Website templates idea. Please validate.

website design templates or website skins for business idea

[Othello]

Hi!

I started a site displaying design templates for a popular website building tool ... I started out when there were hardly a couple offering my kind of stuff, and I got good traffice and Google ads income too. However, soon after I drifted to other ideas in my design career. Now that I need some extra money from the web for sure, please help me with ideas on how to sell website design templates on the world wide web.

Thanks very much in advance for caring to drop by, read and replying here.

Rgds
Othello

[Staffa]

Did you have a look at how your competition does it?
It's a place to start for getting ideas of your own.

[Othello]

When I began on the project for the first time, my aim was to find a niche and then hit it hard. But, now I have lost that early mover advantage on that website building tool. There are a dozen other sites offering what I offered in the first place. That's why, perhaps, my google ads income has also come down to a third of what used to be earlier.

Any ideas on what other popular, open-source standard website add on I can latch on to, to sell designs for?

Rgds
Othello

[Lobo]

IMO , anyone looking for templates tends to be people who know little and have even less money.

And now there are absolutely numerous free template versions.. so why would someone who does not know the difference want to pay you for them? they wont..

I know it used to be an option, and perhaps as part of a complete package it can still be used now within a design company, offering a full life cycle package including SEO, administration and a marketing plan.. etc ..

But just trying to sell templates? that source of income no longer exists...

[RailMan]

>>IMO, anyone looking for templates tends to be people
>>who know little and have even less money

how wrong you are!

we used to hire in designers as an when required - now we just download top quality templates with professional looking designs. sometimes they're free, sometimes they cost $30 or $40. this is a HUGE saving on the cost of a designer.

the HTML / CSS used in the templates is often poor, but doesn't take long to straighten it out and make it standards compliant. templates come with "base" images, ie, the photo without text, the logo without text etc - we just drop our own text onto the image and job done!

far quicker and cheaper than creating our own based on a graphic design from a designer.

we can now spend more money on programmers, spend far more time programming etc. we can now turn out about 6 times as many sites as we did before we used templates.

we haven't done much client work for 2 or 3 years, mainly because clients are a pain at the best of times, especially with the constant changes to designs etc. we're now going to start taking clients again. we're going to show them ready-made templates and say "pick one" - they'll have hundreds to choose from - and that's the design side of things (60%+ of development time) taken care of.

templates are absolutely brilliant.

not much money in templates for the designers though.

[petehall]

Who wants a website that could be almost identical to someone else's?

I've seen this happen in our industry once before - the exact same template with a new logo and different text!

[Lobo]

I guess there will always be some work for factory workers like yourself.. but there is a little more to design than design ;)

If you are selling your 'Gold' 'Silver' and 'Bronze' package deals and getting the clients that way good luck to you, ... as I stated if it is part of a package it can still work...

does it develope the clients brand? does it impact and sell the business in the best way for the business? does it cover an integrated marketing strategy that promotes the brand over all media effectively. etc etc .. does it bloody look good?

I got the impression that Othello wanted to put a site up with 'buy my templates'.com and quite simply I believe that market is saturated and on the decline ...

[RailMan]

Who wants a website that could be almost identical to someone else's?

the sheer number of templates available now means it could happen, but the chances are slim. with minor customisation, you have a completely different site.
and anyway, you could pay 50 or 100 times as much for a bespoke design only to find an almost identical site later on - and i've seen this too!

there is a little more to design than design ;)

yes, but try telling the clients that ..........

does it develope the clients brand? does it impact and sell the business in the best way for the business? does it cover an integrated marketing strategy that promotes the brand over all media effectively. etc etc ..

this is, IMO, no different to the questions you would ask if you created a wonderful design yourself

if you do design work for clients, you have to go back and forth getting their approval etc - you will give them ONE or TWO designs and they will decide if what you've done will develop their brand etc - it takes a vast amount of time

alternatively, get the client specs, spend half an hour finding a dozen suitable templates, send them to the client and say "pick one" - job done - they're happy, you're happy - then you just tidy it up, put their logo on (or create one) etc - end result is same effect as for bespoke design, but reduced development cost, reduced timescales for completion, reduced cost to client, and no need to tear your hair out

does it bloody look good?

if you get the good templates then yes, you'd never guess it was a $30 template - like i said, these are templates with pro designs

I got the impression that Othello wanted to put a site up with 'buy my templates'.com and quite simply I believe that market is saturated and on the decline ...

same here and i agree about the market being saturated - don't know if the market is in decline, but certainly supply has outstripped demand and it's got to be tough to earn anything worthwhile out of it now.

[webtress]

The use of templates does save time and the market is saturated with sites selling them. In addition to other points mentioned when I'm in search of a template I look for unique designs and pretty much stay away from the affiliate sites that sell the same templates I see all over the net. I recently wanted to learn dreamweaver and purchased a dreamweaver template from a single source site. To make it you need to offer the "New never before seen" high quality, flexible designs that won't fall apart under stress :). My newly purchased dreamweaver template is 100% compliant, my hats off to P7, they have a new customer.

[petehall]

As a website user, template sites ring alarm bells with me. Not much money been invested so what sort of company are you dealing with?

I would not buy a product from a template website, nor would I purchase something through a system like OS Commerce.

But then I'm in the business of providing high quality, custom solutions that are exactly what the customer wants and that work in search engines... straight out of the box.

I guess 99% of website users or customers can't tell the difference. So point taken and I'm pleased they are working for you. I trust you inform customers they are being supplied with a modified template.

To me that remaining 1% of cusomers is everything. :-)

[RailMan]

As a website user, template sites ring alarm bells with me. <snip> I guess 99% of website users or customers can't tell the difference.

not being rude here, but i'd lay money you can't tell the difference either!
there are thousands of top quality professional design type templates for just a few $$ each. they really do look like they cost thousands of $$ to design. no need to carry a link saying "template by whoever". nothing whatsoever to show that they are template sites.

I would not buy a product from a template website, nor would I purchase something through a system like OS Commerce.

i won't comment on the first part, but i agree about oscommerce - you can spot oscommerce a mile off and it allows people to store credit cards in plain text format - got to be a hackers dream come true .....

I trust you inform customers they are being supplied with a modified template.

oh yes - i can now point them at the template site and say "pick one" ....... a few hours later it's tidied up, tweaked for search engines etc, and that's the worst part of the job finished.
how much time do you spend discussing design with the client, making constant changes etc etc?