Both the quantity and quality of premium WordPress themes has accelerated rapidly over the past six months, and here are five of the best money can buy. Dominating this list are primarily high quality, portfolio themes that are guaranteed to bring your website to life. Don’t be deceived by the simplicity – the quality is in the details. Click on the images to view theme demos.

Classica WordPress Portfolio Theme

The first offering is Classica, a design entirely simple yet sophisticated. Judicious use of whitespace enables a clean-cut look that prioritises information without clutter. Certainly worth checking out.

Create: WordPress Portfolio Theme

Create Portfolio Theme is not as subtle as Classica, however this in a way highlights its strength. Images are plentiful on the homepage, yet never do they seems cluttered or claustrophobic. Similarly, little details such as the drop-menu highlight add a degree of sophistication.

The Cotton: Powerful Minimalistic WordPress Theme

The Cotton is, in my opinion, one of the most well designed WordPress Themes to ever have existed. Possibly a big call. Huge call, actually, but it’s that good. Maybe it just appeals to me, but I really do feel that everything about this theme is just right. Again, the beauty lies in the details, which includes the back-end Admin panel that makes customisation easy and simplistic. I bought this theme even though I would have no conceivable use for it. You should too.

Kundera Creative WordPress Tumblog

Tackling the cross-platform genre, Kundera is an interesting take on the somewhat tired portfolio concept. It’s a shame, then, that the designer decided to bestow their curious creation with such a stupid name. Despite that, the coding is sound and the design is excellent -well worth checking this one out.

Halo: Stunning WordPress Portfolio Theme

This theme is perhaps a little less known, but by no means is any less because of it. Again, simplicity wins here, as all images are spaced perfectly yet prominently. The focus that the logo area brings will also be an attraction for many.

Today’s free resource is a simple, elegant menu bar, perfect for any web project.

The colour is interchangeable, so can be altered to fit essentially any web project.
As always, completely free to use for personal and commercial projects, but please do not redistribute.

And if you like it, share it

Download this Resource

Simple, modern, elegant web buttons are easy to make, hard to make well (It’s all about the subtlety!). These look better on lighter backgrounds, but can be modified for darker backgrounds.

Free for personal and commercial use, but please do not redistribute.

Download this Resource

It would take an incredibly enthusiastic maths nerd with a sizable calculator to work out the number of premium WordPress themes available online – there really are too many too physically count. So to make your life just that little bit easier, we’ve rounded up the best of the best currently on offer.

Showtime Business Theme

The first offering from Themeforest, Showtime, really is a testament to show just how far the premium WordPress theme market has come. Designed by Freshface, this light and airy theme redefines the typical product website, relived through refreshing graphics and the most amazing theme options panel you will ever see. It’s probably not healthy to get worked up over a theme options panel, but it’s seriously cool, and will make theme customisation a helluva lot easier.

Purchase the Showtime Business Theme

Implicit WordPress Theme

Second on the list is Implicit, a sort of post-modernistic offering featuring, well, nothing. But that’s kinda the point, and it’s not really a bad thing. Many premium themes lack the startling effect of vast, empty space and design subtlety, so it’s good to see that this crucial design technique is used to the fullest extent through the theme. The preview really doesn’t do this theme justice – you have to view the live preview to get the full impact.

Purchase the Implicit WordPress Theme

Premium Magazine WordPress Theme

The Premium Magazine WordPress Theme, by Maximus, is awesome. Not gonna lie, it’s just great. Firstly, it’s simple and functional yet visually appealing. Secondly, it doesn’t have a wanky name which is just so amazing. This theme has great potential for customisation too, another considerable bonus.

Purchase the Premium Magazine WordPress Theme

Synthetik WordPress Theme

Synthetik, which I will now reference as “Synthetic” considering that is the internationally accepted spelling, is a WordPress theme modeled on the originally popular HTML theme of the same name and design. The theme is a unique offering, with a distinctly discernible quality about it from the subtle navigation menu to the beautiful footer – an unusual yet enticing design.

Purchase the Synthetik WordPress Theme

The Professional

Anything from elegantthemes is practically synonymous with quality, and The Professional truly lives up to the standard. It’s the little details, like the popup slider on the frontpage to the simplistic beauty of the blog layout that confirms the exceptional calibre of this theme.

Purchase The Professional WordPress Theme

Delicate News

Like The Professional, Delicate News is a stunning WordPress theme, with a distinct emphasis on beauty through subtlety. An often unrecognised element to all elegantthemes is the extensive option panel, which like Showcase (above) is extensive and sophisticated. Delicate News is a creative alternative to the mainstream, and will certainly not disappoint.

Purchase The Delicate News WordPress Theme

Light Bright

Finally, Light Bright, another offering from ElegantThemes, presents simplicity at its best through a uncomplicated yet visually alluring design. Don’t discount this theme because of it’s basic appearance: Light Bright has a surprising amount to offer both for a casual blogger and the professional.

Purchase The Light Bright WordPress Theme

As far as websites to be jealous of go, the Tuts+ network has got to be right at the top. The Tuts+ network, comprised of 8 websites, dominates the design sector and continuously and unfailingly provides high quality, usable tutorials and articles every single day. This infographic displays some general statistics about the Tuts+ network, including the ballpark monthly advertising revenue earned through these sites.

Join the Tuts+ Network

This is the first post in (what will become) a series that will outline the steps you need to take to become successful in the online world, and not just become another site that fades into internet oblivion. These tips apply to online businesses too (we’re just big fans of the whole “Become a Better Blogger” alliteration thing we’ve got going), and following these tips will help to ensure you get noticed in the online community.

Okay, so as far as boring goes, this first post is pretty much the absolute epitome of monotony, and believe us when we tell you, the most important stuff usually is. But don’t worry, we’ve tried to make our maiden post as compelling as we can, but be warned – making “blog planning” sound exciting is kind of like trying to assassinate a cockroach with a toothpick (It’s hard, in case you didn’t pick up on the analogy).

Remember your career counsellor back in high school? The one that always gave you the “you’re-wasting-my-highly-valuable-and-precious-time” look? The one that always told you that you’ll get nowhere without a career plan? Well, as much as we all hate to admit it, there’s not a lot of denying that they’re right. Planning is actually important if you want to succeed at something, and when it comes to starting a profitable website, if you don’t have a plan, you’re not going anywhere.

Without trying to sound like a motivational speaker, the advantage of a website plan means that you know where you want your website to go, and you know the goals you want your website to achieve. It doesn’t have to be elaborate (in other words, no need for a multilayered, color-coded mind map) – all you need is a list answering a few basic questions. The perfect plan should set out in your mind exactly what your site is, what the goals of your site are and how are you going to achieve those goals?

What is your site?

Probably the most important aspect to your plan – what is your site? Is it a blog, a business website, a membership site? What are you going to write about, or what are you advertising? Many online entrepreneurs mistakenly begin with a unclear view of what they want their projects to be, and most often, they’re the ones who fail. By setting out the basis of your site on a sheet of paper, it provides a clear foundation for you to build everything else upon, and acts as a framework you can return to in order to ensure your blog is fulfilling its initial purpose.

What are the goals of your site?

By starting a website or blog, what are you hoping to achieve? Are you spreading information and contributing to a specific online community? Do you want to monetize your online venture? Set goals, short term and long term, to keep you motivated, and to give your site a direction. For example:

-In the short term, I want to attract 500 visitors a month from online advertising
-In the long term, I want to be accepted into an advertising network (e.g. BuySellAds – review here), so I can monetize my website.

How will you achieve these goals?

How are you going to make your site a success? Will you drive traffic through social networking predominantly, or will you guest post on relevant websites in your area to attract visitors? What steps are you going to take to put you plan into action?

It’s easy to dismiss the idea of website planning as pointless and unnecessary, and we can’t blame you – planning is seriously dry. But the truth is that by creating a solid future plan for your website, you are already a step ahead of any other startup, because you know what needs to be done, and how it’s going to get done. Of course the website plan is by no means concrete – it will change as the goals of your website change, but in the short term a reliable plan provides you with actionable steps to help you grow your website – an absolute essential for anyone who wants to be successful online.

Advertising a website or business is deceptively complicated process, and those who think it’s as simple as creating a colorful box couldn’t be further from the mark. But hey, we’re here to help – here’s a simple idea for an effective banner advertisement that’ll make sure your advertising money isn’t wasted.

The aim of any website advertisement is to draw people into your website, boosting your traffic and increasing website visibility. The key phrase that most people forget when creating an advertisement is the whole idea of “drawing people to a website”, not placing your entire website into a very small box. The aim of any advertisement should not be cramming a heap of information into a very small space – instead the perfect advertisement should give viewers just enough information to intrigue them, but not enough information so that they don’t actually have to visit your site to find out more. The “ideal” advertisement should make people want to find out more by giving them just enough, but not enough. Banner advertising is essentially manipulation, but in a kinda good way.

1. Use Color (keep it simple)

Color is possibly the most underused yet most effective element in banner advertising, as it’s a big key in determining the visual impact of your banner. Try to use a vivid shade for your background, but keep it light – no dark blue or black.

As important as color is, you also have to make sure you limit it’s use – keep the background monochromatic – don’t overcrowd your banner, and make sure your colors don’t clash.

2. Differentiation Through Imagination.

The downfall of any banner advertisement is that most advertisers try to fit a thesis into a 535×100 pixel box – it never works and will make your advertisement look cheap and unprofessional. Instead, consider what is the very core of your business or website that you want to convey to your customers. What is the essential to your business? How can you help your customers? What can you offer them to make their lives easier?

In a nutshell (to use a cliche), the less words you use, and the more your advertisement makes people go “Wha….?”, the more clicks you will get. We call it differentiation through imagination – the more wild, unpredictable and radical your advertisement is the more it will be noticed, and the more it will be clicked.

Display is also important. We take the modernist approach to advertising by keeping the colors simple and uniform, however it’s really up to you here to exercise some originality. Make sure you find a font that complements your banner, and one that doesn’t clash with the background. Take a break from the generic stuff and use something different (see the resource list below)

3. The Finishing Touches

The often overlooked areas of banner advertising can make a difference to the final product. Ensure that the most important text in the advertisement is big, clear, and more obvious than anything else. Don’t overcrowd your advertisement with unnecessary images and/or text – whitespace is very important.

Also, providing viewers with an action path, such as a button that says “find out more” or something similar will help in converting views to clicks, as buttons reassure people of where they’re going if they choose to click on your advertisement.

Creating an effective banner advertisement is all about simplicity and functionality. It’s not as complicated as you think – use color to your advantage and make it noticeable. The skills demonstrated in this tutorial extend past banner advertisements alone – any type of publication designed to be noticed will benefit. And to get you started, take a look at some of the resources we’ve listed below.

Build InternetWhy Niche Banner Ads Fail
Web Design LedgerThe Best Free Fonts of 2009
Inspired MagazineThe Science of Whitespace in Design

13 extraordinary digitally designed advertising posters created by some of best graphic designers in the world.

1. Martini Asti Elements | Earth

2. Tiger Beer

3. Red Bull | The Spirit Within

4. Liquid Color

5. Redd’s | Pitch

6. Nike Air Lab 1

7. Wrigley’s 5 Gum

8. Make a Drawing | Paris

9. Bacardi | Shoot and Fly

10. RPM Hard Drive Clock | Reclaim Time

11. Fanta Advertisement

12. Martini Asti Elements | Water

13. Redd’s | Ekspress

Making your website cross browser compatible (that is, so it looks the same on all web browsers) is kind of like cooking a soufflé – the recipe looks simple enough until it comes out of the oven all flat and gross, and you end up hurling it into the wall at 150mph. Building your website to be cross browser compatible is a lot harder than it looks.

There’s a lot to be said for a standardized web browser. If only Microsoft and Apple could sit down at a table, and agree to only support Mozilla Firefox, the world of website creation would be a helluva lot simpler. Of course that’s not going to happen anytime soon, and while Firefox (the world’s best browser, obviously) currently occupies just under 25% of global browser use, Internet Explorer still commands over 60% of browser use worldwide – and as we all know, Internet Explorer sucks.

Over the last decade Internet Explorer, in it’s various incarnations, has gone from Prince Charming of the browser world to that distant intellectually-backward cousin with the monobrow. IE’s rapid demise is through no fault of it’s own, of course, but compared to the alternative browsers (Firefox, Safari and Chrome), it really can’t compare both in speed and usability. You and me know Internet Explorer is crap. 60% of internet users, however, don’t. Mmmm….

So what’s the problem with IE? Microsoft’s browser will display most webpages, and people will be able to read what you write. The problem lies in the little details, where IE will usually always generate something wrong, and let down your entire web design. Granted, most users won’t really notice, but that’s hardly the point, is it? You go to so much effort to create a visually impressive website which is let down by a dated but very dominant web browser.

The solution? Don’t even bother supporting crap browsers. A few of the larger websites have already taken this initiative which is encouraging to small scale websites. The only way to phase out the ancient browsers is to stop supporting them, it’s that simple. Of course until that happens, the only solution is to painstakingly modify and re-modify your website graphics and css code until your website displays roughly as intended across all browsers. And when for the eighteenth time your website search box looks crap in Internet Explorer, we don’t advise hurling your computer at the wall – as we discovered, it doesn’t actually help…

It used to be social network websites. Then there was the video uploading sites. And now, apparently, we are witnessing the rise of the advertising networks, of which BuySellAds, a project undertaken by Todd Garland, is one of. But is it any good?

Just Googling BuySellAds (BSA, to those already familiar) results in a couple a’ million different reviews, all of which with a different opinion on whether the latest incarnation of a tired formula is worth your time. Regrettably, in an age where one good idea leads to a thousand second-rate copies, it’s often difficult to weed out the godawful from the genuinely good. So where does BSA fit in?

BuySellAds, as the name indicates, is essentially a service for both advertisers (a.k.a. you’re advertising a product) and publishers (a.k.a. people are buying the advertising space on your website), allowing the sale and purchase of advertising space through a sophisticated, well-rounded system that takes the hassle out of advertising.

the advantages

BuySellAds separates itself from other networks first and foremost through an incredibly intuitive and simplistic user interface. It’s clear that the aim of BSA is to simplify the process of buying and selling advertisements, and it certainly succeeds in this area.

Everything about BuySellAds is just easy, from listing your website’s advertising space (publishers) to buying advertising space (advertisers). The whole process is as easy as breathing, which is a huge plus for anyone who finds the process of selling and buying ads frustrating and time consuming.

A fully-fledged analytics program as well as support services are also a click away for both advertisers and publishers, again another huge advantage. At the moment banner ads seem to be the way to go, although BuySellAds is undergoing private beta testing of pay-per-click advertisements, which will allow both advertisers and publishers a bit more freedom in the future.

For publishers, your website is listed in the BSA directory, allowing advertisers target-specific searches to help find a compatible website. A gray place holder box that’s become a somewhat recognisable icon sits in your advertising space, potential advertisers just a click away to purchasing that space in monthly subscriptions.

We found that payouts were quick and seamless, the PayPal system very efficient. Wire transfers and cheques are also available as payout and payment options if PayPal is not your thing.

the drawbacks

Too good to be true? You know the saying, and yup… it is. Well, sort of…

Let’s start with the publishers. By using BSA, you are paying for the simplicity, and you’re paying for it big time. The BSA system will take away 25% of your earnings – for those who failed second year maths, that means BSA will take 25 cents in every single dollar you earn. Compared to the major ad networks out there, or to selling advertising space privately, the cut is unusually high, and can be quite damaging for higher earning websites.

The circumstances change depending what your website focuses on, but another aspect to consider regarding BSA is the fact that it is a very niche-specific network, meaning only websites focusing on tech, web design / development or freelancing have a chance of succeeding in this system. While this will probably change in the future considering BSA is relatively new on the scene, at the moment it’s a fairly limited community of websites all focused on specific areas. In other words, if you blog about the nutritional value of capsicum, you haven’t got much of a chance.

And because no one cares about the nutritional value of capsicum, and therefore you have no visitors, you will again be rejected because BSA requires a base impressions level of at least 100K per month, although we’ve found this figure to be very flexible. BSA is not all that welcoming to websites with little traffic and no reputation – you need to have a solid foundation of steady traffic to stand a chance of being “accepted” into the BSA system.

The Verdict

Publishers
For startups and smalltime blogs and websites, BuySellAds is unsurpassed as a well-rounded easy to use advertising network, so long as you can be accepted. BSA really does remove the stress of selling advertising space like no other service can, and for small time websites BSA is the ideal solution.

For websites commanding larger amounts of traffic (and consequently a bigger income) BSA may not be the solution you are looking for, only because of the steep 25% cut, which when you are earning thousands of dollars will severely eat into your profit. BSA provide a good service, but no one likes a company THAT much to give them a quarter of our earnings…

BuySellAds takes the pain out of selling advertising space and is certainly a service that should be considered for all web startups and small time websites focused in the design and web services area. If you don’t fit into any part of that previous sentence, Google Adsense, or privately selling your advertising space may be the smarter option.

Advertisers

For ease of use there is no service quite the same. We have yet to compare click through / impression rates compared to the other major services, but as long as you are advertising a product relevant to the design, tech or web services industry, BSA really is a no-brainer for driving targeted, specific traffic to your website. Stay tuned for the site-wide release of PPC advertising.

BuySellAds