To celebrate the upcoming launch of Travel Blog Success, a new membership site and community dedicated to travel bloggers, I will be sharing a few of my recent revelations to help you build a better travel blog.
Premium Gazette Theme
Our travel blogs are our digital homes on the web. And their design and content reflects upon us as a resume reflects upon a job candidate. And if you’ve ever worked in management or human resources, then you know how little time it takes to size up a resume.
…10 seconds?
The same goes for websites, and if you want visitors to stick around, you’re going to need a clear, easy-to-navigate design.
When I got started with Go Backpacking in January 2007, I shopped around for free WordPress themes and didn’t even consider the idea of spending money to buy one. I was planning to quit my job and travel the world, and not keen to spend money on things I could get for free online. That was a BIG mistake in thinking.
Fast forward 2 1/2 years later, and I arrive back home from my trip, and flip the mental switch in my mind. My travel blog is now a business, not a hobby. Scheduling posts 6 times a week, negotiating with advertisers, and tracking income vs. expenses had become habit a long time ago. As with any business that hopes to grow, I loosened the purse strings to make wise investments from time to time.
Here are 5 reasons why investing in a premium WordPress theme is a smart decision in 2010:
High Quality Designs – Many of the most talented individual theme designers have banded together and built successful businesses by offering WordPress users high quality themes which look professional right out of the box. I opted for Woo Themes after shopping around on other popular sites such as StudioPress, Theme Forest, and Elegant Themes. As a result of adopting Woo’s Gazette theme on Go Backpacking last Fall, I’ve received numerous compliments on my blog’s design from readers and sponsors.
Competition – In terms of back-end usability and functionality, WordPress has improved so much in the last three years that everyone and their mothers are jumping on board. If other bloggers are willing to spend $50 – $70 to present themselves well, you’re at an immediate disadvantage by trying to get by on the cheap.
Customer Support – Companies offering premium themes offer customer support through forums. This is a rarity for free themes, because most free themes are designed by hobbyists who don’t have the time to answer user questions. The support in the Woo Themes forum has far exceeded my expectations, and I wish I’d had such help 3 years ago when I was just getting started. Unless you are seriously comfortable with hand coding HTML and CSS, buying a premium theme will save you a lot of time.
Affiliate Programs – Most premium theme companies will offer an affiliate program. Simply update the “Design by XYZ” link in your theme’s footer to utilize your affiliate link, and begin earning a new passive income. Quality themes will literally sell themselves. For example, my $70 Woo Theme paid for itself last month when a bunch of people clicked through the link and bought a Woo Theme for themselves. The commission is $14 on a $70 theme. Not bad!
Free Upgrades – I can only speak for Woo Themes here, but they continue to update their themes’ coding to fix bugs and improve the overall design to keep up with current web trends. I didn’t update the theme I used on my trip around the world for over 1 1/2 years (and I’m not sure I could’ve even if I had thought of it at the time). As a result, my site seemed terribly dated in comparison to all the new travel blogs that had sprouted up since I left home.
Do you use a premium theme? If yes, by which company and would you recommend them to others?
If you found this post useful, be sure to check out Travel Blog Success, my new members-only site.
About the Author:
Dave is the author of 1529 posts on Go Backpacking.
Dave (Editor-in-Chief) blogged his way around the world from 2007-2009, and then started Travel Blog Success to teach others how to do the same. When not writing, he can be found salsa dancing in Medellin. Follow him on Twitter @rtwdave or look for him on Google+
The Travel Blog Success community offers practical resources and personal support to help you build a better travel blog.
Whether you treat blogging as a hobby, or dream of building a location independent business, you'll learn what's required to create a name for yourself in the online travel world.
Benefits of Joining:
- Personal support from Dave, including site critiques and tips on negotiating advertising deals.
- Ability to learn from others' mistakes, and save yourself time, energy and money.
- Chance to network with other travel bloggers of all levels, from around the world.
Categories: Blogging, How To Make Money
Post tags: affiliate, blog, design, theme, wordpress
38 Comments
I currently use WooThemes, but I use a FREE theme that they offer called Irresistible. In the future if I ever decide to change my layout I would definitely stick with WooThemes, they are excellent. IMHO, they offer the best themes out there, free or premium.
I'm fairly comfortable with fixing css issues and even the occasional bit of crappy php code, but it just wasn't worth the ongoing struggle to use a free theme. Granted the theme I bought is very simplistic, it's built on a very solid code base and comes with nearly instant support. My time and sanity are well worth the cost of a theme. Especially considering how much I intend to be using wordpress over the next years(s).
I'm just a little bit closer to buying a premium theme after reading this post Dave! I'm really happy with Cody's Thrill Heroics theme … if I wasn't, I'd be on my way to buy a premium theme now. Good things to think about though.
I haven't seen the back end of the Thrilling Heroics theme, but I like the way it looks as a visitor.
On the other hand, its popularity means that unless you do some customization, your blog's design won't be doing much to set you apart from the other (travel/lifestyle design) blogs using it.
Yes, the premium designers do make a few free themes available to help get their themes on more sites. I like the look of your blog and congrats on your impending trip around the world!
Thanks a lot Dave. Fedback is greatly appreciated. Keep up the good work! I'm looking forward to Travel Blog Success, I'm already signed up!
Later!
I like you Dave, and I enjoy following the site, but have to admit that all the ads, buttons and general clutter make this site look like one hot mess. I understand the desire to monetize a blog and wish you the best on that path – seems to be going nicely for you! Good luck :)
Hey Chris, I appreciate the feedback. If you've got a blog, then you may know how easy it is to get use to your own site after spending hundreds of hours looking at it, and slowly adding more and more “stuff” until it gets overwhelmed.
I realize my header and sidebar have gotten a bit cluttered. Perhaps it's time to do some early Spring cleaning.
It's your call – your site. For me, I like the idea of something as intimate as travel, and personal reflections to be non-monetized, but that's a debate as old as the web.
Again man, I see the potential and the understand the reasoning but can't empathize with the action.
Doesn't mean I won't stop reading. Just had to voice that.
Great post – there's really a lot to be said for using premium themes. I used to design my own websites and the amount of time and effort saved by customizing a premium theme (versus starting from scratch) is HUGE.
I am building a new site and went with Woo Themes as well. I read about their top notch support, and they were offering 3 themes for the price of 1. Hopefully I can figure it all out as I am a n00b with coding and all.
Hey Eric – that's another thing I forgot to mention about Woo and other premium theme designers – they often offer great combo deals. I've gotten 6 or 7 Woo themes for the price of 2.
Hey Eric – that's another thing I forgot to mention about Woo and other premium theme designers – they often offer great combo deals. I've gotten 6 or 7 Woo themes for the price of 2.
This is great advice. I suppose the affiliate program is only available for customers? I have free theme through Wordpress Direct, but this is my first year blogging so I don't really understand all the ways to make money at it.
Yes, usually the affiliate programs are reserved for paying customers.
Starting off with a free theme by a design company is a great way to test the waters though – see if you like using it, and how other people react.
Thanks. I am having a little trouble with the Disqus commenting system. My commment wasn't displying so I did not think that it was posted.
I must say Dave, you site looks terrific!
You hit a home run with this theme.
Thanks Dave! This post is so helpful.
Hi Bobbi – looks like you've got a great Woo Theme as well. :)
great post. I have been debating about switching my Blogspot over to Wordpress.
Jodi – I've been hearing that from quite a few people recently.
What's holding you back from moving to WordPress?
I second the woo themes tip, they will actually go in and fix some of the problems you might have, even if you are the one who breaks it! The offer great support.
ciao dave, great post and great site, very user friendly i would say. i am also considering to switch to wordpress considering the last few bugs i am experiencing with blogger in the last days, damn it.
i need professional help eh eh :-)
Chris – moving to WordPress is the best thing I could possibly recommend. :)
do you know if there is any way to transfer your blog from blogger to wordpress without loosing your feeds and domain name? any clue? i have been searching the net but with no great results and since you are an expert blogger i thought you might know it, finger x
You'll definitely be able to keep your personal domain name.
Your RSS feed address will change, I believe, but the sooner you do it the better. As you're making the switch, you can just send out an announcement and let people know what's going on, and later send the new URL address so they can re-subscribe. You'll probably lose some casual readers in the short run, but your loyal followers will re-subscribe if you let them know what's happening. Long term, it's the right decision.
Once you're on a self-hosted WordPress account (meaning you are paying annual hosting costs, vs WordPress.com), you can really start to grow your blog.
If I buy a theme from Woo Themes, does that mean I get the basic design, but I can make the header I have on my blog now the header on my new blog? Would Woo Themes do that for me, or do I have to figure out how to do that on my own?
Joanna –
As with any theme design, you can customize Woo's to include your current header image.
For example, Brock from http://backpackwithbrock.com moved from Blogger to WordPress and bought a Woo Theme. He had the custom image you see now, designed for Blogger, but was able to buy a Woo Theme that allows you to easily insert an image of your choice as the header.
So yes, you can keep your header if you pick the right theme, though you may need to play with dimensions.
Thanks for your help Dave. I'm starting to wade into some fairly unknown waters as I upgrade my blog, so I appreciate the information you provide about making a profitable site.
Excellent advice. I went the frugal route, and decided to grab a free theme off the net. I have put plenty of work in customizing it so it now looks pretty good, but the hours spent updating it definitely wasn't worth the savings I realized. Live and learn I guess…
Sometimes, I think if you're lucky enough, you'll find a real cool free wp theme like the one I use on my site. It's called Bluzon but I think it's too good to be given away for free. Check it out yourself.
While I agree WooThemes are beautiful, I wonder about their functionality. They don't seem to be very web compliant. Then again, I'm not entirely sure what web compliant means anyway, it seems W3C can never be made happy.
Also tried the Thrill Heroics theme, which is a batard mod of a Woo Theme, and it slooooooowed my site down considerably. Not good since Google now counts load time as a page rank factor, and ideally your site needs to load in one second or less. Also the creator won't support the product, you have to pay him to support it. What the &%*# is that?
Any suggestions for a theme that is reasonably error free and was made on fantastic coding to be as web compliant as possible?
Melissa – have you given Thesis consideration? I’m sticking by Woo Themes, but if I were to recommend or buy from a different company, I’d go with Thesis due to its flexibility and great reputation for being designed well.
http://diythemes.com/
While I agree WooThemes are beautiful, I wonder about their functionality. They don't seem to be very web compliant. Then again, I'm not entirely sure what web compliant means anyway, it seems W3C can never be made happy.
Also tried the Thrill Heroics theme, which is a batard mod of a Woo Theme, and it slooooooowed my site down considerably. Not good since Google now counts load time as a page rank factor, and ideally your site needs to load in one second or less. Also the creator won't support the product, you have to pay him to support it. What the &%*# is that?
Any suggestions for a theme that is reasonably error free and was made on fantastic coding to be as web compliant as possible?
I currently have a blog on the wordpress.com platform and am deciding between the pro's and con's of getting a self hosted solution. I've got a lot of stuff already on the site and was wondering how painful the transition would be.
One thing that I've really liked about the wordpress.com solution is that they have the Freshly Pressed front page and getting featured on there will really send a ton of visitors to your blog. I've had 2 of my posts featured and I think that's really helped grow my blog.
Would love to hear your thoughts.
http://www.lifeinasack.net
I know this is really boring and you are skipping to the next comment, but I just wanted to throw you a big thanks – you cleared up some things for me!
Can you provide more information on this? take care
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