Professional blogs (and blog templates) should be worth more than they are today
In Amrit’s recent post “Is Your Blog Enough for Doing Business”, he shared thoughts about blogs generally perceived as lower grade as a corporate website:
Compared to a blog, a website, to an average prospective client or customer, seems more credible, more dependable, and more professional….
People get websites professionally designed, and they get the copy professionally written …In fact companies spend 1000s of dollars to get their websites designed. This is not so with blogs. Most blogs, even the A-list blogs, look lousy compared to business websites.
When I was doing freelance web design a while back, 10-page static websites could go for almost S$850 (~US$500) then. While updating each page was tedious, tools like Dreamweaver’s templates made things a lot easier, automating a lot of work.
Now a recent survey on WPDesigner revealed that people not many are willing to pay as much for a custom WordPress theme! According to the results of the poll, if you charging above $300 for a custom theme, 71% of the market would be gone.
It does not make sense, does it?
It IS tougher to create WordPress themes than simple static sites, afterall. WordPress theme design is web design knowledge + knowledge of WordPress template commands!
Why is this happening?
Of course, one very real possibility is that the results of the poll on WPDesigner is not representative - people who visit WPDesigner probably already know some template tweaking.
But back to the point, do you think blogs are undervalued today? Just because they originated from personal ranting sites? Or is it because there are already tons of free templates available? Or is it because the blog platforms are normally offered free?
Is there hope for the professional blog template designer?
Tags: value-of-blogs, web-design, wordpress-theme
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Tan Kian Ann is blog marketer based in Singapore. He now works with individuals and small businesses reach out to the world using blogs. 
April 4th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
Visit John
Once you got alot of free resources that are free, people are unlikely to pay for something. Just like our TODAY newspaper, they started out free but if you want to start charging people, I don’t think the response will be good.
It does not mean it had no value just that in the first place they had launch it for free which is the issue.
John Tan
http://www.JohnTanBlog.com
April 4th, 2007 at 8:57 pm
Visit Kian Ann
Hey John,
You have a good point there. In fact, releasing a WordPress theme is one way to build links to your blog.
April 4th, 2007 at 9:24 pm
Visit Mike
I don’t really think that people should be paying much for these the real money is in website applications design you throw in a design with it you can get payed £10k +.
I know a couple of people doing application designing and their is much more money in it rather than just making a template for a open source application.
April 4th, 2007 at 10:03 pm
Visit Kian Ann
Of course, web application design and programming is one big industry. I don’t expect 10K for a template, but personally, I think a well thought of, search optimized and usable template should be worth at least $800, isn’t it?