Did you ever purchase a web template or Wordpress theme?
And if you did, what did you feel it was missing? Let me know about your experience using such products!
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And if you did, what did you feel it was missing? Let me know about your experience using such products!
I personally hate all "multipurpose", universal bullshit themes. They feel so bloated, so suffocating and confusing. I cannot imagine how horrible the code is and how unoptimized they are. I would prefer, at any time, a very niched template that works out-of-the box and that is super optimized.
However, I don't know how commercially-viable that is, given that the market is so full of bloated crap that exaggerates the huge value customers get... and you can see that on theme marketplaces. Universal themes that are heavily-marketed get the most sales.
Yup, 100% agree. I've been using Avada for some sites that I run and it's painful everytime. If it's a vertical that they already have a demo for, then it's a bit better, but still not fun.
Niche templates is what we are going for as a general direction. Our next template will be a NGO Enviromental website (mission pages, donation page etc). We'll see how the sales go in the coming months.
I agree, these multipurpose templates look like they bring a lot of value before purchasing them, but the actual end product is trash and is over populated with irrelevant content I feel.
"I don't know how commercially-viable that is". I think if a website would offer 30-40 niche templates which would of course be much more superior when compared to a few pages from a multipurpose template, the effort would pay off. Of course this would be a long term investment of energy and ROI but I think it can pay off.
Experience was never good :( usually spent more time changing them to do what I wanted than actually putting something together myself.
My hate for general wp templates is very high. It's hard to customize, the optimization is bad and the performance sucks.
For static websites I've been using webflow which is awesome.
I have used tons of templates, WP plugins, Wix, Bluehost, and such. Nothing came closer to what Landen provided in terms of UX and ease of use (http://landen.co). Finally built our side project (Balsa Knowledgebase) using Landen: http://getbalsa.com .. You can check and DM/message me, and I will respond with honest answers about Landen.
It's an interesting site builder, however I feel like you can only create websites for presenting a company or an app and so on. It doesn't support e-commerce, listing websites and so on. But the concept is actually really nice!
I wanted it to handle all the page optimisations such as SEO, page speed and designed to convert. Lots of templates miss the meta tags for Facebook and Twitter.
Lots of templates look nice but are very hard to work with.
"Good" looking templates don't normally convert. They confuse visitors.
They add bloated JS such as carousels
https://www.farreachinc.com/blog/far-reach/2014/03/06/carousels-dont-convert
If a well-designed landing page doesn't convert, try to imagine the damages of an unprofessional and bad-looking one :)
Visitors get distracted when the messaging, the design, and the contents, in general, don't align with the company goal, mission, and values.
Anyway, I don't agree with your statement, but I respect it ;)
Depends on what it is designed for :)
Most websites are designed to look nice, not to convert.
Founders want unique sites, but visitors just want to be able to understand what is going on. So you have to satisfy both which can be hard.
Thanks for your insight. Yes, we also experience that Wordpress Themes are now so complex and customizable that the end product becomes trash. Too many elements that a website wouldn't normally need. The needs of the owner of the website is that the template to be fast and optimized for SEO. That is what we experienced so far!
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Hi Mick - If you ever consider using a template again, please let me know. I would be happy to gift you any premium templates of your choice from https://cruip.com/ to see if you find it impossible to work with! Pretty sure you won't be disappointed :)
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So, perfect timing. Please, just shoot me a message via [email protected] or [email protected] and we will take it from there! All I want in exchange is brutal and honest feedback :)
He he! I love IH because of comments like this!
I've been 'trying' to use Avada theme and it's great, but only for demo sites that they've already implemented.
Looking at your themes, I think you're approach is much better since it's startup focused.
Are these WP themes or html templates only?
Thanks, Nash :) - Actually, they are just HTML, but we're going to launch also React and Vue.js versions in a couple of weeks (we don't have plans for a WP theme right now). In regards to Avada: That's the problem with multipurpose themes - They are pretty good for developers who want unlimited customization options, but they can be a nightmare if you have just a specific need!
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Do you mean Wordpress & CMS themes or just web templates?