… Templates off FreelanceSwitch :-)
Collis Ta'eedLess than 24 hours after putting them up, I’m bringing the TemplateMonster stuff back down. After a bit of dismay after the announcement, it seems templates are not going to be how we make this site profitable. Actually you’ll be amused to know I copped a bit of flak here at the office too, so evidently it was a doomed plan anyway.
I’m glad everyone put their viewpoint forward, we will no doubt be trying a variety of other things in the coming months but if they get in the way of our main aims here on the site, then of course they won’t stick around!
In case anyone is interested this site is actually funded in part by some of the ads on the site, but mostly by our sister site FlashDen.net, so templates or not, there’s no danger of us running aground which is nice to know. Anyhow, I have plenty more tricks up my sleeve to try, please feel free to continue voicing your thoughts on them when they happen.
Ben
July 12th, 2007
hey
Check out your flash den link!
Cyan
July 12th, 2007
Thanks Ben
Stephen
July 12th, 2007
Try reading problogger for income generating ideas. There are quite a few affiliate and advertising programs that would be a good fit for your site. If the item you are promoting does not have any value for your readers they won’t buy or click anyway.
If your feedburner stats are accurate, you should be able to monetize your feed through them and make a little extra dough. Why not setup your ebooks/merchandise on clickbank so you can get an affiliate base promoting your products? Instead of running your own job board, why not hook up with a syndicated service that will pay you for the job that get posted through your site…GigaOm uses a service run by SimplyHired.
http://gigaomjobs.com/a/jbb/find-jobs
Where are the contextual ads? Why not sell ads through an established marketplace like adbrite or blogads? Selling ads yourself is tough and potential advertisers who don’t know about your site won’t ever advertise with you. If you are part of an ad network, they will promote your site because it is in their interest to sell ads or you.
Just some random thoughts…best of luck.
Bob
July 12th, 2007
Great move guys, glad to hear you are listening, I was a bit concerned about the move I must say.
Stephen
July 12th, 2007
Also…where are the comment feeds? I would like to be able to subscribe to comment feeds for individual posts so I can see what other people are saying.
Wayde Christie
July 12th, 2007
I was a bit surprised to see the template stuff myself, especially since template are the enemy of web designers
Here’s my suggestion: Make some nice templates yourself and give them away. You’ll get a crapload of traffic out of it.
Verne
July 12th, 2007
Now that’s a commitment to the community! Bravo on the decision to take it down guys. This is why so many of us stay loyal to the site!
Kyle
July 12th, 2007
I know that “donation” links don’t always work (I love pledgie by the way), what do you think about doing something along those lines? I know it probably won’t make enough revenue to pay yourselves or pay for hosting but every little bit helps? Maybe sell some type of list or something? I know that is a dangerous route to go down. But I mean, I wouldn’t have any problem at all giving you guys 5 - 10 bucks every few months (or every project).
Ryan
July 12th, 2007
Great move. I’m glad you’re sensitive to your readers’ opinions and willing to put that before immediate cash flow.
Let’s hear it for FSw…”hip hip…”?
Ross Hill
July 12th, 2007
I must admit I was a little surprised to see the TM mention..
I’m sure there are more relevant revenue sources
Good work.
Casey L. Jones
July 12th, 2007
Any freelance web designer who uses a template of any kind isn’t much of a designer. Thankfully FS removed the TM link. Templates are horribly coded and are not accessible designs, primarily to disabled people.
Good move to remove Template Monster, FS!
Ranjeet Ruprai
July 12th, 2007
I agree with you Casey. Any designer/developer that uses templates is just a cowboy and probably doesn’t know the meaning of accessible web development. Good move FreelanceSwitch!
Dave
July 12th, 2007
Its your site and we come here for information. I will respect your any monetizing decision which should help you to focus more on producing great content as you do now.
P,S. TM templates are not that bad. They used to have bad coding, but about a year ago started to provide validated coding with all templates.
2 Casey L Jones - mate please check your own site with http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=www.cljdesign.com before saying bad about others
Tim Marshall
July 13th, 2007
Hi all
Long time visitor here but this is the first time i have posted.
I like numerous others was suprised to see the addition of the monster’s offerings! Glad you removed them, noticed whilst filling in the survey that links to the template section still exist in the menu section of other parts of the site though!!
Keep up the excellent articles and advice.
Tim
Evolved
July 14th, 2007
Has anyone else noticed that the templates are still linked to from every page outside of the blog?
Collis
July 14th, 2007
@Evolved, sorry thats my fault, they arent all run off wordpress and I havent got around to FTPing in and removing it out of the other two parts, dont worry Ill do it tomorrow at work! I promise
Kamarin Lee
July 14th, 2007
Good move by FS. I’m an avid reader here, and I would never like to see this place go down due to a bad move. I know that there are better resources available for us designers, and I know that they would be delighted to be featured here.
Casey L. Jones
November 19th, 2007
Dave:
Take your own advice:
http://validator.w3.org/check?verbose=1&uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fourthshift.com%2Fcontent