Who is the puresilva template designed for?
It would be easy to say the template is "for everybody", because the template doesn't require you to have technical skills, but actually, the template is not suitable for everybody.
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It IS suitable for someone who:- |
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....is focused on search engine rankings and converting visitors to customers as "the bottom line" for their website. This template is a "bottom line" focused template. |
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.....accepts the template "as is" (after a free, no obligation trial) since we no longer make customisations to the codebase, it's 100% templated - that way, you get free updates, and your site is "future proof". |
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....has the "keep it simple" philosophy ingrained into their business model and general philosophy. We use this principle throughout the template design, including the front-end template designs (e.g. not forcing people to register to buy a product), and encourage the KISS principle to our clients in terms of the content they create for their site. We focus on simplicity because it increases conversions and makes for a pleasant experience for your customers. |
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....isn't focused solely on a narrowly defined aesthetic "look and feel" design requirement that conflicts with usability, accessibility and search engine friendliness e.g. Flash-only websites, or splash interstitial landing pages that require you to click to get to the actual site, or excessive use of images on the home page with little textual content. |
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....is enthusiastic and willing to work on content writing and marketing the site after it launches. |
If you match the above description, we believe you will get the most out of our template, which is the optimal outcome for everyone concerned, and we don't want to sell our template just for the sake of selling it. Where will we get our repeat hosting fees? :-)
If one of the above points conflicts with your business plan, fair enough - the template isn't going to be suitable for your plans, and we understand the puresilva website template isn't "all things to all people".
What the template is good at - revenue!
Not only have I developed the template, but I use the template myself on lovepashminas.com - just the regular template (no customisations) with all its regular features, tracking all the regular automatic template updates, and I'm now one of the most successful pashmina shawl vendors online ranking top-10 for many pashmina-related keywords and making many sales from a lot of free traffic, not to mention Google Adsense earnings which bring in a passive income (profit) of between £200-£250 a month. That was achieved through about 4 or 5 hours of my time a week. Every week. For about 8 or 9 months. I spent my time sourcing pashminas (not even a web-related task!), writing content and link building. So it wasn't SO intensive work in terms of hours spent, but it required regular, persistant attention to link building and content creation even when I wasn't getting any "payback". Then the momentum of the site picked up and allowed me to ease off slightly on the work. Now I spend a couple of hours a week (just a guess, doesn't even feel like that) on it just to maintain things. The site now has a part-time employee to deal with orders and stock control.
I worked on the site while working (very) full-time hours as main developer of the puresilva template - so it shows it's possible to build up a business online even if you're currently in a full-time job.
What the template fails miserably at - bespoke conceptual / complex designs
However, we do get enquiries from people saying "we need our website to look like....{many very specific design instructions follow}". Invariably these specifications end up conflicting with one or two subtle, yet significant usability, accessibility or on-page search engine optimization factors, which in turn will impact negatively on the site's chances in ranking well in the search engines, and also converting visitors to customers. Sometimes they don't conflict with these issues, and we add a brand new design in our portfolio of available designs for free so the customer gets the design they want. We want to give the customer what they want if possible of course! But ultimately we want to give them what they need, and much of what a website needs to succeed isn't obvious to a layman.
Many web developers will simply follow client instructions to the "T" and collect the money from them regardless of whether they look out for the client's best interests or not, but our philosophy is to maximise the potential for each of our customers websites through optimal web design - and so we now simply sell the template in its original format (no customisations) as your site is then guaranteed to follow free updates and the best web design principles; and as the days, months and years pass - your site will evolve and not gather metaphorical cobwebs!
If you're still interested (you may not be!), then why not try out a trial of the template here.
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Accessibility also concerns itself with browsers - a website can be inaccessible to everyone using an older browser, for example - because it was created with 'broken', invalid HTML that older browsers cannot render (newer browsers tend to be more forgiving).
The first step to developing an accessible site is to use valid HTML/XHTML. This gives you a starting point that at least ensures all of the images have text descriptions, and that the HTML should render OK in older browsers (there's still no absolute guarantee though, with the variances between the browser versions).
This first step does not give you an accessible website.
puresilva websites have been designed to be as accessible as possible in terms of having valid HTML and clear layout - with default settings giving contrasting font colours and backgrounds, as well as users being able to change font sizes and TAB between navigation.
However, content is a big part of accessibility. If your target market is Japan, yet you write your website only in English, you will be making your site inaccessible to all of your website visitors who cannot read English. This exaggerated example highlights how important content is in terms of accessibility. According to usablenet.com, content should be:-
"presented in a clear and simple manner, and should provide understandable mechanisms to navigate within and between pages."
The puresilva templated versions receive free updates, so these will be kept up-to-date with all the latest accessibility guidelines.
View demo | More puresilva features |
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