Visitors of this blog would know by now that I have a design fetish that I try to satisfy before I launch any of my websites.

If it’s my site, then it has to look good. Personally I have managed to beat some of my better competition in terms of attractiveness by designing a beautiful site with the cleanest navigation.

For the sites that I have a bigger budget, I usually have my website templates custom designed. But with sites in dozens, spending money of custom design is not the viable option to choose as for every site I first need to justify the investment.

The best way to approach this is to sign up with one of the better template providers and choose from their portfolio of a wide range of templates.

These days you will get many template provides who provide templates on a subscription basis. However, one of my preferred provider is definitely Dream Template.

One look and you too will fall in love.

They have a huge portfolio of templates and are not just quantity provides but also quality providers.

The subscription price is just a mere $59.95 a month and at this prices, it’s just to difficult to resist.

Now some of us might not actually have a budget, but then I would like to let them know that they too can also get some quality templates for free.

Dream Template also have a free website template section with over 300+ website templates.

It’s all free with no catch, just that you would have to keep their credit link.

I guess that is a small price to pay for quality stuff.

Considering the download options available for the paid members, I would recommend that you signup with them.

They not just have website templates, but also have templates for Word and Powerpoint that you get along wioth your DT subscription. And well you also get logo templates that you can use to create an online identity. However, this is one thing that I would recommend that you get custom made.

One of the things that I really find attractive with a DT subscription is the fact that I also get free access to three more amazing sites. My favorite being Theme Layout.

This is one of my favorite sites for WordPress and Joomla themes. As I have most of my built with Wordpress, this is just template heaven for me.

Have a look at the wordpress theme and you will know what I am talking about.

Hope you guys like the site too. Literally a complete package for all your template needs.

So with DT you get website templates, presentation templates, logos, blog templates, brochure templares, icons, joomla and even OSCommere templates.

Let me know if you think that you can provide a better deal ;-)

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This is one thing that I would recommend everyone running a PHPld to purchase.

This is a very useful application were you would no longer have to depend on external services to render website screenshots for your directory listing.

With this application, you can easily automate the process of making thumbnails and screenshots for the sites submitted to your directory.

You just need to connect to any mysql database with an id and url, and the screenshot processor will take care of the rest.

This application can be purchased for $25 and can be downloaded at the official PHPld site. You would need to create a login if you don’t have one already.

PHP Link Directory

Just a few pointers to be kept in mind:

*   The host of your database must allow remote connections. Please make sure this is possible before purchasing the software.

* This application only works with Windows XP and Vista.

* With a single liscence purchase, the screenshot processor is for use by one individual on only one computer.

 Pre-sales questions :: Screenshot Processor Support Forum

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Now if you are serious about your online business, it’s always best to have a budget allocated specifically for web promotion activities.

For any new business, you would need to get immediate attention and long term traffic to sustain your business model. After all we do agree that traffic is the lifeline of any online business.

For this, the best approach is to hire a PPC and a SEO specialist to manage your marketing activities. PPC can be very tricky and if one does not have an understanding, one can lose a lot of money. For some things it’s best to hire an expert.

If you are not already acquainted, then I would like to suggest the services of PerrerJam.

They are very reputed in the search engine optimization and SEM industry and are one of the top performing vendors. They are practically one of the largest web marketing companies and provide a wide range of services from pay-per-click (PPC) management to search engine optimization (SEO).

In 2007 Pepperjam was named one of the top 10 SEO firms in the United States by Promotion World.

At PepperJam one focuses on performance and every client has access to proprietary tools for robust tracking, reporting and ROI-automation technology exclusive to the network.

If you are seriously looking at managing a profitable online business, then you ought to work with professionals who take their work seriously.

Visit PepperJam

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Well I am upgrading some of my directories to the latest version of PHPld and as I donot have custome templates for all of them, I will be using some of the free ones available.

The PHPld template list that I manage is for the last version of PHPld 3.2 and I will be updaing that soon.

Recently some great designs have been released for free and I am sharing a few of them. I will also be updating the White Pearl to the latest version very soon so keep an eye for that too.

Dense :: Demo :: Download

Love/Hate :: Demo :: Download

Paper Trail :: Demo :: Download

Also check this out: http://www.directorytrials.com/phpld-33-free-templates/

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There are two reasons why we love WordPress the most. Not just because it is a good blogging platform but also because of the free themes and plugins available for it.

With Wordpress, all good things indeed come for free.

Personally Wordpress has now become my preferred CMS too and I am using it as backened on almost 95% of my non blog sites. I have many sites with just a few pages and one of the things that attracts me towards using WordPress are the beautiful free themes.

WordPress template editing is a breeze and somehow I have a design fetish that I have to satisfy before launching any of my sites.

There may be many place where you can find your wordpress themes, but one of my preferred sites would be Top WP themes. I too happened to stumble upon them recently and found some of the most unique and fresh designs available for download.

I would suggest that you bookmark them as they have some very good looking designs available for download and personally I have not seen their designs listed any where else.

I too found some themes to my liking and would infact be using the Shopping Manual wordpress theme for our free stuff blog.

I have listed my top three themes as per my liking for freshness and good design:

* Shopping Manual
* VintageBleau Wordpress Theme
* VistaLog Wordpress Theme

Hope you too like the themes and if it about fresh designs, I would vouch for them.

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If you didn’t know already, IVS is soon going to be relaunced.

I have had the oppouruntity to see the new site in action and I have to admit that IVS will definitely catch the eye of many as the best directory resource with functional activities that would aid both a directory owner, a submittor and also the script developer.

IVS will go in the beta soon.

Dan is inviting script developers to be a part of it and is looking for suggestion on what you would like to see added as a script developer.

If you are a script owner or a developer, I would recommend that your participate in the discussion in this thread.

We Want You! - Directory Script Owners and Developers

This is the best platform for budding directory scripts to get more exposure and subsequently get more users.

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