UPDATED April 12, 2021: 2021 is sure to be another great year for WordPress Theme development. Like the millions and millions of people using WordPress, we eagerly await the Themes and Plugins to be released this year, and you can …
Drag and drop customizations via Page Builder plugins are quite popular because of the ease it provides in creating multiple layout configurations without messing with code. There are several page builders available in the WordPress market today. Here are some of the most popular ones:
Visual Composer is #1 Best Selling drag and drop frontend and backend page builder with 70k+ websites already powered. This plugin offers drag and drop page building with an intuitive user interface. What makes Visual Composer convenient is its front end page building capabilities. Visual Composer allows you to choose from 40+ different page elements or use custom shortcodes. The plugin also allows you to design your pages in a responsive way. The developers offer lifetime updates free of charge and has lots of tutorials available to help you use the plugin. The capabilities of Visual Composer may also be extended with premium add ons like Templatera or Easy Tables. You will be able to take full control over your WordPress site, build any layout you can imagine with no programming knowledge required.
Live Composer is a front-end WordPress page builder plugin with 28+ modules packed with functionality and styling options that allow countless variations to be made easily and without any coding. Live Composer offers front end drag and drop page building capabilities to your themes. It is designed to turn any theme into a feature packed beast. Live Composer comes with 28+ modules with easy customize options for each. Each module can be adjusted for device specific options making sure your pages look great on tablets, smartphones and desktops/laptops. You also have the option to create your own modules for specific functionality. Live Composer comes with special post types like Projects, Galleries, Downloads, Testimonials, Staff and Partners and transferring what you do on one page to another is easy with Live Composer’s Templates system.
Awesome Builder is a WordPress Drag & Drop Page Builder and shortcodes generator that offers the best solution you need to build a modern web page in the easiest way ever. This plugin widgetizes your pages allowing you to drag and drop your widgets into any section of the page. No need to create new modules. You can use existing widgets on your website. You can also use 25+ widgets included with the plugin but it will work with any widget you have. The plugin also enables a responsive layout for your pages. Awesome builder supports animation for each widget you add. Awesome Builder supports full width, background color image and video support.
Parallax One Page Builder enables you to create your own one page website in just a few minutes. With this plugin you can create unlimited landing page with more features options and unlimited sections each with parallax effects as you enable. The plugin also comes with gallery and portfolio capabilities included. The first section gives you 7 slide gallery you can use with images, color or YouTube video. Each section there after can have an image, color or YouTube video as background. Plugin employs custom SEO for improving your sites web search results.
Drag and Drop Shortcodes is a great WP plugin with intuitive drag&drop interface and lot of elements to choose from, like: Accordions, Stats Counter, Knobs, Alert Boxes, Animation Box, Price Boxes, Progress Bar, QR Code, Service Boxes, Tabs, Team Member, Map, PayPal Buttons, Member Only Content, Tooltip, YouTube, Vimeo and self hosted HTML5 video. Drag and Drop shortcodes offer convenient page building capabilities using a highly intuitive backend interface. The plugin comes with a lot of page elements including Video, Stats Counters, Progress Charts, etc. Draggable sections and column allows you to present content as you see fit. Animation options, parallax and video backgrounds help you enliven your content even on the most boring default themes. What makes this plugin even more special is that it allows you to create your own modules with shortcodes.
Multipurpose WordPress Themes are great for creating all types of websites but sometimes it’s more convenient and it saves a lot of time to use a ready-made theme that’s specific to your website requirements. Here are a few WordPress themes that are more than just your usual WordPress theme designs. Check them out:
Joglo Premium WordPress Theme is a modern real estate theme especially built for the real estate business. This WooCommerce enabled premium theme makes it easy to run an online realty company that can handle transactions like offering property for sale or home/apartment renting service. It has a sleek and dynamic design packed with features and functions like: Advanced Search where customers can easily browse any property filtered according to price, location, type or some other category or tag; Agents page listing agents names, description, and contact information; Responsive and custom layout; Property page with a contact form; and, Property detail page with map
Advocator Premium WordPress Theme is primarily designed for non-profit, charity, organization, or advocacy related websites that aim to be interactive with their audience. This theme boasts of professional level accessibility and performance having been built using the Foundation 5 framework by Zurb. Key features include: audience can engage with you on mobile devices with ease, you can accept donations seamlessly, you can add Events for your organization, you can collect emails using Mailchimp, and if you’re a developer, you can customize super fast and efficiently.
Frisieur Premium WordPress Theme is a fully responsive theme designed for hairdressers, hair salons, stylists, makeup artists, and similar professionals you need to set appointments with. This theme includes features and functions like: Working Appointment form, Approximate time with timepicker (compatible with two time types), Opening hours table, Google Map with geolocalization, and Working Contact Form, – elements necessary to booking clients online.
Pump Premium WordPress Theme is a Wedding Event & Multipurpose WordPress Theme all rolled into one. This super simple and yet fully functional responsive theme has endless possibilities not only for Weddings and events but even for business, corporate, or portfolio applications. This theme can grow with its users and convert into something else and adjust as the couple’s needs and interests evolve. It is also WooCommerce, BuddyPress, bbPress, and WPML ready.
Woocommerce GoMarket Premium WordPress is a complete shopping solution for eCommerce owners. This theme includes 6 pre-designed stores making it easy to set up the store of your dreams. It features a
combination of Vertical Menu and Main Mega Menu to help customers navigate through the site easily.
Updated: April 12, 2021 – 2021 is nearing the middle of the year, and now is a good time to update one of our most popular articles here on Blogging Experiment. For several years we have been singing the praises of Elegant Themes, and 2014 is shaping up to be no different. In a day and age where companies and websites come and go, Elegant Themes has not only stood the test of time, they have continued to innovate by creating massive value for their over 250,000 customers! In the following article, we’d like to give you a detailed overview of just why we call Elegant Themes the Best Deal in WordPress!
After all, having the right WordPress Theme is crucial to your websites’ success. It’s kind of like the study that showed how people looking to buy a home can make up their mind within 8 seconds of walking in the door whether they like it or not – by not giving your visitors the right first impression (your design) – you’re literally inviting them to hit the back button.
As a blogger your focus should be on content. Blog design is important, but when you think about it, do people go to Craigslist because it looks pretty? Absolutely not. They use it because they’re the best in the field.
Since we’re not all Craigslists, we must merge the design and content aspects together in as seamless a manner as possible. You want to have a nice looking design, but you most likely are not strong in design itself (much less coding that pretty design). You want a unique, impressive look that conveys professionalism and passion about your craft, but you’re probably not an expert at usability (how “usuable” your site is to visitors). And finally, you want to do all this in the cheapest, most cost effictive way possible (nothing wrong with that).
Have you ever spent any length of time browsing around countless free wordpress theme sites only to be left feeling unsatisfied? Does it seem like most of the free themes are … well … free for a reason? Where are all the best wordpress themes? After going through these motions for a period of time, I decided to take a look at some premium wordpress themes to see if they were really that much better than the free ones. Shortly thereafter, I discovered Nick Roach’s Elegant Themes, and that changed everything for me.
I knew I could hire a web designer to create a nice looking website as I’ve done countless times in the past. But at $800 to $3500/pop, designers can be expensive. I was interested in finding a nice looking design that I could learn to tweak and modify myself to make it more personalized and customized to my liking.
As a website and blog developer, I am frequently developing new sites, and aside from the content itself, I want each design to be unique and professional. Enter ElegantThemes.
Elegant Themes Premium WordPress Theme Club
Forget $200 to $500 like many other premium theme clubs, for $69…YES, $69 – members get unlimited access and unlimited use to all of Nicks’ premium WordPress Themes. To date there are 80+ elegant WordPress Themes.
I’m going to get out of the way and let Nick’s design speak for itself. As you will see, these are top notch designs that would normally run you several thousand dollars a piece (I’ve researched hiring a good WordPress theme designer, and that is the going rate – typically the floor of their going rate).
Without further ado, here are some of the premium WordPress themes from Elegant Themes:
Nexus Features:
Example Site(s) using the Nexus Theme (Showcase):
More Information On Nexus From Elegant Themes:
Vertex Features:
Example Site(s) using the Vertex Theme (Showcase):
More Information On Vertex From Elegant Themes:
Fable Features:
Example Site(s) using the Fable Theme (Showcase):
More Information On Fable From Elegant Themes:
Foxy Features:
Example Site(s) using the Foxy Theme (Showcase):
More Information On Foxy From Elegant Themes:
Explorable Features:
Example Site(s) using the Explorable Theme (Showcase):
More Information On Explorable From Elegant Themes:
StyleShop Features:
Example Site(s) using the StyleShop Theme (Showcase):
More Information On StyleShop From Elegant Themes:
Fusion Features:
Example Site(s) using the Fusion Theme (Showcase):
More Information On Fusion From Elegant Themes:
Creating an online portfolio is no longer a challenge nowadays. There are hundreds of options for displaying photographs available to photographers today that give you that expensive professional look. Here are some of the latest WordPress photography themes you can use to show off your prized images:
PhotoReactive Premium WordPress Theme is a full screen studio theme for WordPress that photographers will love. This premium theme gives photographers tons of creative options for them to showcase images and other multimedia content both on the homepage and also in the portfolio pages. Full screen slideshows options include touch swipe capability, captions (with or without), photo wall, YouTube and Vimeo videos, static image, and the popular Kenburns slideshow (with or without audio). This theme is also equipped with Ajax & normal portfolio showcases, WooCommerce functionality to help you set up your own photography shop and it is also WPML ready (includes .po .mo language files.)
Devendo Premium WordPress Theme is a flat and modern portfolio theme suitable for photographers. This premium theme is built with Bootstrap 3, is 100% responsive and is also available in four color schemes that can be changed in the theme’s options panel. Key features include: smart overlay search function, integrated social sharing, responsive mega menus with Bootstrap grid inside dropdowns, full screen portfolio with direction aware hover effects, smooth scrolling AJAX-powered horizontal blog, among others.
Fidelity Premium WordPress Theme is a modern photography theme with a future-oriented design targeted primarily for photographers but can also be used by design agencies, architecture bureaus, etc. This premium theme takes a full advantage of the latest CSS3 hardware-accelerated transitions (with a fallback to jQuery animations) giving users incredible performance on diverse platforms like desktops, tablet PCs and smartphones. Some of the unique features include: the ability to set up narrow or full width page in a few clicks, the ability to show EXIF data in the portfolio posts, and the horizontal masonry style blog layout that gives you that high end magazine feel. You can also display unlimited slideshows and videos for your background.
The Gentleman WordPress Theme is a fully responsive multipurpose theme perfect for any photographer, designer, agency, or any business looking to show off their work. There are multiple homepage layouts, tons of portfolio styles to choose from, and a lot of other features allowing you to build your perfect photography/portfolio website. This theme includes features like: Price tables, team members, multiple blog layouts, preset flat and pattern styles, a powerful theme options panel, multiple sliders including the popular Revolution Slider, multiple portfolio options including the Magnific Responsive Lightbox, and so much more.
Camilla Premium WordPress Theme is a modern, minimal, full screen horizontal canvas ideal for displaying your photographs the way you intended them to be seen. This theme’s minimalistic design shifts the focus to your work with the use of distraction-free full screen video-ready galleries . Some of this theme’s modern features include: one-page layout, horizontal scroll, vertical scroll sections in horizontal layout, and it is optimized for mobile devices with its swipe navigation feature for smartphones and tablets, etc.
Get into the groove with these cool WordPress themes just in time for the most event-filled season of the year. Create a site for you or your clients that will surely stand out with these creative events and entertainment WordPress themes.
Polaris Premium WordPress Theme is an ultra responsive and modern one page WordPress Theme suitable for events or parties. This premium retina ready theme comes in 16 color styles and includes: Magnific popup, Font Awesome iconic font, parallax, easy to extend and much more. It is a great way to present your important events and activities all in one sweep.This premium theme is based on popular Twitter Bootstrap framework. This template uses the latest HTML5 and CSS3 technologies.
Clubix Premium WordPress Theme is a responsive theme designed especially for nightlife, events, and music related websites. Party goers,fans, followers, or nightlife club hoppers are always on the lookout for the latest happenings around town. A cool way to address the needs of this specific market is putting up an online calendar of events, concerts, gigs, tours, launches, and other events or nightlife activities that will keep them up to date. For music enthusiasts, Clubix has two custom post types ‘under the hood’ to help you create and upload new songs organised on albums and events. You can customize your background image and also the color of the main elements from the theme, add music players, sliders, WooCommerce, Google maps, and so much more.
Flycase Premium WordPress Theme is a professional and easy-to-use Music WordPress Theme that is highly and easily customizable, ready for all devices, simple to set up, and even e-commerce ready. Specifically designed for music enthusiasts, professional or not, this theme includes all the features you need to present, promote and sell for your band or label. This edgy, modern theme has everything a fan wants and everything a music artist needs – from photo/video galleries, discography, tour dates, multiple playlists, etc. – all in one cool theme.
Amplify Premium WordPress Theme is not your typical band theme with its minimalist and clean design but still capable of managing music website requirement such as gigs, discography, and videos with ease using the AudioTheme plugin. The WordPress admin panel is transformed into your band’s ultimate management tool with an easy-to-use user interface. Add your own language and display RTL languages as intended. Upload your tracks and allow users to play clips or full songs on every page of your website with the custom audio player. It ties in directly to your AudioTheme tracks and offers an easy-to-use interface for selecting and updating tracks in the jukebox. This theme is powered by Foundation by Zurb and Sass, a powerful CSS pre-processor where you can either edit the CSS directly or use Sass to regenerate your theme CSS easily and quickly.
Applause Premium WordPress Theme is a responsive one page band & musicians theme, built using Bootstrap framework using HTML5 & CSS3. For all who love music or those who are in the music industry such as music bands, musicians, DJs, producers, labels or organizers of events and festivals, this theme is the perfect solution to organizing necessary information and media such as Events, Audio, Galleries and Videos. Applause can display each event on their own map with its location and venue, the price and availability of the tickets. It can display your latest audio tracks with awesome player and you can even add a remote link or upload your own mp3.
The Internet has significantly changed and reshaped the workforce profile in the last few years. It has opened up opportunities for work outside of the traditional 9 to 5 setup and the lure of “work from home” or “work anywhere” is irresistible. Because of this, more and more people are opting to liberate themselves from the office cubicle and pursue non traditional work opportunities because of the flexible work hours and the income potential it presents – most of which can be found online.
The global economic landscape is flat in the sense that anyone in the world, regardless of location or educational attainment, can become the next big business online. The challenge for most businesses is how to take their bricks and mortar mentality into the world of bricks and clicks.These people need experts who can help them build their dream business – online. For WordPress professionals, the opportunities to service this sector cannot be ignored.
According to comScore,
The comScore report found that retail e-commerce sales produced over $50 billion dollars last quarter. The study found that e-commerce sales have seen double-digit growth for 10 consecutive quarters. While growth this quarter was strong, comScore found that it was slightly down from the previous two quarters.
“The first quarter of 2013 was fairly strong for online retailers, with total e-commerce sales surpassing $50 billion for only the second time on record,” said comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni.
“While the year-over-year growth rate of 13 percent remained healthy, it was a point or two below that of the preceding quarters.”According to the report, sales growth was down one percentage point on a quarter-over-quarter basis. E-commerce sales growth was also reported to be down two percentage points since Q3 2012. Fulgoni surmised that the slowdown was caused by payroll tax increases, which took effect in 2013.
ComScore’s report found that digital content and subscriptions, apparel, sport/fitness, consumer electronics, and consumer-packaged goods saw the greatest amount of e-commerce sales growth this quarter. The report shows that all categories saw over 20 percent growth year-over-year.
Here are a few key strategies WordPress professionals can use on how to take advantage of the booming WordPress eCommerce business opportunities:
Think Local, Sell Global. – think of businesses and services in your local area that have the potential to go global
Master the eCommerce process and understand how each step functions. WordPress professionals need to be well-versed on how the standard eCommerce process works:
Study your client’s needs and specifications and how you can integrate, merge, or streamline their current business practices and processes to their website. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and provide suggestions on how to modify or improve how transactions are processed.
Price yourself right. – Building an eCommerce site is more than just choosing an eCommerce supported WordPress theme, adding a plugin, and hitting the publish button. Consider the scope and the size of the whole project, the after installation support, and any additional web admin and system maintenance support you might be asked to provide before giving a price quote.
One of the highlights of the comScore Q1 2013 report says that,
E-commerce accounted for 10.6 percent of discretionary dollars spent, the highest share on record.
There is no turning back to business as usual. eCommerce is here to stay and it’s momentum is on the rise and WordPress professionals have every opportunity to take advantage of it.
Video is an excellent visual eyecatcher making it an effective marketing tool. It generates curiosity and is a perfect hook to grabbing the attention of website visitors. If you are not so video savvy or simply don’t have the time to shoot videos yourself, here are some outstanding resources for micro stock video footage for your website.
VideoHive is an Envato Marketplace where you can buy and sell royalty-free footage and motion graphics, After Effects Project files, motion graphics, and dvd menus starting at just a few dollars. Items are priced on the complexity, quality and use of the file. You can also get a free featured video file monthly when you sign up. Registration is free.
Pond5 is a stock media marketplace with over 1.9M stock video footage to choose from. Prices start at $5 for video which tend to be among the lowest in the industry because they are are set by the artists themselves who earn a much higher percentage than they do elsewhere. Free weekly stock video clips.
iStock started with just a handful of photos in 2000 but now offer vector illustrations, videos, music and sound effects. All iStock files are royalty-free1, which means you only have to pay once to use the file multiple times. iStock has 3 types of licenses : standard, editorial use only, and extended license for all their multi media stock. Free video given away monthly.
Sony Pictures Stock Footage is the stock footage arm of Sony Pictures Entertainment, provides advertisers, corporate video producers, and entertainment productions access to over 120,000 stock footage clips. All of the clips in the Sony Stock Footage collection were originally filmed for Sony Pictures feature films (Columbia Pictures, TriStar Pictures, Screen Gems, & Sony Pictures Home Entertainment) and Sony Pictures Television productions (previously known as Columbia TriStar Television). Sony Stock Footage content is available on 35mm, HD and any other digital format. Sony Pictures Stock Footage offers a wide range of rights managed clips with pricing determined by the exact licensing terms you require for your production.
VideoBlocks.com is a subscription-based (monthly) website that provides members with unlimited downloads of stock video, motion backgrounds, production music, sound effects, special effects, After Effects templates and much more. Instead of charging per download, members are given unlimited access and are allowed unlimited download rights to royalty free multi media clips that can be used on all types of video productions and projects.
Fotolia is the first worldwide microstock organization to offer both crowdsourced and professional images on one site. Their crowdsourced library includes millions of royalty-free images, vectors, illustrations and video footage clips. All video footage clips on Fotolia are royalty free, and can be added to your commercials and presentations without time limits or restrictions on the number of copies you distribute. Fotolia requires you to use your credits to download images, vector illustrations and video footage. You can also download with a subscription plan and benefit from amazing volume discounts.
Good food and exotic travel destinations – the stuff that we plan for and dream about. Trying out new dining places and taking on new travel adventures will always be a favorite activity to do after work or during vacations. The good news is your restaurant or your boutique hotel need not be so obscure anymore with the help of the internet. Creating your own website not only to advertise your business but also to process business transactions has never been more convenient. If you are in the food or travel industry, check out these awesome WordPress themes to showcase your gourmet creations or your luxurious travel and tour packages:
Tour Package Premium WordPress Theme is a clean and organized premium theme especially designed for those in the travel industry. This theme is equipped with a custom package post type that allows you to feature different travel and tour packages your customers can easily browse and choose from. This theme also comes with a booking form (Contact form 7 required) and a package filtering system to help customers find packages by location, price, available dates, etc. Tour Package also includes Page Builder, Layer Slider, Drag and Drop manager, WPML Support, WooCommerce support and many other features. It includes several page templates like gallery, sitemap, portfolio, pricing, etc. It is responsive, retina ready, and SEO optimized as well.
Show off your gastronomic delights and mouth watering dishes with Iron Bull Premium WordPress Theme – a responsive WordPress restaurant theme that will surely make your visitors hungry for more. This bold and modern theme is the perfect theme to showcase your signature dishes and unique cuisine to stand out from the rest. You can customize this interactive theme anyway you like or choose from two predefined schemes (Sunfire or Victory Blue) to get started right away. Features included are: google maps, a sticky navigation with scrollspy, menus that have prices and calorie counts, food menu treatment, page templates (careers, polaroid inspired image gallery), and so much more. This premium WordPress theme is also available in HTML version.
Give your visitors that luxurious experience on your website with Royal Gold WordPress Theme – a unique WordPress theme especially designed for luxury hotels, exclusive resorts, posh restaurants, and spa/beauty centers. This premium theme features the easyReservations plugin, Contact Form 7, and Responsive Lightbox plugin to give your clientele the comfort and convenience of booking or making an online reservation with you. This mobile first premium theme is capable of optimizing bandwidth for smaller screens. This theme also features the 360º Panoramic viewer plugin which is quite useful for showcasing a panoramic view of rooms and accommodations.
Savory Premium WordPress Theme is a clean, responsive WordPress theme for restaurants, diners, bars, pizzerias, coffee shops, etc. This no-frills theme comes in three skin types (Modern, Rustic, Classic), 4 custom widgets, a shortcode generator, a Retail Menu Cards plugin, all bundled in a simple, straightforward designed theme. You also get everything you need like: menu, contact information, map, opening hours, daily specials and other design elements necessary in setting up your restaurant’s online home.
Sweet Cake Premium WordPress Theme is a one page Responsive HTML5 CSS3 Theme for WordPress perfect for your business. The graphic is very sweet and creative – ideal for bakeries, ice cream shops, restaurants and cake designers but if you want you can change the colors to adapt the theme for all activities. In the package you will also find sweet icons in vector format. The theme has been designed using the 1200 px grid system with 12 columns.
Soho Hotel Premium WordPress Theme is an organized and easy to navigate WordPress theme designed for hotels, hostels, service apartments and any other kind of accommodation which requires a booking system. This theme includes 4 preset and ready to use colour schemes that you can choose from or you can also choose to create your own colour palette using the colour picker in the theme options panel. This premium theme also includes a fully functional booking system and room availability plugin allowing visitors to conveniently book and make reservations without the hassle of overlapped or double booking. This fully responsive and translation ready premium theme currently supports PayPal.
