How to Get the Most Downloads for your Wordpress Themes

There are lots of good themes out in the crowd and coming tens more everyday so how to get more downloads for your themes? We compiled some data from the net and surely from our site. So some tips* below:

+ Should be free, no doubt

There are a lot of good free themes, to meet them inside a challenge yours should also be free. There is no doubt with this.

+ Be unique

Make unique themes, you can get inspiration from other themes there is nothing wrong with that but don’t exaggerate this. Start with an empty paper and a pencil instead of photoshop and try to make something different. Be unique on everything not just only wordpress themes, that’s the life’s rule.

+ Select a subject

Don’t start with an empty idea. Select a subject or concept to think and design. That’s the basic idea of point targeting. If your theme is related to a subject you will get more downloads because of targeting. Just see the most popular wordpress themes . You will see “Halloween”, “Christmas” or “Sport Section” themes at the top. Did you think why they are the most popular ones? Because people are just viewing and downloading the themes. There is no need to change and modify a theme to their specific subject because it is always done by the designer.

+ Choose eye-catching images

Images can be good and bad. It can be bad if you use a low resolution, outdated and cheap looking image (if you are making a historical theme just be sure to use a classy image). There are so many stock image sites which are really good and cheap if you choose more than 1 month memberships. Use them, people are clicking the shiny theme thumbnails more. If you get more views/tests you get more downloads.

+ Don’t forget the other categories

We have a stats page displaying some wide angle over the themes. Probably every theme designer checked the page at least once. According to the page “Personal Pages”, “Plain” and “Nature” themes seem dominating the theme world. What about the others? There is a simple marketing rule: If there are too many choices people get confused. So make themes for other categories to get more attention to your themes.

A tip: Our theme admins are looking for the theme images to select the right category.

For ex: A man with a suit fits well to our business themes category or an email sign (@) best fits to the internet themes category.

You can always research our theme categories to get an idea.

+ Stats are essential for decision

What makes internet so special for decision making? Internet is measurable. Every data and every piece of track is measurable. Bloggers are checking the theme view/test/dowload stats to see the theme performance over the time. So you need more views in order to get more downloads. Link to your theme page from as many sites/pages as you can.

Samples below:

Theme: Theme Name – Link: http://www.yoursite.com/yourthemepage/
Theme: Theme Name – Link: http://www.wpthemesfree.com/view.php?theme_id=####

Try to link from popular sites. Incoming visitors boost stat graphs and this will result as more downloads for the future.

+ Keep your theme simple, stay away from plugins

Wordpress is a great software and the developers are proud of its easy install, manage, post etc. If I am a doctor and have no time to learn some coding, html etc. I choose wordpress to express my feelings or my researches because my time is very valuable. Some themes need plugins to run which mostly end with a downloaded but not used theme because of the plugin. So only use widely known plugins If they want to develop their sites, they can search and install the right plugins. Give bloggers the right to choose.

+ Name a theme with a highly searched keyword

First, look for a highly searched keyword from a search engine. Choose one and your subject is almost ready. Then make a theme related to the keyword and voila. If a keyword is highly searched, there should be sites targeted to the keyword and some of these sites are surely using wordpress and need your theme to get more downloads.

+ Always include the PSD or source files

If you are using Photoshop you should have the PSD source files or GIMP in linux you should have the XCF source files. Always include the source files, sharing is the growing trend for today’s net so share them. Also if there is karma, this is good karma.

The idea is clear: If you give the most you will get the most.

+ Translate themes

Announce your themes for different languages to get more audience. If you don’t know more than your native language, ask your friend or ask somebody via internet. Check our geo pages to see the world’s interest for each theme.

+ Sponsors and your time

You are spending the most valuable thing in the world (time) for designing and developing your themes. Earning some cash is surely your right, we are not against the sponsors and sponsoring the themes.
We have currently over 1500 themes on our database and we have an interesting data for you. We grouped the themes virtually like below:
1. Themes which have 2 sponsored links,
2. Themes more than 2 sponsored links.
Themes which have only 2 sponsored links got the %67 of the downloads from the opening of the site. Also they are less in number when compared to the others.

+ Don’t include google ads or similar

There are two bad things about adding google ads around the theme. Both ends with a disappointment. If an excessive click occurs for your ads on the site which downloaded your theme, google can ban you from the adsense program. The second bad thing is, if the theme downloader is experienced, he/she can easily remove your theme from the possible options for his/her blog. Nobody wants to start a blog with ads/banners and nobody wants to publish someone else’s ads/banners around his/her site.

+ Test at least in 3 browsers – Firefox, Safari and IE

Some of the theme makers are missing to test their design on different browsers before relasing. You should at least test in 3 different most common browsers which are Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer. Try to use the latest browser versions to see the differences between them. These 3 will guarantee %95 of the visitors but If you can, try on more browsers like Opera, Netscape, Konqueror, Epiphany etc.

+ There are different colors than white, black and blue

According to our stats page white, black and blue are the most used colors in themes. Black and white are understandable for background colors but what about the blue? Maybe designers are mostly male audience. Try to make themes for the other colors to increase attention by attracting different audience to your themes. This will get back to you as more downloads.

+ Make themes for the latest wordpress release

Yes, keeping your themes up to date is very important. For ex: WP 2.3 has the tags and should be in new themes.

*Above tips are not just for our site, you can use some on every theme directory or list sites...


Wordpress Themes Theme Admins
Updated 26th Nov.

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