If you don’t know what WordPress is, make sure to check out my article introduction on WordPress. While WordPress is free it has the look and feel of a premium paid program. Don’t let the fact that it is free cause you not to take seriously the potential of the WordPress platform to make you a lot of money as a web designer. If you do a search on Google you’ll find a whole list of WordPress templates available both for free and at a cost. As a web designer, once you learn how the WordPress platform works and specifically how the theme model works, you can make money creating templates and selling them to others. It has the potential of being a source of passive income which I think is always something you want to be adding to your business. You build the theme once and then get paid over and over again for it. Do that a bunch of times and it gives you a financial cushion that can add up over time.
The WordPress Theme Model
A number of people online have written excellent tutorials on how to build WordPress Themes. Real quick, a theme in WordPress is the look and feel of your website across all of the content of the website. While we talk about a theme we could also call it a template. In the WordPress universe, a template is called a theme.
Here is a list of sites with good tutorials on how to build WordPress themes:
- Chris Spooner has written a wonderful post called: How to Build a Custom WordPress Theme from Scratch. It gives you a whole bunch of annotated screenshots of each key WordPress theme file with notes that point out what each section of the file does. Highly recommended!
- Ian Stewart has written this excellent set of tutorials called: How To Create a WordPress Theme: The Ultimate WordPress Theme Tutorial. The tutorials are a couple of years old and WordPress has evolved since then but it nonetheless will give you an overview of how WordPress has structured its theme model.
- WordPress.org explains to you theme development straight from the horses mouth.
Selling your WordPress Themes
If you want to make money selling WordPress Themes you are going to have to be prepared to put some work into it. You’ll need to create your own website that will be selling your WordPress Themes or at least include a section on your existing website dedicated to themes. Having your own website isn’t absolutely necessary but it does potentially raise a red flag. A web designer without their own website is like a retail business without an outdoor sign… You can still conduct business but you’ll be at a major disadvantage.
If you take the time to look around you’ll notice that a number of websites will allow you to sell your themes and make money at it. Mojo-themes.com for example allows to to make a commission on each sale of your theme. They handle all of the nitty gritty details of taking payments, etc… Your job is to create a working, validated theme and upload it to their servers. Mojo-themes.com has two commission structures. If you are willing to give Mojo Themes exclusive right to sell your theme, they’ll in turn give you anywhere from 50-70% of the commission on the sale. The percentage depends on how many sales you’ve done through their system. If you want to be free to sell your theme on other websites as well, Mojo Themes will give you a 25% commission on any sales. Mojo Themes aren’t the only game in town either. If you take the time to make a few Google searches you can come up with many WordPress theme marketplaces. Themeforest.net claims its top authors make between $20,000-$40,000 per month. This is clearly exceptions but impressive nonetheless.
How much money can I expect to make?
No one can promise you that if you do x you’ll make y. It really depends on a number of factors. Everything from how well your design is received by the marketplace to how much traffic your theme gets. You can have a killer theme design and if no one can find you it won’t matter. It is best to take the long view. If making themes is going to be your primary source of income it won’t happen overnight. Expect it to take anywhere from 6 months to a year. You can’t sit on your rear after you’ve designed one theme either. During those 6-12 months you should be doing your best to create as many themes as you can. Throw a bunch of mud against the wall and see what sticks. The theme that makes a big splash and subsequently makes you a decent living is most likely not going to be the theme you thought would take off.
So what are you waiting for? Go design that next big money making theme now!
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this subject… I certainly have much to learn myself.