I'm interested in building a new site to offer free website templates and/or layouts. For the most part the templates will be unique high quality templates created by myself and others. Rather then simply selling templates would having them free to download with advertisements on the site turn a profit? There are however many websites already offering this service, would it be worth while to make one? What do you think the potential gainings with little to no advertising budget be? As well I was wondering if it would be better to have one large site or smaller niche sites. Eg one for myspace one for wordpress etc
I'm not in this part of the market but it appears that you'll have to offer something different for it to become a success. If you can offer something that sets you apart from the crowd then go for it - the difference could just be how you've implemented the idea... Once you're happy with the execution of your idea market it like crazy and take your competition on head-to-head.
Look how things go, big sites with free-templates don't have unique ones. If you are good at making templates, don't give them for free, make a rep here on DP for example, and sell them, it's easy and you just have to be talented+gain trust. If you plan on making some free-template site, yes the market is saturated with stupid MFAs and full of ads and that pisses most of the visitors. If you can build a clean site, it will work really great IMO, I had this idea back in 2007. Keep it simple! Cheers! Scorpiono
There are very few sites offering original or unique templates for free and you can still give away a few ones. This a good example of a site blending both free and paid templates www. freetemplatesonline.com ·
I completely agree with you. I would make sure that my site was clean and professional without a bombardment of ads. freetemplatesonline.com does have a couple decent unique templates. they resell template monster templates which could be profitable, ill have to look more into that. In presenting the site I would like to develop more of a community feel. With forums and the ability for users to request what the next templates theme will be, as well as designing discussion etc. And more user involvement including contests etc. Clantemplates.com did a unique job with their niche developing a community on top of a free service.
The free template market is very over saturated, I have three template sites myself, I you plan to give away your templates you will have to target your ads very well because the people coming to your site are looking for something free and do not care about buying stuff from your ads. I would start out with paid templates, and if that does not work, go to free with links back to your site. Good luck with your site.
There are way too many template sites available. I would try to branch out, do some Wordpress themes or something similar as those can get you paid, if you have a good enough rep!
yes it appears saturated however if you have a better plan and unique styles of creating layouts/templates, you can still be in success (as others' may have already mentioned). think for instance, that one girl who got rich from her myspace layouts/images site. As long as you can produce unique contents, there's still space for you.
Unique Content. Not alot of annoying ads (Or at least Popups! lol) will make you stand out from the crowd. Maemae
Yes, it is a bit oversaturated, but if you're a good designer and can make widget ready and adsense ready templates that stand out you'd still get noticed.