22 Comments

  1. bradkgriffin says:

    I really enjoy [and habitually USE] a theme that has function built in [gasp! no way!], and here’s why.
    Let’s say there’s a WordPress Theme that’s promoted as a Real Estate Theme. It categorizes the listings, assigns them an agent, pulls all the agent’s contact details, lays it out on each of their listings correctly, the overall layout of images, more images, house details, contact details, and more is done correctly, and the theme has baked in IDX listings from [example] dsIDXpress®.

    Now, why in the world do I need to separate all that into plugins, hope the plugins play well with each other, keep updating all the plugins, tweak and / or code each plugin, and jack with all that? Seriously think about that for a second. 1 plugin for contact us, another for the image carousel, another for a company directory, perhaps a plugin for a custom post type, additional fields, on and on and on it goes…! Just to make a ‘real estate’ oriented theme?

    YUP!

    Now, run through the same scenario for the auto shop that has around 50-80 cars: assigning sales people, ACF for each element of the cars, CPT for each car type. Lather rinse repeat for the restaurant’s functionality of ordering food, sorting by ____, and things like that.

    Really?

    I’ll buy the fact that images can be interchanged. But… let’s use Steven Gliebe’s Themes at churchthemes.com or even churchthemes.net’s Themes as an example. They manage sermons, they manage people, and those themes FUNCTIONs are geared specifically for a niche. Yes, they have plugins that do it as well, but basically, the themes do exactly what’s needed.

    They are a niche, and they are a niche that won’t go away.

    1. I’d say churchthemes.com would be best served by having an awesome starter theme, then selling their church-oriented child themes and a core-functionality plugin for all those extras. It’s not as if I’m saying there’s no such thing as a “niche market”. Of course there is, it’s just that those markets would be better served by doing it right, rather than pretending that your X-theme with church images in it is an actual “church theme” rather than a niche targeted demo of a vanilla theme.

      1. Matt, I don’t know if you’ve seen our website or our plugin but we certainly don’t pretend to be X-Theme with church photos in our demo. A theme that tries to be all things to all people usually turns out to be a bloated mess. We don’t do marketing gimmicks at churchthemes.com.

        All of our functionality is in a plugin (post types for sermons, events, staff and locations) which is used by multiple church theme providers so customers can more easily switch. The themes only present content, which is what themes are made for. “Doing it right” is our core philosophy. Your update above about Jake’s approach sounds like what we’ve been doing.

        Church websites need to present content in a different way than other websites. This is true of many niches. As an example, we make a space in the header for showing Sunday Services and other events (latest sermons can be shown too). Our newest theme has a space in the footer for location and service times. Generic themes cannot possibly address the presentational needs of every niche.

        You could say go grab Twenty Fourteen, an events plugin, something to list sermons, something to list people and another plugin for locations. It will almost always be ugly and disconnected unless the buyer has the skill and time to style a child theme. How many generic themes happen to have styling for the unique combination of plugins that are needed for a niche? Niche theme designers can specifically support plugins that meet their customers’ needs.

        Another pro for buyers of niche themes is expertise. A niche theme producer knows his industry. They can provide support geared towards people in that market. To illustrate this, what advice about making an effective church website will an atheist be able to provide? It is wrong to assume all niche themes are marketing gimmicks.

        But I agree, there is a problem with many niche themes. A lot of big theme shops and many ThemeForest authors are on the lookout for the next niche to exploit. The problem is they have no experience in that particular area. One day they make a restaurant theme, the next a church theme then they move onto a hotel theme. They’re not experts and they don’t stick with any one thing for very long. This does not result in the best product or customer service experience.

        I say absolutely use a niche theme when available but stick with a provider that focuses primarily or only on that niche and follows WordPress development standards. Niche theme providers that meet this criteria are far and few.

      1. Obviously I need to take a closer look at churchthemes. Looks really promising. And that article is spot-on, thanks for sharing. Like I mentioned to Brad, it’s not that there isn’t a market, it’s that the large majority of shops I see spitting out niche themes do it really badly. So, thanks for being an exception to that rule!

      2. “it’s not that there isn’t a market, it’s that the large majority of shops I see spitting out niche themes do it really badly” = Nailed it.

        That’s exactly it. I don’t see anything wrong with developing niche themes, the problem is when people create themes just for ranking on search engines (or trying to convince WP novices) by saying it’s a niche theme but really it’s just a framework with stock photos.

        I’ll be the first to admit I have done things in the past just for Search Engines, but there is a point where things do get out of hand ;)

  2. So melodramatic, Mr. Cromwell! =)

    If I told you that my first non-starter theme offering to the repo is going to be a niche theme you’d cry tears of blood. I’m aiming at releasing a single page ‘resume’ theme. I know, I know. But hold on…

    That said, I think you underscore a bad habit that niche themes promote. It really promotes a “cart before the horse” mentality. So I’m with you there. A theme should always be purpose built, it should specifically achieve a goal. If you get something custom built by a skilled developer and designer, then you’re going to get a theme that does that. I think a lot of folks who pick up that niche theme do so without thinking about how the site will actually help achieve their goals. Eventually they have that discussion about those few items they wish their site could do but it can’t for whatever the reason. We’ve all had THOSE talks.

    But if I release a niche theme aimed at folks wanting a nice ‘resume’ site and the theme achieves its goal, then that’s not bad. There’s beauty in simplicity.

    I think, when building anything, you start with the end in mind. You start with desired results, functionality and purpose. Those higher level discussions should happen first; then work backward from there. Now, if a niche theme can cover those higher-level items, goals, or what have you, then pick it up. Otherwise, bring on a skilled dev who is masterful with their tools and they will build you something that will achieve your goals. Niche themes are built and presented in such a way that people are encouraged to “skip” those high-level touchpoints.

    Just my two pennies.

    1. I’ll beta test your resume theme. Email me and then I’ll berate it for it’s nichiness! ;-) No seriously, I can give a hat tip to niche themes that do it well, but I’d love to see actual real life examples. Any links on you Vasquez?

  3. Niche themes have their place. Just like frameworks, “do-everything” themes, and custom themes built for a project. It’s a big world, there’s room for everyone.

    1. Maybe. I could be wrong. Maybe niche theme authors are just doing it so badly that they stand out from the rest poorly.

  4. Niche themes are created for three reasons:

    1. Marketing. It’s easier to sell a restaurant theme to a restaurant, just like it’s easier to sell vegetables to a vegetarian. It’s what they’re looking for when they’re ready to buy. All-in-one packages are a much easier sell. “You pay $79 and get a neat little package of everything you need to fire up a real estate website in under 30 minutes!”

    2. Feature specificity. Sure, Divi and X Theme may give you the ability to do pretty much anything, but these types of themes are bloated as crap and slow as dirt in many cases. Additionally, just because you “can” build your own website with a theme like Divi, that doesn’t always mean you “should.” Just because you’re a great dentist, X Theme won’t magically turn you into super web designer. Odds are, you’re going to make a crappy site with a poor conversion rate. When it comes to gaining visibility for your business, don’t take a chance just because you can cut corners and save money on a designer or developer. There are inexpensive alternatives but DIY is rarely the best one. Also, many niche themes use feature plugins to work in tandem with themes to transform WordPress into a very specific type of site, whether that’s a site for a church, a recipe blog, or a yoga studio.

    3. Search engine discoverability. Themes should be built for search engines to be able to discover important metadata and show that data in search results. Plugins designed to enhance search engine metadata only go so far. If your theme doesn’t implement best practices and industry-specific metadata structures, you’re screwed.

      1. Why do you consider Hueman to be a niche theme? It’s designed for flexibility, not to a specific market. I think we’re defining “niche” in different ways.

      2. No, I think there’s a big difference between a theme with a purpose and a niche theme. You can see all the examples I gave in the article. And I wouldn’t consider Hueman purely a Blog theme, it’s actually pretty robust. But… I’ll agree that my site is in need of a serious refresh and when that happens it’ll be from a starter theme or Make.

  5. Thanks for the mention of our Conductor Plugin Matt!

    I agree to a point about what you are saying. Our Slocum Themes, which in half of our cases are “niche” themes, are rarely used as advertised. But there has to be a way to get exposure out. There has to be a thought process behind what it did.

    At some point, someone took a surfboard and said, “Man, wouldn’t it be cool to ride this thing on asphalt!”

    There needs to be something to inspire people to naturally play. Niche themes are also great for people who aren’t writing articles about WordPress themes and want an entrance or introduction into themes as well as a way for agencies to wireframe. I know I am guilty of thinking most themes don’t need to be niche either for the same reasons, but I always like to think about the “other guys”.

    1. Hi Dan, appreciate the feedback. With all the comments here and on FB and Twitter I feel like most folks generally agree because of the current state of niche themes across the board, but everyone also pushes back that there is still a “market” for them. You guys at Slocum definitely know what you’re doing, so I’d generally agree that there’s a market for it. I just think there’s also got to be a future oriented, best practices method for targeting your theme for a market without crippling the user by locking up functionality in the functions file, like what Jake Caputo did with Stocky.

      Thanks for chiming in, I think it’s a helpful discussion for the WP community.

  6. Hi Matt great post, I couldn’t agree more! And thank you for the mention :)

    One thing I did want to point out is the x theme actually uses the visual composer but modded to work with their theme (as noted on one of their support responses) where I include the full unmodified version of the plugin in total which I believe is better.

    The biggest issue in the market is people aren’t willing to pay developers to help modify their themes via child theme functions/CSS so they think they have to buy something that is specific to their niche. If you want a quality site you need to start with a quality theme but u can’t stop there you will still need to put time and money into it because even with the best theme ever you still want it to be unique and reflect your business model.

    Sorry for any typos in my phone :)

  7. Wrong on so many levels. It’s people like you that encourage multi purpose or better said purposeless themes. Clearly you’re not a theme developer otherwise you ‘d understand how different a theme must be designed when serving a specifuc purpose. Please, avoid discuss matters for which you have superficial knowlegde. And yes, blog themes are also a niche. It’s bloggers niche.

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