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10 The Most Important Factors

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10 The Most Important Factors


Home » Featured » How to Make Sure Your Site is Up-to-Date: The 10 Most Important Factors







Creating and launching a website is a great deal. However, if you think that once you launch a website, you’re done, you’re likely to miss quite a lot. A website requires constant care and regular updates.

How to Make Sure that Your Site is Up-to-Date

Why is updating a website important?

There are several quite important factors why you should consider regular investments to your online presence. These factors are:

  • Your rank by search engines. I bet you want to see your website on the first page of search results. Search engines “love” websites that are frequently updated as they consider that such websites provide more relevant and up-to-date content to the users. Moreover, over the time some links on your website may become a subject to link rot. If you don’t fix broken links regularly, search engines notice this and rate you lower.
  • How people perceive your website. If people land on your website and see that the latest blog posts there date two years back, they are likely to think that your business is not active or even ceased to exist. Consequently, they would opt for your competitors that are more active on the web.
  • Amount of interlinking. If you regularly post new informative and unique content, you’re likely to see people sharing it in social networks and linking to it on their websites. This is great for you in terms of SEO. However, if your great contents were created a couple of years ago, the rate if interlinking falls dramatically.

What are the three main vectors of website updates?

I hope you’re pretty much persuaded that updating your website is important. But how to approach it? Actually, there are three main types of website maintenance that you should regard. Let’s briefly review them, before we go into detail:

  • Technical maintenance. No website is perfect, and over time your website is likely to encounter such issues as broken links, 404 Errors or missing media content. You need to regularly check for the appearance of such issues and fix them in order for your website not to lose its ranking by search engines.
  • Updating your website content. For a high-ranking website, a lively, regularly updated blog section is a must. Moreover, you need to update other sections of your website, such contact details, testimonials, home page, etc.
  • Keeping your website design up-to-date. Your great content won’t win over the hearts of your website guests if it’s presented on an outdated website that looks like a ghost from the past. Design accounts for the initial impression that your guests get on your website, as well as for their desire to keep coming back to it.

10 Tips to Follow to Keep Your Website Regularly Updated

Below, you’ll find 10 most useful tips to keep your website regularly updated. These tips account for all three vectors of website maintenance, so you won’t miss a thing if you follow them. Let’s see what we”ve got here.

1) Eliminate Appearance of Broken Links

Broken links make it impossible to access some pages on your website and result in site guests” disappointment. Websites with broken links are downplayed by search engines so that fewer people stumble upon broken links.

It’s okay that links get broken: some resources may be relocated, some pages may be archived or removed. It’s not okay if you don’t check for broken links and don’t fix them.

To detect and fix broken links you can turn to online tools, such as V3C Link Checker, Dead Link Checker, Online Broken Link Checker and other tools. Moreover, if you run a CMS or e-commerce website, you may use a plugin or extension that checks for broken links.

In some cases, a manual checkup for broken links is still necessary. A page may return HTTP 200 (OK) response (that is not recognized by broken links checker), but still display the content that is not relevant.

To prevent the appearance of broken links on your website, use reliable link building strategies, minimize URL change and page removal, use shorter URLs, and avoid linking to unreliable sources and PDF documents.

If you mind all these factors and regularly check for broken links, you’ll be sure that every single link on your website works properly, no matter how many pages your website has.

How to Make Sure that Your Site is Up-to-Date

2) Regularly Update Your Website Engine and Plugins

Keeping the software on your website up-to-date is a worthy concern. If you run a website with the help of a CMS (Content Management System) or an E-commerce engine, you need to update the engine once the newer version of it is released.

Why update your website engine?

Regular engine updates are necessary from a security standpoint. Not updating your website regularly makes your website vulnerable to hacker attacks, which is definitely not what you desire. Moreover, website engines develop and a newer version may have the functionality you always wished to have.

When updating your website, you should do it with caution. You should always create a full website backup before updating your website so that you can always revert your website to the previous state in case something goes wrong.

Update not only the engine but also website plugins. With newer plugin versions, you’ll have more functionality and features that you need.

3) Have a Frequently Updated Blog

First of all, it must be said that your website does need a blog section. Even if you run an e-commerce website, you need a blog section to make your website more engaging and to improve your position in search engine search results.

Once you have your blog, you need to update it frequently. Add new posts a couple of times every week, or at least just once a week, and both people and search engines will see that your website is alive and thriving.

Don’t know what to post? Find some ideas below:

  • Review some products or services that your target auditory is interested in.
  • Share news and insights into daily life of your business. This is the best way to let people learn about your philosophy and attitude.
  • Create a poll and ask your site guests what the things that they want to learn more about are. Then, address the points that were opted for by the majority of your audience.
  • Interview someone by email or using web technologies, such as Skype, Viber, etc. Share the video and/or the transcript of it and add more value to your blog by this.

As a perfect example of a frequently updated popular blog – Onextrapixel. The blog shares value-laden informative articles for web design professionals and newbies.

4) Make Sure Your Contact and Personal Information Is Up-To-Date

Your clients should always be able to reach you out. This is a rule of the thumb. As time passes, some of your contact details may change. Keep in mind that in this case, you need to update information on your website as soon as possible.

This also refers to your operating hours. Is there a holiday coming soon? Don’t forget to notify your clients that you’re having a day off, so they know this and don’t get upset that they can’t reach you out.

Also, mind updating the sections, such as “About Us” and “Team”, once you have something to add or to change there. The story of your business shouldn’t end somewhere back in 2015 if you launched the website back then and created the “About Us” page. A person that no longer works for you, shouldn’t be on your website as people should know whom they deal with.

How to Make Sure that Your Site is Up-to-Date

5) Post New Testimonials

Don’t be lazy to share great things that people say about you. Fresh testimonials are definitely not a thing you should forget about. As soon as you have one or a couple, present them to the public and people will trust you more.

How to Make Sure that Your Site is Up-to-Date

Be Active In Social Networks

All modern businesses rely heavily on the presence in social networks. If your website isn’t tied to your accounts in social networks, such as Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, it’s rather a pretty disappointing neglect that should be accounted for.

Once you connect your website to your social media profiles, you should keep/start regularly sharing some small updates there. Having a corporate party, or just a morning cup of coffee with some interesting person? Share these moments and give your followers an insight into your daily life.

To further promote your accounts on social networks, you may use widgets that display feeds from social networks on your website. It’s a great way to kill two birds with one stone, as with the help of a widget you update contents on your website and in social networks simultaneously.

How to Make Sure that Your Site is Up-to-Date

For example, display Instagram feed widget on your home page. With no extra text, such a widget is a great tool to show your active social life and get more followers on this social network.

7) Watch Out For Outdated Imagery

Imagery is an important component of every website page. Once site guests land on a page, they esteem its design and imagery, and just then decide whether content is worth reading or not.

So, come back to your old posts from time to time and substitute obsolete imagery with the state-of-art one. This year, forget about poised, unnatural stock imagery and go for authentic photography that presents real people in real situations. Such imagery is proven to appeal more to emotions of your site guests and bring you more conversions.

How to Make Sure that Your Site is Up-to-Date

8) Monitor Analytics and Run Usability Testing

When you monitor your website analytics, look for the pages that have the highest bounce rate. What’s wrong there? Think of how you can restructure, redesign or update the content of these pages so that they are as captivating as your other website pages.

As the number of your website contents grows over time, you need to test, whether it’s still convenient for your website guests to navigate and use your website. Running usability testing is recommended once or twice a year. Don’t neglect this practice, as the convenience of your clients should be one of your paramount concerns.

9) Make Sure Your E-Shop Is Up-To-Date

If you’re running an e-shop, you should frequently check whether your product information is up-to-date. Is the number of products available displayed correctly? Are all the product variations presented still available at your shop? Is the price still the same? Be accurate and always provide what you promise, and customers will prefer you over your competitors.

How to Make Sure that Your Site is Up-to-Date

10) Keep In Line With Latest Web Design Trends

If updating your website contents is something pretty much like a daily routine, then updating the design of your website is a rare, but an important undertaking that you also can’t live without. Even the freshest and most exciting contents will lose their appeal if presented on an obsolete, crummy website.

To update your website design you may either higher an upper-end designer and get your website a custom redesign, or use a modern website template to quickly make your website look a couple of years “younger”. Modern website templates are a great tool to revamp your website, as they not only have visually appealing designs but also come with a number of useful plugins. To see a collection of modern website templates, check out these new WordPress themes.

How to Make Sure that Your Site is Up-to-Date

Conclusions

Keeping your website up-to-date is a must if you strive to maximize your income with your website. You should frequently update your website blog, make sure that other content on your website is up-to-date, carry out regular technical checkups and fixes, and modernize your website design at least once in a couple of years. If you manage to successfully keep your website up-to-date, all the world will recognize your website as thriving and appealing online place, worth spending time and money.

Stay tuned!






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Logo Design Rules of Thumb You Shouldn’t Forget

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Logo Design Rules of Thumb You Shouldn’t Forget








The logo is that magical symbol that visually represents your company’s brand. As a graphic representation of your company’s main message and values, the logo stands at the core of the brand’s identity, and it is the element that makes a business easily memorable for the public, along with the company’s name. Needless to say, a good logo is essential to a developing business who needs to create awareness and attract new customers.  

An eye-catching logo on advertisements or promotional products will definitely help influence a buyer’s decision when ordering. More often than not, people feel more confident to make a purchase from a brand with a cool logo design that got their attention in the first place. And that’s what a good logo should do: not only attract the consumer’s attention, but also make sure that the business logo is unperceivable imprinted in the consumer’s memory.

Consequently, good designers will opt for a minimal logo design, a simple text, an illustration, a picture, or even a symbol that captures the essence of the brand’s message rather than delivering a message that is too complicated and too hard to remember.

As the logo contributes so much to your company’s visibility and credibility, there are certain rules to swear by and mistakes to avoid when designing it.

Research and Strategy

The first step of any new logo design project is thorough research. Understanding the competition, asking the right questions, respecting brand’s heritage, exploring combinations and looking for inspiration in order to formulate the right strategy are necessary steps towards finding a successful compelling visual solution.

Knowing what styles would work for certain fields of activity/type of business, as well as having the skills to properly use those styles, are the details that will make your designs stand out.

Logo Size

When it comes to size, try not to impress the customer with a big, bold, intricate design that covers more space than the text of the brochure. Logo is important for branding but, remember, sometimes less is more.

Originality

We all know that every logo designer have to align to the latest logo design trends to stay on top. But that doesn’t mean you can’t express your own vision. Always dare to be different. Introduce wit and humor into your designing work. Impress your audience with a unique, easily recognizable logo that will tell the company’s story in the best possible way. 

Placement

The logo can be placed in the right or the left corner (most people say upper left is the best), and never in the middle of the page. Of course, there are exceptions: the logo can be placed in the middle of the page too, provided that the overall layout of the page is centered, and that there are no other elements on the same row to compete with the logo.

Style

To make sure your message gets to the right audience, carefully choose one or two fonts which perfectly match the outlook of the company. Of course, you can go with Comic Sans if you want, but that might make your message seem like a joke and this is not what you are after.

If you want your client to be pleased with the logo you’ve created, always keep in mind their set of tastes, which sometimes can be different from yours. Make sure you have all the data (client’s needs and wishes, company’s background, values and main message) before getting to work because every project requires a different style. A/B testing is an inevitable part of the designing process, but starting on the right foot will help avoid mistakes which often result in extra hours of work.

Color

Colorful designs are attractive but too much color can hurt the eye. To get a meaningful, memorable logo, opt for one color and tone it down to express professionalism, simplicity, and reliability. Colour schemes should be managed carefully, whether you choose a complementary color scheme (think of the Firefox logo) or an analogous color scheme (the BP oil logo is a good example). Color contrast can be used to control mood like McDonald’s did by using analogous warm colors to induce appetite.

Device compatibility

Fresh, minimal designs are preferred today by most big companies: IHOP, Microsoft, Windows, and Netflix went from bold 3D logos in the 2000s to the simple, fresh designs they have today, and not only for style reasons. Flat styles scale better, and that makes them compatible with most browsers and mobile devices. In a mobile world, compatibility with smartphones and tablets is vital. If we think about page load time (on mobile and desktop), minimal logo design is also beneficial due to small file size which doesn’t slow down the website.

 

The Perfect logo

A successful company will have a consistent design that people can easily associate with the brand. We have mentioned numerous examples which prove that a clean branding image is at the core of a successful marketing strategy.

Therefore, whether you go for monolines, a hand drawn logo, a vintage style logo or a dynamic logo, paying attention to the details mentioned above will help you avoid the need of rebranding, which could be a herculean task.






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The Mac Photo Editor That Adapts to Your Style and Skill Level

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The Mac Photo Editor That Adapts to Your Style and Skill Level


Home » Design » The Mac Photo Editor That Adapts to Your Style and Skill Level







As an online professional, you no doubt spend a portion of your time working with photo content. Clients may provide some photo material, and some may come from stock photo resources. The quality may vary; but even when it’s good, you often wish it would be better, or have greater eye-catching appeal.

The problem is, using photo editing software to achieve the results you’re want isn’t always easy, and if you’re a web designer or an online marketer, you don’t always have the time to work your way up a steep learning curve. A flexible, versatile application is almost by definition a complex one, and complexity has a habit of becoming an integral part of an application’s UI.

If you’re a Mac user, photo editing just got easier.

1Luminar

               No matter your skill level, you can edit photos as in this example with Luminar.

  • With Luminar you no longer have to be satisfied with simply using the best image available; creative imagery is the new norm.
  • Professional-looking photographs help brand you as a pro.
  • Online marketer? See the difference eye-catching images can make.

Try Luminar image editor for Mac; and see the difference.

Luminar Adapts to Your Skill Level; It’s the First Photo Editing App to do So

Luminar is a complex tool. That’s necessary if it’s going to be able to test your creativity to the max. That doesn’t mean the UI needs to be complicated. In fact, the exact opposite is true. You can achieve professional-looking results on your first try. In spite Luminar’s versatility, its learning curve is practically non-existent. This photo editor Mac users are so crazy about, really does adjust to your style and your skill level.  Click here to compare Luminar with Lightroom and Aperture.

Examples of how straightforward it can be to edit a photo:

  • Clone an Area of an Image

Luminar’s Clone Stamp tool enables you to select a portion of an image, clone it, and paste the cloned part on another part of the image, using a brush. The process is simple. Select a location, hold the location while clicking on the area to be cloned, select another area, and paint over it to paste the cloned image. Once you’re satisfied with the result, click “Apply”.

2Luminar

  • Using the Color Splash Tool

The color splash effect can be accomplished several ways, none of which require complex techniques. For example, using the Color Splash tool to add a splash of color to a B&W image involves loading a color image file, selecting the B&W filter, clicking on the brush icon, selecting the Mask Erasing mode, and painting over a part of the monochrome image to restore the color.

 

Get Creative with These Three Luminar Filters

Many of Luminar’s features are designed to help you maximize your creativity. These three filtering techniques are among the most popular. Like most other features that make up this Mac image editor, using each of these is about as simple as it gets.

Creating a Dramatic Effect – Dramatic effects tend to draw visitor attention. This feature is no less popular than adding texture, and possibly more so. It’s one reason why Luminar is the image editor Mac users favor. This video demonstrates how the slider button on the Dramatic filter can give a photo a gritty, urban, finely detailed look.

 

Working with Color Temperature – This video shows you how you can make an image more relaxing by adding a cool bluish hue, or make it more intense by adding a reddish-orange hue. It’s simply a matter of selecting Color Temperature from the filter menu, and adjusting the temperature and tint slider buttons to get the sought-after result.

 

Texture Overlay – Adding texture with the Texture Overlay filter can be fun; and can also produce subtle or powerful, yet attention-getting effects. Texturing is one method of producing uniquely creative images. It’s an easy, 3-step process, as shown in the video. Select the Texture Overlay filter, choose a texture, and adjust the lightness/darkness slider.

 

5 Useful and Exciting Features Unique to Luminar

3Luminar

Workspaces – Editing an image sometimes necessitates selecting more than one filter. The Workspaces feature enables you to preset and save subsets of filters for use on various types of images; saving you search time. Subsets can be added to, or modified.

4Luminar

Golden Hour – Golden Hour is a must-have filter if you take a lot of sunrise or sunset shots. All too often, the results are either too dark, there is too much contrast, or subtle tones appear washed out or disappear entirely. You can restore, intensify, or emulate these subtle tones using the Golden Hour slider.

5Luminar

Split Color Warmth – Photos often contain both warm colors and cool colors. This creative toning tool’s two sliders allow you to adjust either color type to produce added warmth, or to add a cool hue.

6Luminar

DeHaze – Mist, haze, or fog sometimes add to an image and at other times detracts from one. With the DeHaze single slider button, you can bring out detail that would otherwise be lost.

7Luminar

Split Toning – With this tool, you can add color to a shadowy area in a photo using the hue and saturation sliders. A highlighted area can also be modified by the same process. An additional slider, “Amount”, can be activated to increase the overall intensity of an image.

Luminar can be used as a standalone application, as an extension for Photos, or as a plugin for Photoshop, Aperture, or Lightroom. This Mac photo editor will also be made available to PC users early in 2017. You’re invited to take Luminar for a test spin to find out more about this powerful, yet easy to use image editor.






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The Best and Smartest WordPress Themes for 2024

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Looking for the right WordPress theme can be a chore. One looks better than the last one; and, after a while, they all begin to look alike. If this has been your experience, look no further. To get the New Year off to a great start, we’ve listed several features you should be looking for in a theme.To make your search even easier, we’ve compiled a listing of the best 14 WordPress themes out there. It may take a few minutes more to make the right decision, but you can’t make a bad one.

What to Insist on in a WordPress Theme?

  • Look for a theme that has a modern and aesthetically pleasing design. That’s important, if you want a theme that has some staying power.
  • Look for a theme that is SEO ready; especially if you want your website to draw significant traffic.
  • A customizable theme is an easy theme to work with, it gives you the flexibility you must have, and it can be a terrific time saver.
  • See what type of support is offered. Live chat or a quick response is better than email.
  • Check the reviews, to see what people say about the theme.

Be Theme – Responsive Multi-Purpose WordPress Theme

Be Theme, the biggest WordPress theme ever, is an all-purpose theme in every sense of the word. It has every important feature you need, to build any style or type of website, blog, or portfolio you’re likely to encounter from a client.

Be’s selection of 230+ pre-built websites might be the main reason for its popularity, although this multipurpose tool is packed with powerful, yet easy to access and use, features.

The pre-built websites address most of the common website types and niches, and UX styles as well. They are completely customizable, so choosing any one that especially appeals to you, will get the job done – close match or not. They can be installed with one click, after which the Muffin Builder 3 or Visual Composer, and the Muffin Options panel can take over.

There’s no shortage of layout, grid, or header options, there’s a wealth of fonts, icons, and other design elements, and the Shortcode generator, with its 200+ shortcodes. Best of all, no coding is required, and BeTheme is Responsive and Retina, SEO, and WooCommerce ready.

The Core – Multi Purpose WordPress Theme

Since The Core was designed and developed, by professionals, for professionals. It only makes sense that since this sophisticated set of tools and features are so easy to work with, The Core is an excellent choice for beginners as well. Beginner or pro, The Core will handle the technical stuff, and leave the creative design decisions up to you.

The 20+ demos address the most popular website types, styles, and niches, and can be imported with a single click. Since they are customizable, all you need to do is choose one that appeals to you, and let your ideas and creative skills take it from there. Once you purchase The Core, future demos are yours at no charge.

Frontend page builders/editors are becoming more and more popular, so you should enjoy working with the Visual Builder. The Core is well documented.

Enfold – Multi-Purpose Theme

Enfold  has also proven to be popular with web designers at all levels of skill and experience. This ThemeForest best seller is packed with demos that are so cool you might be tempted to leave them untouched. They are easy to customize however, and you can select elements from several demos if you wish, as you build your website, blog, or portfolio.

There are plenty of header and menu options to give your products the look and feel they deserve. Since Enfold is so easy to work with, you shouldn’t have to worry about missing deadlines.

You could in fact surprise your clients, by providing them with quickly put together prototypes to show them where you’re heading; and requesting feedback. If designing a portfolio is a near-term objective, you’ll find Enfold’s portfolio template selection will be a valuable help.

Hestia PRO

The first one page theme on the list, Hestia Pro, is a Material Design-based theme. This theme is fully responsive, and WooCommerce, translation, RTL, and SEO ready.

If this is what you’ve been looking for, the online video tutorials are the best way to get a complete picture of what Hestia Pro offers.

Houzez – Real Estate WordPress Theme

This specialty theme will appeal to anyone accepting an assignment from a real estate agency. Houzez offers the features real estate professionals will be looking for, and are not to be found in most WP themes.

With Houzez, the first website you deliver will make you look like you’ve been working with real estate themes all your life.

Divi 3.0

Divi 3.0’s immense popularity is due in part to the Divi Builder, released as part of Divi 2.0, and in part due to the Builder’s totally redesigned and rebuilt interface which made its debut in version 3.0.

Divi is a high-performance WordPress theme that is packed with quality features. It’s one you’ll enjoy working with if real time design appeals to you. A bonus feature is Divi’s ability to produce live responsive previews during any design phase.

 

TheGem – Creative Multi-Purpose High-Performance WordPress Theme

TheGem is a responsive, high-performance theme with a modern creative flair. The authors intent was to design the ultimate web building toolbox, and by most accounts they appear to have succeeded.

The package contains 40+ multi-purpose design concepts, 150 cool demo pages, and a host of nav options and page layouts. If you have an interest in owning the Swiss Army Knife of WordPress themes, give TheGem a closer look.

 

Ultra WordPress Theme

Themify set out to build a WordPress theme that could claim to be their most powerful and flexible. The result was Ultra, a “must have” theme for web designers and developers.

New features include design skins you can use to give web pages a special look. Pre-made demo sites have also been recently added to Ultra’s package, along with 10 free Builder addons worth $100.

 

KLEO – Pro Community Focused, Multi-Purpose BuddyPress Theme

If creating a community website is high on your list of to dos, Kleo is the perfect solution. This specialty theme has just the right tools for listing activities and events, logging into social media, conducting profile searches, creating a forum, and so on.

Kleo’s community-oriented features are unlikely to be found in most other WP themes; so, here’s your chance.

Uncode – Creative Multiuse WordPress Theme

Uncode is another WP theme that is oriented toward creative users and agencies. Uncode’s emphasis on attention to detail, flexibility, and performance, with the intent of helping you produce pixel-perfect websites, can be seen in its web-building concepts.

Other key features are a hierarchical options system, and advanced grid system, and an adaptive images system that automatically adjusts to any screen size.

Kalium WordPress Theme

Minimalist designs are currently a hot web design trend. It’s only natural for web designers to look for the same characteristics when selecting a theme. Kalium fits into the minimalist narrative perfectly.

It’s crisp, clean, and easy to work with, and it offers unlimited web design options. As is the case with a few other themes designed for web professionals, beginners will also find Kalium fun and easy to work with.

 

TheFox Responsive Multi-Purpose WordPress Theme

TheFox is smart, flexible, and perfect for an e-commerce store, a business or agency, or a blog or portfolio. In short, you can create a successful web design to serve virtually any client or purpose with this WordPress theme.

It comes with 30+ stunning pre-built home pages, along with 250+ design details and Visual Composer for your customizing and editing tasks. No coding is necessary with TheFox.

Impreza WordPress Theme

It never hurts to take a WP theme for a test drive when one is offered. That’s the best way to learn all about Impreza; and you’re invited to do so.

Learn all about this theme’s ingenious demo selection, which includes among other useful features, Mobile App, One Page, and Minimal Shop demos. You can test for 3rd party plugin compatibility and various theme options during your test drive.

XStore – Responsive WooCommerce Theme

XStore is dedicated to the web designer who is fully into e-commerce and online shop design. It’s a perfect solution to your e-commerce design needs. 40+ good to go shops offer a wealth of ideas you can borrow from to create the store of your dreams, or those of your client’s.

This specialty theme makes setting up a professional-looking store that features an engaging UX, a design activity that many consider a chore, a piece of cake.

Ending words

Whether you’re looking for a multipurpose theme, a specialty theme, or one of each, there should be something here for you.

A premium multipurpose theme, several of which are included, is always a safe choice, but if you’re looking for a one page material design theme, one devoted to real estate, e-commerce, or community affairs, you’ll find it here.

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