Tuesday, January 8, 2019

Some Alternatives to Envato Marketplaces

If you're looking for marketplace alternatives then simply see the list provided on one of the answers here (great job, Pablo!).
You should remember that, selling on a marketplace means you're building their business, not yours. You are also dependant on their will and ideas, and when they change their regulations - you may find yourself with a significant drop in sales.
Since you are asking for alternatives to marketplaces, I assume you're open to the idea that your revenue potential is much bigger when not selling on a marketplace at all, but rather sell on your own website, without any competition from thousands of other sellers on the same site - then keep reading.
As an alternative to Envato's theme market, ThemeForest, and to their code market, CodeCanyon, I would suggest you check out a product called Freemius, which lets you sell your themes and/or plugins, and also saves you the same amount of headaches by handling all of the checkout process for you. It also enables other important business benefits like:
  • Keeping a larger piece of the pie for yourself, rather than paying high commissions to Envato (between 32.5%-70% - that's crazy!).
  • You don't compete with thousands of other sellers, which are just "a click away" on the same site
  • Recurring revenue and automatic renewals is an option that does not exist on marketplaces. It allows you to drive recurring payments from the same customer for as long as they continue to actively use your product. It’s good for you and it’s good for the customers.
  • You actually get to know who your customers are. On marketplaces, they will usually not provide you with the details of people who purchase from you, in order to prevent you from communicating with them outside of the marketplace (to lock you in and continue paying commissions)
  • Upselling multi-site licenses for agencies & freelancers
  • Choosing a business model with a higher customer lifetime value
Many authors have made the decision to move out of the marketplaces business model and to sell on their own website and if you're smart about it you will definitely see a significant increase in revenues.

Saturday, January 5, 2019

Benefits of WordPress Themes

Blogging platforms have come and gone, but not WordPress. Since its inception in 2003, it has gone from a simple and ubiquitous blogging site to a preferred and preeminent open source web development platform. It’s the most widely used content management System and according to Yoast, accounts for 20-25% of all new websites.
From Topnotch publications such as The New York Times and CNN, music icons such as Jay-Z and Katy Perry, to Fortune 500 companies such as UPS and eBay, WordPress Designing and development has been sought after.
If you are thinking of building a new site, here are the top 10 advantages of using a WordPress website design.
1. WordPress is Cost Effective
Thanks to WordPress, gone are the days when creating a website will cost you an arm and a leg.WordPress designing and development is extremely cost-effective. Also, the upkeep and maintenance expense is relatively cheap as you can do it yourself instead of hiring a designer every time you need to update the content of your site.
2. Convenient Syndication
This is a highly efficient way to earn inbound links to your site. Every time you post a new blog entry, it can automatically go to an RSS feed, making it easier for others to syndicate your content across directories and other websites.
3.   Update Your Site Anywhere You Are
If you decide to develop WordPress Theme Website, you can make changes to your site anywhere you are as long as you have access to the Internet.
4. Search Engine Optimization Ready
WordPress is SEO friendly. Websites built using WP have simple and constant codes making them ideal for Google indexing. SEO components For each page can also be customized giving you full control on which pages you want to rank high in search engines (i.e. You can focus your SEO campaigns on high converting pages).
5. Upgrade Your Site’s Capabilities Easily
Adding new features and functionalities can be extremely cumbersome for traditional websites, especially those that are created using sophisticated platforms. This is the exact opposite for WordPress-based sites. There are plugins that you can easily install which typically takes just three steps. Further, the WordPress community is very active and almost every best practice is documented. So if you need to add a new feature to your site, chances are, there are other WP users out there that have documented what to do.

6. Responsive Web Design
With mobile traffic predicted to surpass normal desktop traffic by 2014, responsive web design is no longer an option but a must. When you use a WordPress website design, you automatically get the benefit of responsive web technology without the need to develop separate websites for different devices.
7.Ultimate Social Media Integration
Another benefit if you opt to develop WordPress Theme Website is the seamless integration with social networks. You don’t need to login to your LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook or Google+ accounts one by one and automatically let your social networking community know that you have fresh content for them.
8. Ideal for Aggressive Content Marketing
In an era of online marketing when fresh content is of utmost Important, a WordPress theme website has an advantage over the traditional ones. In seconds you can update your site’s content and you can do so as Frequent as you want without the need to go through several complicated steps. You can also update your site’s design in a breeze making it an ideal platform for tactical campaigns (i.e. Holiday promotions, etc.). Additionally, being able to update your content frequently will help you and your organization build credibility in your niche.
9. Easy Transition from One Designer to the Next
Unless you’re really loyal to your web designer or design firm, chances are, there will be several designers or firms that will work on your site. Before, this is extremely difficult because each designer or firm has its own preferred platform. WordPress designing and development operates on a universal, open-source platform making it easier for you to transition from one designer to another.
10. Increased Site Security
One of the primary criticisms against WordPress designing and development, when it was first conceived, is poor security. This myth has been debunked. As long as you have good WordPress web designers and developers, you can fortify your site’s security and make it hacking-proof. The same cannot be said for traditional sites.