get lifetime updates, guaranteed quality support and constant fresh themes that are lean, high function and most importantly, easy to use (not everyone likes or knows css/html and in my case trusts their skills enough not to mess up a site)
I’m excited about your announcement about a page builder solution as well. With the current strong contenders like Visual Composer by WP Bakery and Themify’s solution, getting this one right will reap you huge rewards – they’re not perfect but they work well.
A robust site extender with all the bells and whistles would essentially eliminate the need for so many themes IMHO. The only solution i have seen that tries to do this well is the Ultimatum Theme but lacks ease and video documentation.
Wishlist:
– Easy Taxonomy Builder and Display mechanism (real estate, directories, events. etc)
– Visual template and layout builder for pages, posts and views.
– Sticky Sidebars and side menus
– HTML 5 with drop down menu structures for mobile devices
– visual CSS builder (this is my pain point, i never figure out how to style something without suffering) – lets say i wanted to overlay a widget on top of a slider for example.
– built in or add-on seo and site maps for (images, video, etc)
– built in or add-on author boxes and related posts facility
– built in or add-on forms management
– built in or add-on Slider solution as solid as Soliloquy/Layer/Revolution
– built in or add-on Opt-in solution as solid as Hybrid-Connect :)
and the best damn tutorials and documentation ever! :)
(essentially, all the must have features/plugins to have a minimum viable site – building them in would eliminate need to 5-10 external plugins that sometimes cause conflicts)
Ok, just realized this is way to long – I hope you can sense the excitement and I look forward to seeing what you have up your sleeves for the remainder of the year.
Thanks for the reply, Al!
We are deliberately not going in the direction of a one-to-rule-them-all theme. There are many like that out there and of course, they do have their advantages. However, there are many inherent technical problems with one-for-everything themes and we want to avoid those by going for specialized themes and new themes released on a regular basis, instead.
In other words: instead of building one theme to satisfy all needs, our goal is to eventually have themes for every purpose and have each of those themes be superior to what you could create using a one-for-everything theme.
Fair enough – looking forward to it. We’ll chat on Skype soon.
Hi Shane,
Always enjoy listening to you. I personally have gone the opposite way and really using no theme at all, instead focusing on super simple and fast loading. As you know, we get bombarded with new themes all the time, so knowing you a little now, I am sure you are going to make yours something special.
This is actually one of the big challenges: I want to keep things simple (at least for some of the themes) and fast loading times are very important. On the other hand, I also want to provide a lot of flexibility and not make users feel like they are “boxed in” by the theme. It’s a difficult balance to strike.
I am pulling back on wp themes because most are not updated as promised or indicated in the promotional pgs. When responsive themes for mobile and sales funnels functions become non functional within the theme…it becomes a toss-a-way…( almost ).
A flexible layout and being mobile responsive would be key factors for me.
Mobile responsive: check!
Problems with updating and keeping everything current: that’s where the club model really helps. On the one hand, you have recurring income that you can invest in continued development and on the other hand, you can keep on top of things because you’re always releasing new themes anyway.
Hi Shane
As a previous buyer of your products I can believe that when you say “High quality themes that we WILL want to use”.
Over the years I have used Studio Press, and many paid themes, including Elegant Themes memberships, for the many 100’s of websites I used to operate, but I stated moving away from building sites and using seo, towards more passive income streams and find myself very rarely looking for more themes.
Saying that after using so many themes, I still find that when I come across a theme that makes publishing and creating sites, pages easily – I am tempted to take it for a test drive to see if I can use it on the few sites I run now.
I personally would not be interested in a membership type program but very possibly a pay as you go – if I like the theme very much, especially if its an easy to use – drag n drop page builder.
By the way Pagelines recently released an open source page builder called DMS, and as a previous user, I saw the release which looked quite awesome, although many of the add ons are paid ones in the marketplace.
I most certainly would be looking forward to what you come up with, no doubt will be an awesome set of themes.
Thank you for the reply, Hamant!
We will make the themes available separately as well. Basically we’ll have a theme shop where anyone can simply buy what they need. The membership will just be an option that’s much cheaper for anyone who knows they’ll be using multiple themes on an ongoing basis.
Thanks for the note on the PageLines builder. I’ll check it out.
Hi Shane, more than happy to share my thoughts on what I want from a WP Theme. Also happy to continue the conversation about (potentially) using one of our explainer videos to promote this new product.
Thanks, Matt! Message sent!
Shane,
I assume you are now settled in to your new home and enjoying the beautiful geography. Please keep shooting your videos with the scenic backdrops. I do a lot of volunteer work for non-profit organizations and would like to see a quality responsive theme optimized for presenting an organization’s story, organizing the volunteer and paid staff and soliciting contributions. The theme has to be professional looking without a corporate feel and easy to use by minimally trained staff. If you or anyone else has some suggestions for existing themes, I will appreciate the response. Obviously, by making my request, I haven’t found many solutions yet and would like to see a design from you and Paul.
Many Thanks!
Thanks for the reply, Jeff!
Are there any themes or websites that at least come close to what you have in mind?
Looking forward to whatever you come up with, I know you like to add that something extra so that your products are never just a “me too” thing!
Lots of great suggestions in the comments above, I concur.
Am I the only person who likes InkThemes? They are relatively new, but they have an assortment of themes for particular purposes, kind of like what you suggest you are aiming for, that seem clean and load pretty fast. One cool feature is they have a one click feature that installs dummy content so you can make the theme look like the demo and go from there. I hate buying a theme after seeing an awesome demo, then after installation there’s nothing but a header and a sidebar and I have to go figure out how they made it look so cool in the demo.
Since I’m concentrating on lead gen sites now, I’m partial to “in your face” calls to action at the moment.
Also, any time you can build a well coded function into a theme that removes the need to install a plugin, that is an attractive feature for me.
Responsive is of course mandatory now.
And the ability to turn off given any feature or module is also helpful.
That’s my two cents anyway.
Thanks, Garth!
Templates are also a feature I want to eventually add to our themes. More than just demo content, I’d like to have a feature that lets you select the types of pages you want to create and then adds them at the click of a button.
Oh yeah, where are you (geographically) in this video?
Budapest, Hungary. The site is called the Fisherman’s Bastion.
Hi Shane,
Nice to see you’re settling in to Budapest. I’ve visited the city a few times and absolutely loved it.
Like yourself I’m a bit of a theme junkie and have probably invested way more time than I should in trying out a few too many.The following are all fairly important for me: –
– Responsive
– Speed – so a clean and correctly coded theme is imperative
– Flexible choice of layouts
– Flexible range of short codes (esp with tables, tabs, drawers, columns, boxes)
– Flexible portfolio options
I’ve bought some great themes from Theme Forest – though in retrospect these were almost all for my clients, so I probably trust the longevity of support I get there than some of the themes I buy for myself (on a whim) I see on the Warrior Forum that sometimes don’t get supported for more than a few months. I’ve also had good experience with themes from Ink Themes and StudioPress.
Like some comments above. I’m currently really quite enjoying just taking the Twenty Thirteen theme and seeing what I can do to tweak it myself.
I’d be happy to jump on skype for a conversation or fill in some additional feedback etc.
Thaks for the reply, Jay!
Portfolios are something I’ve never used myself, so it would be great to have a chat about that and get some ideas about what makes a great portfolio feature in a WP theme.
Hi Shane, we have building websites since 1995 so we’ve seen a lot of changes. These days 99% of client sites we build are WordPress and we try as much as possible to use the Genesis Framework and on of their child themes. Occasionally we will use a ThemeForest theme but I try not to.
Tried every “club” out there from Elegant Themes to Woo Themes but settled on Genesis and sometimes ThemeForest.
I prefer one source like Genesis because;
1. I need the company to be there a few years down the road and be large enough to support any changes made by WordPress. This is where ThemeForest cab be a problem (at least an individual developer).
2. Genesis 2.0 is heading in the right direction with simplicity, speed and responsive awareness. They have weaknesses for sure though.
3. I hate logging into some of our older client sites that may have used a really good ThemeForest theme and trying to remember how their admin area works. The trend there seems to be to make the admin area a powerful piece of CMS in it’s own right which requires a learning curve of it’s own.
4. Because of the above when we do use ThemeForest we tend to pick only one or two themes, learn their admin area and then stick with them.
Genesis admin is not very powerful which is fine by us, but at least it’s identical on 90% of our clients websites.
Thanks for the reply, David! Some very interesting points.
Keeping things consistent between the themes is definitely important.
Hi, Shane,
I could certainly be considered a theme junkie having purchased any number of themes over the years. What I’m looking for is something easily customizable that has a number of layouts built in, e.g. landing page, full width page, sidebar left, sidebar right, etc. Being able to add, change or remove widget areas is a big plus, as well. I’ve just started working with Genesis so the jury’s still out on that one. I like the availability of hooks, but I understand that one must code in order to use them properly so they’re not for everyone.
I’ve used Ultimatum, Thesis, Atahualpa and a number of others. My current favorite is Atahualpa, but it’s been somewhat crippled by having to remove the ability to insert PHP in its properties due to restrictions in the WP theme repository.
In any case, I’ll be happy to offer my two cents’ worth on themes if you’d like.
Thanks,
John
Thanks, John!
I’ll send you a message, so we can have a chat. :)
Hi Shane,
The content builder that I usually use is Headway, this guys are improving it over and over and the flexibility is awesome.
Another one that I like is Optimizepress 2.0.
I’ve also used CTR Themes and lots of others.
BUT (And I don’t know if anyone already commented on this) one thing that I haven’t seen and I would LOVE is a combination of a content builder WITH your Hybrid Connect plugin.
What I’m SPECIFICALLY talking about is the option for TESTING-RESULTS that Hybrid Connect gives you with percentages for opt-ins (I guess that with phone calls will be a little more difficult ; )).
For example a landing page for a business with the opt-in form on the top right or the top left. With the background green or yellow, etc.
Thanks
Thanks for the reply, Jesus!
Interesting idea. I don’t know if it’s practical to combine a page builder with split-testing like that. It’s definitely possible, but there are many great split testing solutions for pages out there already (Visual Website Optimizer, Optimizely,…). I don’t know if it’s worth trying to beat them at their own game, while also building a content builder.
Hi Shane,
Looking forward to this new project of yours and hopefully it will outdo other themes like your other products.
When it comes to WordPress themes I will not call myself a theme junkie, but I’m always looking for good design and style elements as well as a site that loads very fast and focuses the most on list building and conversions. I have used many themes in the past like Elegant Themes, Thesis Theme, Catalyst Theme, Frugal Theme, the Genesis framework (which is my current favorite) and then a few more frameworks and individual themes bought from Theme Forest that I’d like to forget.
You will do well to remember that most people do not know CSS or HTML and that makes themes like Thesis impossible to work with (especially for folks like me). I personally liked the Catalyst Theme very much because it would help me to design my own themes without having to be a geek or a coder. Unfortunately now it has been taken off the market and is no longer supported.
This brings me to my current favorite the Genesis framework, mainly for 2 reasons, one it is fast and secondly the child themes make it easy to come up with your own designs in a very simple plug and play fashion.
So here is what I would love to see from your new project… extremely easy to design and to come up with your own unique site or multiple child themes that will extend the functionality of the framework and help people change skins and the design of their sites in under a minute. If you put in the same effort that went behind Hybrid Connect and Viral Quiz Builder then you have a customer for life in me.
Abraham
Thanks for the detailed reply, Abraham!
Is there anything specific about the way child theme customization works in Genesis, that you like?
Yes, its plug and play easy and does not require much in the way of customization. I guess you can say “works right out of the box” here. I’ve used child themes before and most of them require some work after installation especially for tweaking the functionality.
With Genesis the functionality is independent of the child themes… by that I mean Genesis has plugins (Genesis Simple Edits is a good example) for added functionality and these are not dependent on the child theme. You can install multiple child themes in succession and get a good feel for how the actual site will look. After selecting a child theme it takes less than 5 to 10 mins to fix what’s missing.
Thanks! I definitely want to support child themes in this way as well.
Hi Shane, I’m a bit of a theme addict myself. I have both your hybrid connect and viral quiz builder plugins. I have some really good ideas for how to incorporate elements of both of these plugins into a theme thats very high converting in terms of email opt ins. I’d love to talk to you since this is something I’ve been trying to do with the plugins by themselves and can’t figure out how. You probably can recycle much of the code to create something that blows everything in the market away.
Thanks, Jose! I’ll get in touch so we can discuss this further.
Hi Shane,
first great new idea of yours. All my personal and client websides are done with wordpress and so therefore I always look for stylish but most important easy to handle themes in the set up. For me the most important thing is 1. easy build up the sites and 2. of course fast loading time. Additional the design is important for me as well as my clients.
Mostly I get my themes from themeforest. At the moment I work with a theme called Enfold and I love this one because it has an page builder with drag and drop which is fantastic. I know only a little bit of html and nothing about coding. So my main focus on themes is easy to handle and well documented with video etc. ist most important for me.
Additional I just bought Leadpages because of it|s easy to use drag and drop for building squeezepages etc.
And like someone mentioned above it would be great if there is some new design on the way not always only a slider and 3columns. What I would love to see are some clear, simple but stylish themes which are easy to set up and come with a drag and drop page builder. they should have some good visual aspects for pictures, portfolios and videos too.
So if you need someone in your betatest/team for testing the easy to use funcitonalities i|am the one.
Happy day Martina
Thanks for the detailed reply, Martina! Lot’s of good ideas and many that I’d love to implement in our themes. :)
Hi Shane
This post comes just in time. I recently reviewed some of my sites and mobile traffic accounts for more than 40%. More interesting, however, is that click -> purchase funnel throughput is double that of desktop (roughly). I wasn’t expecting this by the way.
So my priorities for a wordpress theme are:
– responsive
– fast
– clean (in the visual sense)
– clean (in the coding sense, maybe I should say non conflicting with major plugins, among my favorites SEO Yoast and W3 Total Cache)
– produces reasonable output for the user who has adblock, java script disabled, Safari, IE, etc. In general the done on the backend without relying on the clients browsers capabilities, the better.
Nice to haves (preferably without compromising the above priorities) are:
– Google Fonts
– schema.org
– automatic upgrade without creating a mess:)
– easy integration with your HC, WP Sharely and Viral Quiz Builder
– unlimited license for owned sites, easy option to sell to clients and make a commission
– I could go on almost endlessly…
Would be delighted to be on the beta testers list.
All the best
Turan
Thanks, Turan!
Your priority list is very similar to our own, so that’s a good sign. :)
This looks interesting: “easy option to sell to clients and make a commission”
Do you have any examples of existing themes that have such an option?
Hi Shane
To answer your question, No!
My understanding and wish, reading these comments is that it would be great to have a license where we could have the themes on our sites (multiple) as well as the capability and easiness to sell them to our customers and make a commission from your company for the license sale. Usually the issue is when you sell your customer a theme, the customer would have to go through my affiliate link to make the purchase. I would prefer simply to invoice my customer, purchase the license from you at full price, tell you to make the license transfer and accrue a commission. This way all is legit, you would issue a different license code for my customer (single site license) and recognize my commission.
But you may have different views on that :)
Regards
Turan
Hey Shane,
pretty good idea, especially getting in touch with potential customers beforehand ;)
We are looking for two different types of themes:
1. Themes for local clients (lawyer, dentist, etc) that we can use over and over again. So it should be one theme for each type that brings high conversions. And secondly that still looks different for all of them.
2. Blog networks. The free themes out there are ok. But we need more and more themes to vary the look of our sites. We used artisteer in the past which was ok but also kind of “ugly”…
Thanks
Hendrik
Thanks for the ideas, Hendrik!
Specialized local themes could definitely be a very interesting addition. We’ll have to try and figure out where the main demand is, but I can definitely see us releasing some local specific themes at some point.
Hi !
Not sure this is the thing for me? I have been using the catalyst theme (now the Dynamik Website Builder, a child theme on the Genesis framework) for a long time now, I very much doubt you can beat it? If like me you want custom websites, this is by far one of the best options.
Shane and Co, please check the above out, you will be very surprised how custom and easy it is to use!
Kind regards,
Becky
Thanks, Becky!
I’ll have a look, although I doubt I’ll agree with you about not being able to beat it. ;)
Hi Shane,
It seems exciting. If it will be anything like Hybrid Connect its sure to be a winner. I’ve been using WordPress for about 4 years now and have always been struggling to get the right theme. I always seem to get stuck within the limitations of these themes. What I would like to see a framework where you could visually have many different page layouts and with the ability to change the size of all page, header en sidebar elements and not get swampt in the procedure.
Thanks for the reply!
Are there any themes that come close to what you are looking for?
Hi JP Hoey,
Dynamik Website Builder, a child theme on the Genesis framework, will do anything you want it to.
Happy researching!
Becky
Hi Shane
I am an avid theme collector and always seem to find a frustration or two with what I get.
If I can help in any way… be happy to do so.
Regards
Miles
That’s how I feel about the themes I buy as well. I’d love to discuss some more details with you.
Hi Shane
I’ll be following this with interested and would love to contribute.
We’ve built a nice little business over the last two years called Internet Power (.co.uk)- mainly creating websites and complete marketing packages for small businesses – mainly professional services (vets being a niche we accidentally fell into).
We use the incredibly powerful Catalyst/Dynamic platform which has in the last month sort of merged with Genesis.
It’s great because there are unlimited design options, a front end css builder (so you don’t need to know any code) and our clients can if they wish, completely change the design of their websites if they get bored with them.
I would mention that our own website is the only one not on the Catalyst/Genesis platform (as we’ve been so busy!) and we are currently updating it.
We’ve also created a fairly unique Online Dashboard http://onlinedashboard.co.uk/members/ which gives clients easy access to all of their tools – Website, Hosting, Email marketing etc. + full training resources.
Our main focus for our clients is:
– Marketing effectiveness – most small business websites haven’t a clue about this.
– End user friendly – we insist that all our websites amd tools are fully customisable by the customer, that they have control and are not held ransom by some geeky web designers to update and edit their websites.
Recently with the switch from Catalyst/Dynamic to Genesis/Dynamic I feel that the platform has become just a little too daunting for the average end user.
A guy who commented earlier says it has now been taken off the market which is not strictly true. The Dynamic options are still available under the Genesis framework and is actually much more powerful http://cobaltapps.com/.
I’d be very interested in a suite of themes which still give the end user control and mean that we can offer an ’empowered’ package to small business owners which still embody our fundamental principles.
So, sorry if this is a bit long but the bottom line is we’d love to have a chat/exchange about your project!
Finally I would add that we do NOT consider ourselves web designers, we are business marketers and professionals with many years business experience. But using WordPress and Catalyst/Dynamic and now Genesis/Dynamic we can still put together pretty tasty sites, whilst focusing on the marketing and business needs of our clients.
I’ve been very impressed with Hybrid Connect and am using it on most websites now.
Good luck and I’d be happy to hear from you.
Nigel
Thanks for the detailed insights, Nigel!
I can say right away that initially, we are not looking to create something like Dynamic, where every aspect of the theme is customizable. There are some inherent technical issues with this kind of flexibility and those are at odds with our vision for the themes.
We may eventually create a theme that goes in that direction, but it’s more of a mid- to long-term idea. For a theme like that, I’d want to step it up a notch, both on the technical side (i.e. the way the code is generated) and from the UI side. I’d want to have something like a visual builder, rather than an enormously long list of options.
I’m excited to see what type of theme it is going to be.
I don’t consider myself a theme addict, but I do like looking at themes to see what is how there.
I use Genesis themes at the moment. I’m curious how you are going to differentiate yourself from bigger companies.
I can’t wait.
Thanks for the reply, Ian!
Genesis seems to be a favorite for many. I will definitely try to learn more about what makes Genesis so good and try to have the same qualities in our own themes.
I’m currently focusing on building sites for sale, so a developers lic with an aff link built in should they choose to go for a new theme would be nice.
Other than that as has been said, speed, style and some flexibility are the most important features.
Thanks for the input, Jillian! Can you explain what you mean with the combination of a developer’s license and affiliate link? The way our “Pro” license usually works is that your clients no longer have to make a purchase themselves, since that’s covered in your license. So, an affiliate link would be unnecessary in this case.
Hi Shane,
I currently developed for my customers using elegantthemes and allow them to also pick from woo themes. What’s most important is a very teams from very glossy to just plain Jane’s. Also being able to actually work with all aspects of the themes sidebars headers footers and all the images that are connected to it too. Some of the customers like the layout but they’re not happy about the design work.
Thanks for the reply, Sean!
There’s a certain amount of flexibility that I want in every theme. The way ours are set up, you have a control over page layouts, sidebars, what goes in the footer etc.
Hi Shane
I read through some, but not all of the comments here so I’m not sure if any of these have been mentioned.
I do a fair amount of customizing in the themes I use. I’m not sure how many people would need/use these, but if you don’t ask…
Ability to add custom .css that is saved and not over-written on upgrades (Magzine Premium – themes by bavotasan – does this well. Other themes I usually create a child theme in order to preserve my changes.
The rest of the things I like are currently found in plugins. I would rather have them in the theme so I don’t have to keep up with upgrades (or abandonment) with them.
I use custom widgets a lot. One plugin I really like is ‘My Custom Widgets’. It is still available and still works, but it looks to be abandoned. Having something like this plugin as part of the theme would be nice.
I also really like the plugin ‘Allow PHP in Posts and Pages’. It lets you insert php directly using [php][/php] or you can create and store snippets to use in multiple post/pages using a shortcode. Having that functionality included would be nice.
‘Widget Logic’ is another plugin I like. It requires some WP knowledge to use, but is great for customizing which pages/posts should see which widgets. ‘My Custom Widgets’ does this to some extent, but this plugin allows much greater control.
Thanks for your input!
We already have a custom CSS field like that in our current beta theme. :)
I’ll have to take a look at the widgets you mentioned, since I’ve not tried those yet.
Widget Logic: is this different from having custom sidebars that you can activate for specific pages?
Hi Shane,
I’ve been impressed with your knowledge, integrity and your approach to business Shane. I’d very much like to talk with you about collaborating and perhaps developing a product or suite of products around wordpress for a professional niche market with high demand and which I have over 30 years experience and track record of accomplishments. Look forward to hearing from you.
Thank you, Gary.
I’ll get in touch.
Hey Shane,
Glad that you are finally come out with your own themes.
Been talking about this with you few months back. Will this be something like Visual Composer?
All in all, the support is very important for us. :)
Yes, we’re working on a visual editor for WordPress, which will be available as part of the theme club and under the same brand as the themes. :)
I am definitely interested in sharing my thoughts with you. We are long-time users of WooThemes partly because of their selection and partly because of their support which is usually very good, especially when I somehow end up with a problem that is completely off-the-radar (it’s a talent, what can I say?). There are certainly many other great themes and frameworks out there and I’ve tried quite a few others, but it’s less learning curve being familiar with a relatively consistent way of working in the themes. I have lots of ideas and feedback. Skype = lynntrue
Hi Shane,
I am very excited about your next project. I love Hybrid-Connect and High quality Themes.
I am training entrepreneurs how to create their own WordPress sites using high quality themes and plugins. I would be really keen to test yours, with a view to training on it. Ultimately if I can train people a common Theme framework it makes my training more efficient.
Hi Shane,
I am specifically looking for a theme(s) that will provide good converting landing pages for specific keyword phrases and integrate with a membership site delivering educational intervention and qualification courses.
As we are branding the website, I need to be able to have the membership/product delivery solution integrate smoothly with the marketing landing pages.
My present thinking is to go for WishList, I have worked with Steve Mclaren on I’m training program and found him to be another of the marketing ‘good guys’. (http://insider.wishlistproducts.com/category/membership-resources/wordpress-themes/)
Over the couple of years I have been an im>impact follower, I have been purchasing your products as the come on line with the intention of using them in this current WP venture. It has been like building up an arsenal!
I am planning a 30 day challenge in November to get up to speed on WP landing pages, testing themes, layouts and ways of integrating split-testing.
I know what I want to do and I have quite a steep learning curve, however, it would be great to be able to beta test with your new product. I do need it to be ‘responsive’ (full screen down to mobile devices), that is really important for my market.
Best of luck with it all – and keep up the grind
Michael Eccles
Hi, Shane! Due to some technical difficulties (on my end, I think), I was not able to get past the 37-second mark when it first came out (the perfect cliff-hanger mark! It was where you were saying “what I’m working on is…”) and I just now got to listen to the whole thing.
Is it too late to sign up to talk with you about WP themes?
P.S. Our FBA business is still doing well, and growing. We are again shifting our focus as we have encountered a new “ceiling.”