Link Building Through Theme Distribution
Posted on January 27, 2007 by
Adie 
SEO, Web Development 
14 Comments
This is another link building tip for you web designers out there (the first being the CSS gallery tip). Theme distribution is basically creating a design, skinning it into a CMS or forum (WP, PN, vB, and IPB to name a few) and then distributing it for free to anyone who wants to use it. A lot of designers hate the idea of giving away free designs, but I’ve used theme distribution as a way to promote my design company since day 1, and I’m positive that the majority of its initial growth was due to this method.
How is This Helpful?
Theme distribution is helpful to both the designer, webmaster, and the person using the theme. The designer basically has his work put out there in front of potentially thousands of users, most of whom will only be interested in using a free theme. Many of them, however, will just be looking for a temporary theme until they find a designer to create a custom one, or may need a custom design for a separate project. If they like your theme there’s a good chance they could come to you for that custom job. Theme distribution helps the webmaster (who is quite often the designer) for two reasons: 1) in order to download the theme you should have the users come to your site (but don’t make them register!) 2) by including a simple link at the bottom of the theme (Design by: You) you are gaining thousands of backlinks from a ton of different sites. Finally, theme distribution helps the end user because obviously they have a sexy new theme.
Where to Get Started
The first thing you need to do is get a theme-friendly design. What does the term “theme-friendly” mean? It basically means that you want to create (or buy) a design that is versatile enough to be used by a large amount of people will few limitations on functionality or editability. Long story short, you don’t want a theme that’s tailored to your specific needs but rather one that can be used by a variety of people. A great example of a versatile theme is MistyLook. This theme is setup in a way that makes it very easy to add additional content, pages, and sidebar widgets without losing the functionality or quality of the theme. Don’t forget to keep the theme pretty too. Functionality is all well and good, but if your theme is ugly then people simply won’t use it.
Want to create a theme, but you’re not a web designer? You can always hire a designer to create one for you. There are a ton of quality designers out there experienced in creating CMS and forum themes, but what kind of capitalist would I be if I didn’t suggest my company (Vehowave)? But just in case you’re not a fan of biased self-promotion, here are some other good designers who fit within a resonable budget:
- Fruda - Julian Targowski
- Digit - David Myers
- Microvisuals - Anthony Bullock
- BlindChild
After you have your design in hand it’s time to get it skinned (coded into a CMS or forum). It’s pretty easy to find an affordable freelancer or small company to code your designs, and it’s often more cost-effective than learning how to do it yourself. If you want to learn to do it yourself, that’s perfectly fine. All you really need to know is basic HTML, and you’ll find that once you learn how to skin one CMS or forum you can very easily figure out how to skin the rest. Either way is fine.
If you want to hire someone to skin your design, I have a couple suggestions:
- VehoWave - Blog, forum, and CMS design/coding
- CodeYourDesign - A great WordPress skinner
- FreshSkinner - Good vB coder
- Skins for WP - Good WP skinner, sometimes slow w/contact
- VBMode (Edder) - Great vB coder
If you know anymore reliable and reputable designers or skinners (that are fairly inexpensive) please contact me so I can add to these lists.
Note: Don’t forget to include a link back to your website in the theme!
Which Software Should I Use?
There’s a ton of blogging, forum, and CMS software out there, and to make sure you get the most out of your buck you want to build your theme around the most popular of the bunch. If you have the time and/or money, it definately won’t hurt you to code your design into as many pieces of software as possible. To be positive you get the most exposure, you should probably concentrate on the following for your themes:
- vBulletin - Forum
- Invision Power Board - Forum
- Post Nuke - CMS
- Drupal - CMS
- WordPress - Blogging
Distributing Your Theme
Just having a sexy free theme available for download on your site won’t really drive in the traffic. You have to market your new free theme. Fortunately, that’s not very hard to do at all. The first thing you should do is go to the official website of that software and see if they have a theme database. They almost always will, and if they don’t they’ll provide links to theme databases centered around their software. Next you should look for other sites related to that software - there’s usually a ton of fansites dedicated to discussing and troubleshooting popular CMS software. These sites will usually have their own places for you to submit your theme. Then you need to look for blogs/news portals that allow users to submit news of new free themes for certain software. PHPNuke still does this on their main site, and if you get your theme featured on the front (which if it’s decent then it will almost always make it) then that news will get aggregated across the web generating a huge amount of viewers for your theme. Finally, you need to take a look at any forums that are based on the software your theme is made for. Forums usually have specific categories for submitting free themes. This is another great way of getting your theme seen.
Conclusion
Distributing a free theme may sound like a poor strategy in terms of cost-effectiveness at first; however, if you weigh everything you’ll see that it’s definately worth it. Think about it: most companies charge a couple hundred to submit your site to a thousand or so web directories with the sole purpose of generating backlinks (usually low-value backlinks). By spending roughly the same amount you can create a campaign that generates a potentially limitless amount of links depending on the quality of your theme. The best part of all is that you’re giving the community a quality piece of merchandise and raising your own reputation as a developer. Not only does distributing free themes create a ton of backlinks for your site, but it brings in a fair amount of potential paying customers as well.
A few things to remember:
- Always include a link to your site in the theme
- Don’t make users register to download your theme
- Try to deny direct linking to your theme; make people link to your page instead
By using this method you should be able to come up with thousands of backlinks very quickly, gain some respect in the community, and most likely get contacted by some potential customers. This is a simple, easy method that is very often overlooked by designers. Use it.
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This is a great idea, I will deffently be using this technique (once i get my site up).
Id just like to thank you matt for this amazing blog. I started reading it yesterday and have read every entry and all of them are quaility!
Thanks man, I really appreciate that.
Great post Matt!
I know a couple people have mentioned this as a great way to gain a lot of links but this is the first that really goes into depth on exactly how to pull it off the right way. Kudos!
Getting Eli’s approval on an SEO post makes my day! <3
[...] Link Building Through Theme Distribution Building links and good will at the same time couldn’t be better. Probably the best article out there. If you’re a designer! I envy thee. (tags: link building design) [...]
I’m working on a new vBulletin site for which I’ll definitely consider using this method. Good post!
Hey Matt,
That was a really good idea! Why didn’t I think of that? It’s especially good for those in markets that serve webmasters & bloggers.
Another thing is, we can’t prevent others from stripping out your link, anyway that’s not an issue, as most people are just too lazy to do that.
Most people yes, but there will always be some who do it. In my experience that’s a hazard you just have to deal with when distributing free themes.
That’s true, Sam. You also have to accept the possibility that by distributing a free theme you’re probably going to have people rip your work, claim it as their own, etc. But the pros far outweigh the cons imo.
Good article. It takes a lot of time to build quality backlinks. Having them from related pages are also very important. So themed link building is where we can get a lot of help.
would this be considered link spamming by google though or ok?
Great Idea. A lot of people will go for the free theme because they are too lazy, or lacking design skillslike me). if it’s catchy, it will create quite a few backlinks.
[...] text links to third parties within a theme made for distribution. For those of you who are unaware, theme distribution is a fantastic way to get yourself and your website known. This basically entails creating a theme [...]
[...] text links to third parties within a theme made for distribution. For those of you who are unaware, theme distribution is a fantastic way to get yourself and your website known. This basically entails creating a theme [...]