WordPress is the best CMS for news or magazine blogs. They come with an appealing and well thought layout to post news, images, to conduct polls, engage visitors with discussions and much more. All you have to do is get one of these themes and restyle them to your needs.
If you’re looking for a theme that can do a lot to meet what a host of clients need then you definitely want to check out Orange Core. This multi-purpose theme is great for business and corporate sites although it does have excellent portfolio capabilities too. Awesome presentations may be done using the panoramic full-width homepage slider. Built in pricing tables, service pages, column variations and other page templates included are great tools necessary in building business and corporate sites. Orange core can be a great way for potential customers to get information about your business using these features. Orange Core is optimized for mobile and touch screen devices and is built on twitter bootstrap.
Vernum is a clean, modern and powerful One Page Parallax theme that can virtually be what you want it to be. This theme has a drag and drop page builder to help you create the pages you want. Vernum also uses the parallax effect for added drama as you scroll down the page. In addition to these, Vernum uses retina ready graphics, is responsive, has great blog and portfolio capabilities, and uses CSS3 animations. It is flexible enough to meet the demands of websites of different kinds.
WP Education is a premium theme designed for schools and educational institutions. Many educational institutions suffer from unimpressive websites. WP Education is a viable solution to add that professional air to any academic institution. Aside from the normal blog and gallery capabilities, schools can use this theme as an administrative and organizational tool to publish available courses, their descriptions and comments, and even process applications from prospective students.
Universfolio is a responsive multipurpose theme you can use for business or for pleasure. Whether it’s a corporate website, a personal blog or a creative portfolio, Universfolio has something for you. The theme uses the popular and powerful Revolution Slider to give you stunning slide transitions and layered 3d effects. This allows you to present eye catching slideshows to make casual visitors stay on your site longer. The theme also has awesome portfolio and blog page templates to showcase your work and keep visitors up to date with what’s going on. Universfolio is WooCommerce ready giving your site extra ecommerce capabilities.
JP is a cool and modern vCard WordPress theme for the creative professional. It’s got everything you need to create a good first impression on visitors, current clients, and potential clients. It’s simple and clean menu system allows you to navigate through the whole site without much fuss. It includes a great portfolio that allows you to showcase images, videos and other media projects on your site for interested parties to look at. You also have a blog page so visitors can get an insight on how you approach projects and tasks. This theme also has a Services Page and a Contact Page for those interested in hiring your services.
If you are a photographer wanting to setup your own website or wanting to revitalize your existing one, check out Lambo. Lambo Premium WordPress Theme gives you special ways of showcasing your photos and images. This theme is perfect for the photographer or graphic artist who wants his/her work presented to potential clients artistically. The theme’s homepage slider is designed so that the graphic gives you the semblance that you are looking through a lens. The full screen slider presents your works in a choice of sliders including one with the popular Ken Burns effect.
Realia Premium WordPress Theme is a real estate and property rental theme ideal for real estate agents, brokers and professionals. This theme allows you to manage properties for sale or for rent so that potential buyers can go to your site and look for the property they desire and easily find it. This google map integrated theme allows visitors to search according to location based on defined filters like: number of baths, price, whether for sale or for rent. This theme has a dedicated page for each property with a description, an image gallery and a google map indicating its location. An inquiry form is conveniently located on the sidebar to facilitate contact with a broker. Property owners can submit their properties for sale. Theme supports IDX infrastructure trusted by professionals in the real estate industry.
Imagine a world without technology. Difficult, isn’t it? No Internet, no computers, no cell-phones, no TV. Surely technology makes our lives easier and more technology makes our lives even easier. New inventions are made every now and then and they need the word to spread so that more and more people will know about them and may use them. In today’s world the Internet is one of the best options available to spread the word about anything. Other aspects like TV commercials, print media ads, posters, etc. are somewhat limited in the sense that they do not provide the “complete information” about a product.
Portfolio, photography, and artistic WordPress themes are always popular. The ability to showcase images, videos, and text in one theme make it ideal for different web applications that can serve both artistic and corporate specifications. Here are some of the latest creative WordPress themes available in the market today:
Create a lasting first impression with Bloq Premium WordPress Theme – a highly customizable theme with a fully responsive layout. The modern flat graphics and block layout format gives you that high-end graphic designer look perfect for creative agencies and freelance design professionals. This theme’s dedicated control panel allows users to configure the majority of the theme’s aesthetics and functionalities like color choices, page templates, and features such as post-formats, page templates, custom widgets, shortcodes, other theme elements that can help you create the look and branding you need.
PurePress is a responsive and retina-ready theme that is packed with customization tools to help you create a multi purpose portfolio site. It is fully responsive and optimized for mobile devices. Features include slider choices, 6 skins, boxed and wide layout options, 8 layout options (with or without sidebar), tons of page templates. This theme is also capable of “password-protected” posts – a useful feature especially for professional photographers.
AWSM is clean and simple, fully featured WordPress theme, perfect for creative people, freelancers or agencies. This unique theme reminds you of popular networking sites such as Facebook and Pinterest with a twist using familiar features such as the Facebook timeline and Pinterest’s masonry style grid layout. This theme is ideal for the creative freelancer who wants to display his work, projects, skills, services, and other interesting information (professional or personal). AWSM uses responsive design, stylish CSS3 and jQuery animations.
It is highly customizable with powerful theme options panel and many custom features. Another feature highlight is the option to use either a one-page layout which means your pages will scroll to its content, or the standard menu navigation which means that every page will open as a separate page on your website. You can even combine both without affecting any of your website content. AWSM is a unique and fresh take on the traditional portfolio styled theme.
Create an impressive repository of your personal work using Ideanosse. Personal or creative websites need not be boring or look cookie cutter-ish with the usual predictable layout. If you are a little bit bored with what’s out there, check out this minimalist , responsive, single Page HTML5 WordPress Theme designed on Bootstrap Front End Framework. It is designed for specially small agencies to show their business online in more modern way with maximum coverage of clients. This theme can also be used for modern designers, developers & freelancers to show their works in a creative way.
The Barbershop is a One Page Responsive WordPress Theme with a clean, unique retro/vintage design. The theme is packed with great Custom Post Types and Theme Options to display any kind of work on your website. Taking its playful design cue from the iconic Marx mustache, The Barbershop is a solidly designed theme that (although primarily designed for Barbershops) can be used for other website applications including your personal portfolio. This theme’s responsive development displays perfect on any tablet and mobile device and is easy to edit and maintain.
If you are running an ecommerce site, a money site, or a monetized website you need to understand Click Through Rate (CTR) and how to use it to your advantage. The click-through rate (CTR) is the number of unique clicks on links in an email message divided by the number of delivered email messages in a campaign.
The purpose of click-through rates is to capture customers’ initial response to websites, whether it be to buy a product, read an article, watch a music video, or search for a service.
According to Google,
“A high CTR is a good indication that users find your ads helpful and relevant. CTR also contributes to your keyword’s Quality Score which can affect your costs and ad position.”
Although generally, there is no ideal click through rate that can be used as a standard because there are several factors that come into play in every ad campaign that can affect its effectivity. The best thing you can do is to observe and experiment as to what works best for your business. Be a student of your market and study the behavior and responses of your target demographic to the ad campaigns you serve them.
How can you improve your CTR? Here are some strategies shared in the Traffic and Conversion Summit which you can try to improve your CTR stats:
For email marketing, timing when the email is sent to the subscriber is very important. Some say that the best days are between Tuesdays and Thursdays. The best time to deliver your email may vary depending where you are from but you have to determine the: best time and the best days when you receive the highest results. Short mails usually result in higher CTRs. Tip: Weekends are great for low-dollar and lead-gen offers.
Another important factor to consider is where the link is placed. Strategically, links can be placed in the: intro of the email (1st paragraph), the body (middle), and the close/p.s. sections. Visibility is key. Place ads as close to your most important content as possible. Try to keep your page clean and avoid cluttering it with blinking ads that could lead to banner or ad blindness.
Image placement is also an important factor to increasing your CTR. Make sure that images are clickable. Images of videos are more likely to get clicked. A screenshot of a video with play button works best for video sales letters.
Don’t be afraid to redesign, change or replace an ad or a strategy if it is not working well. Monitoring your statistics and close observation of consumer behavior towards your marketing campaign will give you the clues you need on how to improve your Click Through Rate as you go along.
BuddyPress is an open source social networking software package owned by Automattic – essentially, a plugin that can be installed on WordPress to transform it into a social network platform. If you are considering to up the ante on your blog by being more socially connected, here are some of the best BuddyPress themes you can check out:
Flix is a powerful and flexible community blogging theme for WordPress. you can use to start your own community in no time. This theme includes BuddyPress and bbPress as part of the many superb features of this theme. It also includes a SmartTab system where you can put authors in the spotlight. Easily order the front page by posts from a specific author a specific category without reloading the page. The team blogging feature is perfect for both small and big blogs that have multiple contributors. This responsive theme is also whitelabel enabled which means you can easily customize the theme to suit your business brand.
OneCommunity theme is a responsive WPMU compatible theme integrated with a BuddyPress plugin. This plugin allows users to register on your site and start creating profiles, posting messages, making connections, creating and interacting in groups and much more. This theme is a social network in a box where you can build a social network for your company, school, sports team or niche community. The theme includes over 40 inner pages to manage profiles, activities, messages, group messages, invitations, subscriptions, and forums of both members and groups.
Razor is a responsive and clean, professional looking BuddyPress theme for WordPress. Built on a responsive layout structure and supporting Retina (HiDPI) enabled devices, this theme is packed with powerful modern features and the advanced controls such as Drag and Drop Layout Manager, Contact Form Builder, White Label Admin, Sidebar Manager and so much more. Building websites, communities, social networks is a breeze with this amazing looking theme. The possibilities are endless.
Social Buddy is a responsive, flexible, BuddyPress and BBPress integrated community WordPress theme that is perfect for niche communities and social networks. Its fully fluid responsive design makes it work beautifully on mobile devices. This theme includes extensive documentation and an intuitive options panel making setup and customization a breeze. Theme support is excellent and top notch.
Here are a few of our current picks for awesome corporate themes for 2013:
Time to make the big Shift from your cold and stiff corporate website into a highly creative, extremely customizable, responsive theme WordPress theme – Shift Premium WordPress Theme. This theme includes 12 homepage layouts to choose from. It’s drag & drop enabled feature also allows users to easily arrange, enable/disable sections according to their specific needs or tastes. Each section is customizable, with the option to change background colors, background images even the image position within each section. It is WooCommerce enabled, bbPress ready, retina ready, and fully responsive. This theme was built using the Bootstrap Framework.
LOUNGE Premium WordPress Theme is a high quality professional WordPress theme for modern business or interactive creative use. Its clean and professional looking layout creates that sense of reliability and trustworthiness necessary in business. Amazing features include: 4 fluid AJAX animations (can be turned on or off), unlimited Parallax pages, unlimited sliders & slides to each page using two types of built-in sliders, fully responsive, modular shortcodes, and highly intuitive and friendly to use framework.
CoWorker is a responsive flexible multi purpose theme built for a business, portfolio, corporate, agency or any other kind of website. Salient features include: fully responsive and retina ready design, 12 premium sliders, 30+ page templates, tons of shortcodes including a shortcode generator, 6 header options + menu styles, custom widgets, and many other features to help you redefine your website’s brand.
Moxie Premium WordPress Theme is a blend of style, creativity and power. This powerful WordPress theme allows you to take control of your content and build the website you need with the content you want. Creating your own signature website is easy with features such as: Mega Menus, Dynamic animations with Slider Revolution, Drag and Drop feature using Visual Composer, Contact Form Builder, a built in Template System, and so much more.
Stark Premium WordPress Theme is a highly customizable multi purpose WordPress theme designed by 3 elite Themeforest authors (Damojo, Themepunch, Thunderbuddies) to give you a mega WordPress theme that leaves nothing else to be desired. Quality plugins such Visual Composer, Slider Revolution, Isotope Image Grid Plugin, and FancyBox 2 Lightbox plugin, are just some of the top-notch features included in the premium WordPress theme.
If you’ve been around the WordPress community for quite some time, you surely are familiar with WordPress theme clubs, popular or otherwise, and how they work. For those just getting their feet wet regarding everything WordPress, check out our previous article, What is a WordPress Theme Club for a quick run through on theme club basics.
For the WordPress newbie, here are some of the more popular and still active WordPress Theme Clubs to explore.
Elegant Themes is one of the most popular WordPress theme clubs, with over 170,000 customers. They currently have more than 81 themes, releasing new themes regularly. Elegant Themes offers its members access to a variety of themes that range from portfolio themes, to business themes, to blogging/news themes, to eCommerce themes, to personal themes. Their themes have a distinct style that combines aesthetic and function seamlessly. Elegant Themes offers 3 different membership packages: Personal, Developer and Lifetime options with access to more than 81 themes, shortcodes, and other benefits.
The Genesis Framework and child themes by StudioPress have been around for quite some time as well. Founded by Brian Gardner (Copyblogger), StudioPress has been churning high quality coded WordPress themes for years. StudioPress is different from Elegant Themes in that they sell themes individually in addition to the club membership. With over 86,000 members and 43 themes for a one-time fee of $349.95 which includes lifetime access to all of the current StudioPress themes, all future themes, and updates to all themes as they become available.
Themes Kingdom offers all of their themes (currently 47 themes), plus 1 plugin (Scebo, for a customer support system) for $50 per year. Members can use the themes on an unlimited number of domains, including on client websites. Themes Kingdom members get access to attractive themes in a wide variety of categories, including portfolio themes, business themes, blog themes, news themes, and more.
Organic Themes was founded in 2009 by David Morgan and Jeff Milone and was developed as an expression of their personal lifestyles. Their design approach lean towards the more professional look sans the excessive flashy effects, gradients, drop shadows and other bells and whistles commonly seen in the web design world. They are committed to clean code, with just the right amount of theme options which translate into faster load times, setup and customization. Organic Themes offers a variety of premium WordPress themes for artists, businesses and bloggers.
ThemesTown is one of the new kids on the block that’s worth watching. If their impressive and creative website design is a gauge of what can be expected from them, then there is much to look forward to. Right now, they are building up their depository of homegrown exclusive premium themes but while you are waiting, you can also check out their huge list of the best free WordPress themes that have been culled from what’s out there. Membership rate is pegged at $55 one-time fee, with no monthly dues and no future charges.
Here are a few of our current picks for awesome photography themes for 2013:
Modelish is a unique modern HTML5+LESS fully responsive WordPress theme for presenting artwork or photography. This full-width photography/portfolio styled theme is also versatile enough to be used for any type of business as well. The stylish, yet clean and professional design is optimized with mobile first techniques and retina display support. Add some style and modern flair to your website with its customizable system that makes it easy to adapt to your favorite colors, fonts and style preferences.
Keres is a cool fullscreen responsive WordPress theme built for a photography or portfolio website. It comes with many cool features like multiple slideshows (fullscreen Slideshow, Ken Burns Slideshow), a unique Image Flow Gallery, Skin manager, fullscreen Contact Map, fullscreen Youtube and Vimeo Video. This theme includes customizable elements (color, font, background image) with 50+ advanced shortcodes and a Shortcode Generator support to create the portfolio style you really want.
Photojax is a clean and minimal, grid styled WordPress photography theme. This sleek and modern theme features two color skins, beautiful galleries using the premium Royal Slider plugin ($20 value), an audio player, and a minimal blog (all you’ll need for a great photography portfolio). Although designed for photographers it can be a great theme for graphic designers, architects, and anyone else with an image based portfolio.
Sniper is a sleek and powerful premium responsive + liquid WordPress theme built for photographers, creative agencies or portfolio website. All elements of this theme are liquid which makes it ideal for smartphone and mobile devices. This modern WordPress theme’s dynamic navigation system makes it fun and interesting to explore your website – from dropdown menus to toggled pages, everything is full of surprises.
Smarald is an incredibly unique, highly interactive, retina ready, responsive WordPress Portfolio theme, suitable for all sorts of creatives, agencies and even blogs. Whether you want to showcase your work in a beautiful way, share your articles with your readers, or just to have a great interactive website for your agency, this premium theme is the perfect solution for you.