7 Bestselling Unusual Themes for WordPress

There are some things that are truly unique and outstanding that they can’t help but stand out and rise to the top of the heap. Here are some of the best selling WordPress themes that owe their popularity to a unique niche that they fill.

X Theme

Dubbed as Themeforest’s most popular new product, this theme presents itself as the ultimate WordPress theme. The claim’s validity is backed by real world results and real time feedback from its satisfied users who have experienced the endless customization options available to its owners. While it offers a lot to those who want to dabble into the “nuts and bolts” of the theme, X also offers strong solutions for those who just want to get something up and running on their sites in no time. The theme has 3 predefined stacks that can be easily tweaked to give newbies and non-techies a “made by a professional” look for their websites. X offers features that have set the standard and raised the bar as far as WordPress themes go. Not surprising considering the experts who have given their inputs in the development of the theme not to mention the developer’s open ears to customer feedback. It is also not surprising that many already consider this as the last WordPress theme they will ever need.

Directory

This unique theme allows you to easily set-up an online directory portal listing categorized items of any type. You can have a directory of shops, websites, companies and more. This may be accomplished conveniently with from a frontend like admin panel giving you a more user friendly set-up experience. Visitors will find Directory a convenient reference resource as it delivers information in a concise, convenient manner. Entries are displayed as pins on a google map of the locale of interest. Alternatively visitors may search from a search box or browse off a category of entries. Directory comes with a lot of ad spaces so you can cash in on the traffic your content generates. This theme is integrated with Paypal so administering payments from advertisers and listed establishments isn’t a hassle. With more than 6000 satisfied users, Directory is considered the Best selling directory portal theme on themeforest.

Gymbase

This theme has been around for quite a while but remains a bestseller in its own right because of its special qualities. First and foremost it’s a Gym theme – unique and not like the rest. It addresses a viable niche market – the health and fitness market – where gym owners can easily create a website that can service players in this industry. Some of the useful features the theme has include: a timetable plugin included that allows members and visitors to plan the classes they will attend, Gymbase also displays the pricing for classes, features that allow updates for its members regarding upcoming classes, an easy to use admin panel equipped with a color picker to help you create your own custom look, and everything else you need to run a health and fitness website.

Academy

Designed to be a learning management solution for educational or training institutions to maximize the power and reach of the internet, Academy enables you to sell and share knowledge online. This theme gives you the platform to deliver classes and lessons to interested parties. Academy allows you to upload media content and documents as well as to encode quizzes and tests to check for your subscribers competency. You are also able to check the progress of your students, monitor the courses they take, as well as, administer payments. This theme is integrated with WooCommerce. Academy is an invaluable tool especially today, as more and more people turn to e-learning as a means of acquiring new skills and education.

Fundify

Fundify is the first WordPress theme designed for crowdfunding. This enables you to have a websites in the likes of Indiegogo and Kickstarter where parties can setup campaigns to raise funds for causes they support. Fundify allows you to setup campaigns for a fixed amount of money where supporters are only billed if the minimum target amount of the campaign is reached. Alternatively, the theme also enables flexible campaigns where whatever amount pledged is collected. Fundify also allows you to administer rewards to those who support your causes. The theme integrates with Paypal and easy digital downloads which makes it convenient for supporters to finance causes and advocacies that appeal to them.

Knowhow

With knowledge and information being an important commodity nowadays, it is not surprising to find a knowledge base theme in this list. What makes Knowhow special is that it enables you to setup your own knowledge base with ease and convenience while maintaining the privacy and control of information not available on public Wikis. You can list your content in the form of an FAQ. Knowhow also allows users to search by question or by topic which makes searching more convenient. Not your ordinary WordPress theme.

Jobify

Globalization and the internet have made the job market more competitive. Jobseekers have a need to display their resumes online so they can get the best jobs available. In a similar fashion, employers need to get the best talent available. Jobify is a job exchange solution used by top companies like dropbox to acquire the best talent globally. Employers can subscribe to your site for posting privileges. Jobseekers can post their resumes in response to job postings. This theme integrates with WooCommerce and Contact forms plugins to give you the best in payment and input management.

Flat Design WordPress Themes You Can Flaunt

Design trends come & go. Some rise to the top like a shooting star and stay there with the rest of the stars while others burst like comets and fade into the night sky. One so called design “trend” that has actually been around for the longest time has been getting much attention only recently. In fact, even Apple has finally embraced it and has incorporated it in their latest iteration of the iOs. Say hello to the flat design. And it has found its way in many of the newest WordPress themes being released. Here are some examples of WordPress themes that have gone “flat”. Check these out.

Nova Flat & Clean Responsive Theme

If you are looking for a WordPress theme that can be used for multipurpose applications and for diverse types of websites, check out Nova Premium WordPress Theme, a clean, flat design multipurpose premium theme that will surely amaze you. It’s got a sample content importer, 14 homepage options, 9 premium sliders, unlimited header options, a page builder, fluid layout, a skin manager, and a short code editor just to name a few. The flat graphics are integrated nicely and they add to the overall professional look of the theme.

Showy Bold and Flat Portfolio

Impress your clients with this ultra minimalist, boldly simple, flat design WordPress portfolio theme, Showy. Design agencies, creative professionals, and freelance artists will love the simple, uncluttered look of this premium theme that will surely put their creative work in the spotlight. Less is more, indeed. And if it’s a portfolio showcase you want, you have everything you actually really need in this excellent theme.

Flat Responsive Portfolio Theme

If your’re looking for a fresh new way to present your portfolio in step with the latest flat design trend, Flat Premium WordPress Theme is worth a peek. The horizontal scrolling action gives visitors the feeling that they are going through a glossy high end design magazine. You get a choice of 2 homepage options, flat design interactive social media buttons, AJAX pagination for quicker load time, collapsible side menu, tons of other features, plus it is retina ready (great for images) with an optional retina logo upload field feature.

Revusion Flat Corporate Theme

Revusion Premium WordPress Theme is a flat responsive, modern and very professional looking corporate theme packed with features for today’s modern business. Revusion integrates Pixeden flat icons into its design as inspired by the current flat design UI trend. This premium theme gives you several different layout options via its page templates. You can choose to add a testimonial page, a team page, a services page, an FAQ page, a gallery page, aside from the usual blog, portfolio, and contact pages to ensure you can pick exactly what you want to add to your site. This retina display ready theme also comes with the Slider Revolution Responsive WordPress Plugin.

Sistina Flat Multipurpose Shop Theme

Sistina Premium WordPress Theme is a clean and modern WooCommerce theme, designed with a fresh flat style and with a great responsive and retina-ready design. The cool flat graphic elements, modern typography, and streamlined layout give this theme that modern flair that will appeal to today’s modern shopper. This WordPress theme includes several premium features like the Wishlist and the Compare Products features, the Product Enquiry form (for catalog use sans the shopping cart), the Ajax layered filter, and also a Popup plugin to show offers and news.

eCommerce 3.0 – How to Structure Your Basic Ecommerce Store and Make it Work

The face of eCommerce is slowly changing as more and more people look to the internet not only for information but for physical goods as well. The convenience of being able to shop from the comforts of your own home or wherever you are is luring more and more consumers to buying online. Here are a few pointers Ezra Firestone shares about setting up an eCommerce store that works.

According to Ezra, in an interview by James Schramko, Ezra stated that,

“… one of the big things about eCommerce- what I call eCommerce 3.0 – what’s changing about eCommerce right now is the day and age of the store, of the faceless eCommerce store is dying. The eCommerce that just puts up products and list manufacture descriptions is dying. What’s working now is adding value to your market, writing your product descriptions, ordering your products that are selling best and shooting videos about them, creating buyer’s guides like keep bundling products together that people want, figuring out ways that you can serve your community and creating a face and a brand and owning the race course within your eCommerce store.”

A. Basic structure of an eCommerce store:

Home, section product detail (most important) blog/content, checkout, PPC landing pages, more info, social profiles

SEO structure

  • Home page – 3 main KWs + modifiers (descriptor words). Ex. modifiers = colors, type of material
  • Top 75+ modifiers = section keywords. Section has products under it
  • Next 500 keywords that can be productized = products
  • Google product listing ads are great for ecommerce
  • Remaining relevant KWs = blog posts
  • 700 words per sections – modifiers written in (unique sections + descriptions)
  • Weekly blogging = about product, other keywords, EdC, each post has deep link + picture
  • Obvious on page – reviews, social buttons, etc
  • Internal link structure
  • Don’t over optimize
  • Author of the store – find some way to create a relationship with your customers

SEO Title Tags for ecommerce stores

  • “Vintage Costume Jewelry”
  • Description: KW, Phone #, Sentence, Modifiers
  • Get rid of big link boxes in the footer

Every search has a unique set of channels

  • Users prefer to consume media in different formats (video, audio, text, etc.) The goal: occupy as all positions as much as possible
  • Channel to occupy
    • SEO, PPC, Comparison Engine, email, social media
    • Image for each product – make sure if you have ownership of images, watermark them
    • Video for each section pages + home page
    • PPC ads (image ads + text ads, retargeting etc.)
    • Amazon listing for all products
    • Google search results: above the fold = ads, shopping, 1 or 2 organic results
    • Blog/ed content

B. Three Things to Track

  • Goal Flow: Product Page – Shopping Cart – CheckOut Page – Product Sale
  • Events: Product Options – Messages – Button Clicks, Errors (most important)
  • Site Search: monitor how the big stores like Amazon do it

C. Check Your Pages for These Items

  • Header : Search, Contact, Security, More Info, Cart, Chat/Live Help, Opt in, Offer (ex. Zappos header)
  • Favicon, Social links, Video, FAQ, Video Customer Service
  • Testimonials (random display), Bestsellers
  • Footer: Trust Seal, Search, Opt in

    • Homepage : Main rotator or slider with 3 images, tabbed featured products

  • Section Page: Items on sale – show percentage saved, Images open in lightbox for quick viewing, Featured item or deal should be on top of the page
  • Product Pages: Get rid of left navigation, Tabs on the left, Display social buttons above the fold, Cross sell recommended items, Guarantee, Trust, Shipping, Videos, Multiple Images, Recently Viewed, Put features/benefits under Add to Cart
  • Checkout Page 1: Make it look as nice as the Product Page, Shipping Calculator, Proceed button at top and bottom, Image, Product, Guarantees
  • Checkout Page 2: Multiple Payment Options

D. Boost Your Conversions With the Following:

  • Create FAQ on Shipping
  • Follow-up script on cart abandonments by email. Offer a discount
  • Use in-page analytics to optimize Section pages. Put products clicked the most on top of the page
  • Thank you video
  • Post purchase survey
  • Follow up with review request

If you are currently running an eCommerce website you can use the information above to evaluate how your site is doing. If you are planning to put up one for the first time, use them as your guide to jumpstart your business in the right direction.

Useful WordPress Plugins to Enhance Customer Support

WordPress professionals like theme and plugin authors, developers and other WordPress service providers constantly face the challenge of providing ample, quality after-sales support to their customers. It is a tricky area that even seasoned professionals need to constantly juggle. For those who are starting out new in the WordPress marketplace, it can be overwhelming to have a successful and highly-popular WordPress theme doing well as far as sales go because of the twin responsibility of providing high-volume customer support. Customer support can be the straw that breaks the camel’s back on any theme that sells like hotcakes which explains a lot of WordPress theme one-hit wonders. That’s why it is crucial to also include setting up a framework for addressing customer support during a WordPress theme’s development process and not be caught unprepared. Here are some useful tools and plugins to consider to address that need:

Live2support

Live2support is a leading live chat software with advanced features. Live2Support! Live Chat Software service is a simple plug and play hosted service and does not require any software installation or IT expertise.
You just need to place small code into your webpage to enable Live Support on your website. Live2Support’s flexibility and versatility allows you to tailor independent and separate chat windows for departments such as sales, product promotions, technical support, billing and customer service departments. Live2Support’s live support application generates detailed chat transcripts. This enables you to use these transcripts to conduct market research, develop customer profiles, train chat operators and evaluate chat operator performance.

WordPress Advanced Ticket System

WordPress Advanced Ticket System (WATS) is the ultimate ticketing system for all organizations looking at enhancing their customer relationship experience. This is a plugin that adds to WordPress the features of a complete ticket system: ticket numbering, ticket integration, ticket keys, ticket submission, ticket followup, ticket notification, et cetera. This allows users to submit tickets to report problems or get support on whatever you want. Users can set the status, priority, product and type of each ticket.

wpsc Support Tickets

wpsc Support Tickets is an open source WordPress support ticket system for WordPress using jQuery. It is a plugin for WordPress that allows you to offer support tickets to your website visitors & customers. It is lightweight, open source, Ajax enabled, and easy to use and administrate.

FAQ and Knowledge Base Plugin

Add a powerful FAQ & Knowledge Base on your WordPress Blog or Website with this plugin from Casengo. Casengo’s Cloud-based, affordable social customer support software brings the human touch back into customer service. Regardless of channel type, it simplifies real-time conversation by presenting a unique Hybrid Messaging Timeline.

Live Chat Casengo

Add live chat to your blog or website quick and easy with Casengo, so you can handle enquiries via email and live chat directly from your website. Casengo helps you to respond to customers faster than ever and improve their satisfaction with a groovy mixture of real-time chat and email. Casengo’s cloud application for customer support blends the best of email and chat. It empowers web shops and other small businesses to more readily deliver the right answer at once.

Zendesk for WordPress

Zendesk for WordPress allows you to bring your helpdesk, powered by Zendesk, into your blog or site. Zendesk offers: easy-to-use self-service options with knowledge-base and community features, one-on-one support through any channel (website, phone, email, Twitter, Facebook, chat) and turns it into a ticket, a ticketing system built for speed (simplified support team workflow) with streamlined systems for managing support content, access to all the info you need all in one workspace, efficient group conversations, and last, but not the least, portability through mobile apps on all devices.

SabaiDiscuss Plugin – CodeCanyon

SabaiDiscuss is a premium questions and answers plugin for WordPress. The plugin features the ability for users to ask and answer questions similar to Stack Overflow or Yahoo Answers. SabaiDiscuss is an ideal tool not only for building a community driven question-and-answer website but also for building a discussion forum, a knowledge base, or even a helpdesk portal for WordPress.

Interesting WordPress Themes April 2013

Academy (Online Education)

Turn your website into a functioning e-learning solution with Academy Learning Management Theme from ThemeForest. This premium wordpress theme takes the elegant form of an ecommerce site and tweaks it to meet the needs of the e-learning market. Share, sell and promote your knowledge online effectively. This powerful theme includes features and functions to help you manage course offerings, rate their popularity, and publish subscription plans aimed to reach your target market. This theme includes a powerful options panel that allows you to create courses and lessons.This theme provides awesome features for creating online courses, such as extended user profiles, rating system, questions system, file attachments, embedding self-hosted media, tracking course progress, WooCommerce integration and more.

Responsive Knowledge Base & FAQ WordPress Theme

For the business or website that exists to help people make the most of their computing experience, Responsive Knowledge Base is the perfect theme to use. This premium WordPress theme was built for support providers as a first line response solution for clients seeking answers to their problems, technical or otherwise. This theme acts as a knowledge base or depository where visitors can search your site for solutions to their issues. Users can browse through Q and A pages, articles and similar material or do a live search (jQuery TypeAhead powered) to help them identify their problems and find solutions.

Rescue – Animal Shelter Theme with Petfinder Support

Animal lovers unite! Rescue Premium WordPress Theme is a theme built with a specific purpose – to get animals adopted. Outstanding pet-related WordPress themes are few and far between that’s why Rescue is a special theme pet lovers can find a home in. What makes it more unique is the built in Petfinder API support that allows you to easily sync your pets from your Petfinder profile to your WordPress install. Petfinder is an online, searchable database of animals who need homes. It is also a directory of more than 13,000 animal shelters and adoption organizations across the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

GymBoom (Fitness)

If you are in the fitness business or if you own a gym, a health club, or a wellness center, check out GymBoom, a responsive fitness theme with a built in dynamic calendar to manage training schedules for those serious health buffs and fitness addicts. This responsive theme also sports a unique diagonal slider created with the slider creation tool. It’s got useful shortcodes to post lists, highlight text, create multiple columns and more. You also get two homepage option styles: one with a slider and a page styles option. Gymboom includes a google map shortcode integrated in the widgetized footer section.

ThemeForest Theme Sells Over 800 Copies In One Week

One WordPress theme, 7 days, 800 copies, $36,000 grand. A lot of WordPress authors and developers on Themeforest would love to achieve even a fraction of that and most of them are probably scratching their heads wondering why. This popular theme has even dislodged U-Design from its top spot for the past few weeks and to think it’s the only item in this author’s Themeforest portfolio. If you are wondering what theme achieved such a feat check out AVADA, a responsive multi purpose theme created by ThemeFusion.

Let’s dissect this theme a little bit further and try or simply attempt to figure out why the market is loving this theme.

Overall aesthetic

Avada’s layout can be classified as clean, straightforward, and professional-looking with very neutral colors and lots of white space. If you are familiar with real estate open houses, real estate professionals really spend a lot of time to “stage” a property before “opening” it up to the market. Care is taken to display only enough design elements to highlight the property’s unique and outstanding features, pulling back from adding unnecessary and distracting clutter. This deliberate “staging” is intended to give the potential buyer the room to imagine what he can do with it to meet his own needs. The focus is on its potential and what it can become. Avada is like that, a well-staged theme with lots of potential for all types of buyers. The demo is clear and easy to maneuver, giving customers a taste of all that it can be for whatever need they have.

Features & Functions

This premium theme is not just a pretty face. It has enough built in features and functions to create the website you need for yourself or for your clients. Everyone wants to create a website that is unique and representative of himself or his brand. Avada has a plethora of feature and function choices that, when mixed and matched together, with the client’s own images and content, can create a one of a kind and totally different website every time. Here are some of Avada’s easy to customize features that you can “play” with:

  • Homepage – 10 versions
  • Sliders – 6 styles
  • Headers – 5 versions
  • Page Templates
    • About Us – 2 versions
    • Services – 2 versions
    • Pricing Options
    • Meet the Team
    • Side Navigation
    • Contact Page – 2 versions
    • FAQ – 2 versions
    • Sidebars – Left and Right
    • Full-width page
    • 404 page
  • Portfolio – 6 layouts
  • Blog – 4 layouts
  • Custom Posts, Custom Widgets,
  • Shortcodes for Elements, Icons, Media, Pricing Tables & Typography
  • Responsive
  • Retina-ready

Support

Aside from the extensive, detailed documentation and easy to follow HD narrated video tutorials, Avada generously includes the entire set of PSDs (20+ files) for those who want to customize the theme even further. Buyers get 100% free support via their support forum. Customer feedback has been, overall, favorable so far. Providing WordPress theme support is not an easy task especially if you are servicing thousands of buyers. To receive favorable feedback regarding their theme support indicates that they have a support system that really works. This translates into higher buyer confidence which translates further into higher sales.

Avada has sold almost 15,000 copies to date and has received more than a thousand 5-star ratings which is something worth noting. Receiving a 5-star rating from 2 or more people can be easily dismissed but 1,000 or more satisfied customers can’t be ignored.

Fluke or luck? We think not. A good product with a lot of hard work backing it up sounds more like it. If this is the trend that the market is supporting as far as WordPress themes are concerned, then it is good sign that the market and the industry are headed for better days.

Get Avada Now!

10 Inspirational Typography Plugins for WordPress

Believe it or not – typography or the way you present your text and media on your website – plays a crucial role in building your brand name. Did you know? There are books comprising thousands of pages that teach you how to use a consistent typographical style on your publications. Such as well as “Style Guides” like The Chicago Manual of Style, The MLA Style Manual, Hart’s Rules or The Oxford Guide to Style, etc. Different organizations use different style guides and apply them on their publications in order to achieve consistency throughout the text. If a person who has been reading The Guardian for several months will be asked to identify the paper amongst a collection of many other papers such that the name of the publication is hidden from view, he will have little or no difficulty in identifying it. This is because The Guardian, just like all other standard newspapers, use a specific set of fonts, a specific indentation, a specific line gap, etc. in its publications. Such things help create an authority and reinforce the brand name.

It is not necessary that you follow the standard guides for your publication. If you want you can create your own set of style rules or mix some of your own personal tastes with any standard style manual. Whatever you decide, to help you in your endeavor I present you with 10 inspirational typography plug-ins for WordPress. Some are free while some others cost a nominal amount.

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15 Sensational Mobile WordPress Themes

 

According to a survey I came across a few months back, the number of people who use a smartphone is larger than the number of people who use a toothbrush! This means that if your website is not mobile phone friendly then you are missing on on a lot of visitors. Some people feel that if the number of people who surf the Internet on smartphones is A and the number of people who use the Internet from their computer is B then the total number of Internet users is A + B. Wrong!

A lot of people browse the Internet on their smartphones only when they can’t access it via a computer for e.g. while travelling in a car, train or bus etc. This means that there is a big overlap between A and B. A major portion of smartphone browsers is a subset of computer browsers. So what does this has to do with your website? A lot. If you ensure that your site is easily accessible to smartphones then the number of page impressions your site gets can dramatically increase as the same people who were visiting your site via their computers can visit it even when they are…say…travelling.

Below we have collected 15 beautiful WordPress themes designed specifically for mobile phones. Some are free and some cost a nominal amount. Check them out and see which ones work best for you! NOTE: A post on great Responsive WordPress Themes for 2013 is coming soon!
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