Comments (2)By Ahson Rafiq in Blog Design, My Projects & Startups on 15th August 2008
Well, Yea..It seems like a good idea again, at first skeptical but the way WP Themes are working out at blueverse, then why not a site made just for the wp themes that I make? I already have a design-ish-like
domain that would work out great with it, maybe you all remember it, cssFEDD, the css gallery!
And not just that, I’ve also already designed the theme for cssfedd and the first free theme that will be released later on when cssfedd is online as well. I’d like some feed back on it. There’s alot to be done and considered before I go on making a wp theme site like this, points such as.
- Should I offer Premium/Paid wp themes as well?
- Should I just make a membership site?
- Should I offer sponsored wp themes?
- Should I sell links to make money?
It doesn’t seem as much if you read it at first, but when you really think about those points, each point takes you in a completely different direction for the site, if I choose carefully now, It will help me in the long run,big time.
You can see the drafts of the themes below, this isn’t really the final draft, atleast I don’t think so, there will be alot more work done here, I still haven’t decided any monetization strategy here, but I know one thing here, a wordpress theme per week, every week one free wp theme release. How does that sound? 
CssFedd
SilverPress
Comments (5)By Ahson Rafiq in Blog Design on 30th July 2008
After going through many themes on this blog, I’ve finally learned the few things you must have on a wordrpess theme, things you can’t live without and somethings your wallet can live without (monetization). Now bare with me here, I’m going to be incredibly opinionated from now on, specially this post.
A wordpress theme for me has to be good enough to make me money, now to make money you don’t need a fancy over the top wordpress theme that is so complicated or sophisticated that it turns the advertisers off, keeping it simple and clean is what its all about, now let me review a few things a theme should have:
Blog Look!
The recent posts on the frontpage should be shown as full posts (full post content) - NO EXCERPTS
Stay away from excerpts on homepage at all costs, its not just for the seo value its about the amount of sponsored reviews you would get, usually I would do around 5-10 reviews a month but this month it was hardly 3, all thanks to my great idea for putting excerpts on the front page except for the first post. It was a good experiment though.
Ad spot creativity
Get funky with your placement for the ads (125×125 or whatever) you have on your blog, make them stand out, placement wise or graphic/decoration wise, its always good to make them stand out, the more they stand out the more advertisers would buy from you.
For example. in my new bv theme (to be released next week) will have a new place for the 125×125 ads on my blog. Which in my opinion is funky as hell.
Do not fuck with the columns
Yea, harsh but its true, just make columns big enough for the content and any images you would add or have already added alot in the past, width wise. The more you get creative with the columns the worst the theme gets, like I said before, it’s all about simplicity.
Header/Navigation - colorful but nothing that will make your eyes bleed.
Now the header has to be colorful, more then the whole theme actually, In my new theme I’m gonna keep the header short yet colorful to make all the most important links on my blog stand out 5 times more then this one. It’s pricy development but hey, it’s a small price to pay to understand and learn usability in a blog.
I hope that helped you guys, I’m trying to explain alot of things I’m learning in usablity of designs 
