Quality free and premium Wordpress themes are hard to come by. Just when you thought you had the perfect theme, errors in the code, poorly configured CSS, and the inability to customize the design to your liking without wrecking havoc on the template are just a few of the problems that arise.

If you’ve decided to use Wordpress as your platform of choice on which to build your niche website, investing in a quality template is necessary. However, your investment does not always have to be one in which you fork over money. I’m a firm believer in using both free and premium products when building quality niche websites. In order to set your website apart — especially from the thousands of websites being bought and sold on Flippa.com that contain the ever popular Studiopress “Lifestyle” theme — it is important that you do your homework and find a theme that appeals to both your traffic and to potential buyers.

Below are 10 of the best free and premium Wordpress themes that I’ve used personally across several niche websites that I own. Enjoy and feel free to add your favorites below.

Eye Gaze Wordpress Theme (Premium)

The Eye Gaze theme for Wordpress is by far one of my favorite premium themes for Wordpress. It is by far one of the most visually appealing and varied Wordpress themes I’ve worked with since it is a 10-in-1 theme consisting of over 10 unique color schemes across varies niches.

View Demo / Purchase

Channel Wordpress Theme

If you are a fan of Wootheme’s Gazette Edition theme, then this free clone by Theme Junkie is sure to suit your fancy.

View Demo / Download

Arthemia Free Wordpress Theme

This is by far one of my personal favorites on which I build a great deal of my niche websites that I sell on Flippa.com. Although the manual customization that is needed to make this theme function as demonstrated in the demo is a little time consuming, the benefits of a well-laid out magazine theme is worth its weight in gold.

View Demo / Download

Network WP Theme (Premium)

The Network WP is premium theme that boasts a graphic and advertisement rich sidebar — great for those of you who wish to focus on multiple revenue streams/banner advertisements. With features such as sliding featured posts, automatic image resizing,  and your choice between 5 different color schemes, customizing this theme to suit your needs will be a breeze.

View Demo / Download

Insight Magazine Wordpress Theme

View Demo / Download

WP Bankable Theme (Premium)

View Demo / Download

Render Magazine Wordpress Theme

The Render Magazine Wordpress theme is another WP Theme Designer favorite of mine that offers a magazine-inspired layout, complete with rotating featured posts,  a built-in 250×250 banner advertisement section, and a built-in dashboard feature to insert YouTube videos specific to your niche website.

View Demo / Download

Blogius Wordpress Theme (Premium)

The Blogius Wordpress theme is a robust 3-in-1 premium theme that encompasses a graphic rich, magazine inspired layout — a great selling point for both your web traffic and potential buyers. Thankfully, all thumbnail images are resized automatically, allowing you to free up time from having to configure custom fields.

View Demo / Download

WP New Mag Theme

If you’re looking for an alternative to Studiopress’ “Lifestyle” theme, WP New Mag theme is a great look alike that mirrors many of the same features and functionalities.

View Demo / Download

Visual: The Wordpress Theme for Passionate Bloggers (Premium)

The Visual Wordpress theme is great for websites with not only plenty of content, but whose main focus is on displaying a more visually appealing layout for readers. Fortunately, customization has been made easy by way of skinning system that allows you to create your own custom theme skins to suit the needs of your niche website. Additionally, a wide open header area allows you to easily insert your own customized header graphic.

View Demo / Download

Important Considerations

Whether you decide to use a free Wordpress theme or premium template, the important thing to remember is that “Customization is Key!” When designing, aim to go above and beyond simply using the template out-of-the-box or else you run the risk of having a website that looks like every other Joe Schmoe’s website. Instead, implementing simple changes such as adding in a background image, designing a custom header graphic, and changing the overall color scheme can go a long way to renovating and improving upon the existing layout.

The Verdict…

For this course I actually purchased the “Eye Gaze” Wordpress theme as the design platform that I will customize for our case study website Tips for Public Speaking.

Currently, the case study website is displaying a maintenance page and is also set to block any search engine spiders from coming by to index any content that may be on the website. As this 4-week course progresses, you’ll see first hand the changes will be made in order to turn this into a website that will be sold on Flippa.com.

In the meantime, feel free to share any free or premium Wordpress themes that I may have overlooked.

Though not an age old debate, the issue of whether to use HTML vs. Wordpress when building a website comes into play quite often. Factors such as usability, support, design & coding skills, and even security concerns arise when trying to make the decision as to which is the better choice for you (the designer).

While your level of experience and comfortability is nothing to be overlooked as you build a website, when it comes to building niche websites that you intend to use for site flipping, taking the time to build for your website’s potential new owner must be factored in as well. In fact, building a website in the most user-friendly way possible makes the difference between a sale and a dud.

As we enter into the building phase of this website flipping course, it is important to understand both the pros and cons of using powerful content management systems such as Wordpress vs. HTML/CSS based websites when building.

Pros of Using HTML versus Wordpress

• Security: Using HTML as opposed to Wordpress offers a greater level of security. In most cases, it is impossible to hack a website that consists of HTML files as opposed to the vulnerability of a content management system such as Wordpress which is susceptible to backdoors or vulnerabilities in coding, plugins, etc.
• Great for simple websites: If you have a niche website that only houses a small amount of content, HTML will work in your favor since you are not required to install heavy software to operate a simple 5 to 8 page website.
• Megabytes Used: Fortunately, HTML websites do not take up enormous amounts of space, unlike Wordpress which houses numerous files in order for it to function properly as well as files for numerous plugins and even your database backups.
• Software: There are many free or opensource HTML editing softwares available that will allow you to customize your CSS template further if you lack the skills or knowledge to do it yourself.
• Easy to transfer: If you plan to sell the website you build, when it comes time for the transfer process, HTML-based website are by and large the easiest to transfer over to the new owner. By simply packing up the files in a .zip file, you can easily email these over to the new owner to upload via their FTP or you can do it yourself in less time than it takes to transfer a Wordpress website with its many intricacies.

Cons of Using HTML vs. Wordpress

• Not too user-friendly: Unfortunately, there is a steep learning curve when it comes to using HTML to build your website.  Knowledge of html, knowing what the heck a “div” is, and understanding CSS markup language is necessary if you desire to customize your website to its fullest potential. Even in cases of using a template, having an understanding of CSS markup language is crucial to editing the template to your liking — without losing your mind — or your template — in the process. In most cases, if you don’t know what you’re doing, you may get discouraged or encounter problems beyond your control. This applies to both you and a potential buyer of your niche website.
• SEO: Effective SEO when using HTML is quite an arduous task, though not impossible in the least bit.  What can simply be achieved by a using a plugin or optimizing permalinks in Wordpress, requires more work when dealing with HTML. The task of optimizing page titles, configuring meta description tags (which may not be easy if you have no experience with HTML markup), and appropriately linking pages makes using HTML the least user-friendly option. While both Wordpress and HTML can do the same things in terms of SEO, using Wordpress in the end saves you much more time.
• Chances of messy/poor markup language: Unfortunately, if you lack the experience of using HTML and instead opt for a WYSIWYG editor (What You See Is What You Get) to build your website, your chances of building a website that search engines can index, as well as one that adheres to web standards will be close to impossible.
• ‘Plugins’…not for the inexperienced: Plugins such as Google Sitemap, All-in-One SEO, SI Contact form, etc make life — and website building and automation — easier for Wordpress users. In all honesty, many Wordpress users don’t understand the first step to coding the language that makes up these programs and would not be able to replicate these same results with an HTML website. It is important to keep this in mind as you build your website since you will need to get hands-on with your code if you wish to install applications (e.g. Javascript applets) or third-party resources that extend beyond a simple webpage consisting of text, images, and the occasional advertisement.

Pros of Using Wordpress vs. HTML

• Increased usability: Navigating around Wordpress — with its neatly organized modules — is far easier than mulling around code and HTML markup you’ve never encountered before. The process of adding content, installing third-party addons, etc is far easier to understand and undertake with Wordpress than HTML.
• SEO: While Google, and any other search engine for that matter, treats Wordpress pages the same as it does HTML pages in terms of SEO, it is worth noting that Wordpress rises to the top due to its out-of-the box configuration which is designed to be very SEO friendly.
• Out of this world plugins: The sheer amount of plugins available for Wordpress allows you to do just about anything you wish with your website. Additionally, these plugins foster a more robust website, and in many cases, do not require you to get hands on with your theme files in order for them to function.
• Search engine love: The ability to drive traffic almost instantly after adding content is not possible with a HTML website which is generally labeled as a “static website” since its content typically remains the same over time. Because search engine spiders love fresh content, functionality such as automatic pinging, RSS feeds, etc make Wordpress a great contender to HTML/CSS-based websites.
• Easier learning curve: Without a doubt, setting up a website using Wordpress is much easier to accomplish as well as maintain even if you’ve never owned a website or dealt with HTML before. Additionally, the sheer amount of user support from the Wordpress community allows you to tackle common issues that arise with ease.

Cons of Using Wordpress versus HTML

• Security issues: Unfortunately, when using a platform that operates on PHP+MySQL, you open your website up to potential attacks through backdoors in the code or even security bugs.
• Upgrades: To keep your website operating at its best, be prepared undergo several vital upgrades via Wordpress. This is an unfortunate reality and something that you’ll need to be prepared to do in order to keep your installation of Wordpress free from becoming a hackers paradise. While installations only take a few seconds, if you plan to operate multiple Wordpress websites, upgrading each and every website on a consistent basis will soon become an annoying, but necessary task.
• Megabyte and memory hog: Wordpress is a powerful platform, but with that platform comes the need for an adequate amount of memory usage as well as disk space. If you plan to build a simple website, using Wordpress may not be the most ideal choice if your disk space and memory allotment is limited.
• Initial Wordpress installation: If your hosting provider does not provide a one-click install of Wordpress, the process of installing Wordpress on your server may become quite a task if you’ve never dealt with phpMyAdmin — even know what MySQL is and how it functions.
• Complicated transfer: If you’ve never transferred a website before, transferring a website built on Wordpress makes the process even more difficult. Instead of simply dealing with HTML files, a CSS style sheet and an images folder as you would when transferring a HTML website, you now have to throw in transferring a MySQL database file into the mix — and if you are offering free setup to a potential buyer — having knowledge of how to export and import this file correctly is a must.

The Verdict

In the end, the decision to use HTML or Wordpress resides with you. However, it is still important to reiterate that if you are building with the intent to flip a website, choose a platform that is the most user-friendly for your audience. For instance, websites that are bringing in recurring income are not just bought my someone who has tons of cash to spare but absolutely no experience in dealing with managing a website. Instead, this type of buyer is no stranger to HTML — and in most cases Wordpress either. With that in mind, if using HTML is your preference, the issue of extensive support after the sale of your website should not be a concern.

However, if you’re building a website (e.g. a startup website) where a great deal of your audience will be a mix between experienced users and those with no knowledge of HTML or Wordpress, ensure that you design according to the most user-friendly platform as possible and make time for after-sales support to walk your buyer through how to operate their new website on their own.

The I Platform Chose for This Course

For the rest of this site flipping course, I’ll be designing Tips for Public Speaking (the case study website for this course) using Wordpress — my platform of choice. Tomorrow we’ll discuss some of the best and most user-friendly templates you can use for both HTML/CSS and Wordpress when building your niche website.

In the meantime, if you’re building right along with me — what do you find to be the best platform to build your niche website on? Share your thoughts below.

If there were a hierarchy of things to do when building profitable niche websites, buying a keyword rich domain would come third in the process – right after researching worthy keywords and assessing the strength of your competition.

Purchasing a domain may seem like a simple process — and indeed it is — however, if you wish to create a profitable niche website, there is a right and wrong way of going about registering a domain name.

How NOT to Register a Domain Name

Unless your niche website will serve as business where a service is being provided (e.g. a consulting company, web design company, store, entertainment website, etc), the need for a “catchy” domain name becomes moot.

Most businesses seek to brand their identity with a memorable name. When it comes time to take their business to the World Wide Web, this same name will follow. Unfortunately, when it comes to building a website that you intend to flip or hang on to for passive income purposes, registering a catchy domain name is not ideal when you are trying to rank for specific keywords. While its not to say that you cannot rank for those particular keywords because of the domain name you chose, having a keyword rich domain name gives you the extra boost you need to rise to the top when it comes to search engine results.

How Choose a Domain Name

If you’ve found a low competition keyword that you would like to rank for, why not take the time out to register a domain for it and give yourself a competitive edge?

The following are key factors to keep in mind when registering a domain name:

1. 1. ALWAYS purchase a domain with your EXACT keyword/phrase in it.
   1. For instance, if you are trying to compete for the keyword “best food dehydrator,” you would need to purchase a domain that contains that exact keyword in that specific order (e.g. www.bestfooddehydrator.com).
   2. As a golden rule, always try to purchase a .com TLD (Top Level Domain) first for your particular keyword. If it is not available, move on to .org and .net TLDs as your backup choices.

Resources for Buying Domain Names

One of my favorite recommendations for purchasing domains – and in fact the place where I do most of my shopping is with Netfirms. Netfirms provides the most affordable solution for domain names at $6.95 per .com/.org/.net TLDs and also offers FREE Whois privacy protection that would otherwise run you $8.00+ through other domain registrars.

Outside of using Netfirms, other popular domain registrars include:

• Godaddy – $7.49 domain registration

To Privacy Protect or Not?

If you’re serious about building your niche website business, at some point, you will want to look into privacy protecting your domains.

Privacy protection offers a level of ease when registering a domain. In cases of extreme paranoia — which I do indeed suffer from — privacy protection allows you to mask sensitive information such as your home address, phone number, etc from prying eyes. Additionally, your inbox remains free from SPAM that often occurs from the actions of spam bots that can easily

The Domain Name I’ve Chosen for this Course…

For the duration of this course on website flipping, I’ve decided on building a niche website that revolves around the “public speaking” niche by registering the domain: www.tipsforpublicspeaking.org. Right now it is simply a blank slate that will be built as this course progresses.

As you can see, this domain follows all of the domain name and registration rules:

1. It is a keyword rich domain name as it contains the exact phrase (in its exact order) of the keyword I wish to rank for.
2. It has viability due to the fact that people are actually searching for this particular term. The exact phrase “tips for public speaking” receives 1,300 total searches per month and 720 local (US-based) searches per month via the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. According to Micro Niche Finder, this particular keyword/phrase has a strength of competition score of “40″ which means that I have the “green” light to go after it — but it will take a little more work to make it to the first page of Google.

Does Your Domain Name Make the Cut?

By adhering to the domain name registration rules listed above, you can indeed give your website the upper hand. However, before you rush out and purchase any ‘ole domain name because you believe your keyword to be the best thing since sliced bread, ensure that you have performed adequate research on how well you can indeed rank for that particular keyword and surpass your competition.

Locating a keyword rich domain already assumes that you’ve done the leg work to uncover the keyword(s) you want to rank for. If you missed the section on how to dig deeper for profitable keywords, be sure to opt into my Niche Websites 101 Newsletter in order to receive your free copy, or shoot me a comment below with the message “I’m in it to win it!” and I’ll gladly forward over a FREE copy.

If you’ve been wondering what’s with all of those links in my sidebar and why some work while others are simply not active, well the answer is quite simple…I’ve been working hard behind the scenes on a video course and eBook that were intended for release to help passive income seekers such as yourself gain a footing in the profitable website flipping market.

After careful consideration, I’ve decided to forgo selling the eBook and actually provide it as free content here on FlippaChick.com — hence the outline of topics in my sidebar.

Despite chopping the guide up and providing it as content, the over-the-shoulder video modules of how to design and build your own niche websites from start to finish will remain apart of the website flipping course due out soon.

In the meantime, you can jump start your niche website building efforts by following along with the free course.

…So What’s In It for You?

If you have struggled with certain aspects of designing, building, and transferring a website, this course is for you. Whether you’re a newbie or you’ve flipped a website before, this course covers the following:

1. Step-by-step tutorials on the basics of site flipping
2. Learn how to do accurate keyword research for your niche and content
3. Uncover various website flipping strategies to maximize your ROI
4. Discover how to design your niche website and optimize it for SEO
5. Learn how to navigate the domain and website transfer process

I’ll be kicking off the month of March with this daily course. Monday through Friday, from March 1, 2010 until April 2nd, you can tune in to FlippaChick.com and follow along with me as I take a simple idea for a niche website and design it, build it, monetize it, and then ultimately flip it over the next four weeks — right before your eyes.

…So How Do I Get Involved?

I love PARTICIPATION. As a former educator, I always loved to watch my students take a simple lesson I taught and put it into their own words to showcase their understanding of that day’s lesson. The same holds true for this particular course.

If you’re serious about learning how to flip your first website, what better way to kick things off than by following along with this course and charting your progress along the way? If you are a complete newbie to site flipping and don’t have enough time to commit to building virtual web property full-time, this 4-week course is designed especially for you. You can get involved not only by dropping by, but also sharing your progress along the way.

Free Niche Discovery Giveaway

Want to get a jump start on digging deeper to finding awesome keywords?

Drop me a comment below with the message “I’m in it to win it!” and I’ll gladly forward over a FREE copy of my “Niche Discovery” guide to help you uncover more profitable keywords for your niche website success.

*Please be sure to leave a comment with your accurate email address.*