Simple Tips To Avoid ThemeForest Reject You For The First Time
Hello everyone!
I’m here to tell you some quick tips to get you started with ThemeForest for the first time, but before starting let me introduce myself. I’m Hanan Hamdy worked on creating HTML Templates for sale on the ThemeForest that is the major platform on Envato. I’ve been a member for almost 4 years now and in this article will tell you my story with the first item have been approved based on my personal experience reviewing HTML Template.
What’s ThemeForest?
If you do not already know, ThemeForest is part of Envato Market which has several different websites under its brand like CodeCanyon, Photodune, GraphicRiver and more.
At ThemeForest, you can buy and sell HTML templates also themes for popular CMS products like WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal.
You can also put the price of your item based on complexity, quality, and use of the file, and also ThemeForest add a Buyer Fee to your price.
The site is home to a bustling community of web designers and developers and is the biggest marketplace of its kind.
Why should you start working on ThemeForest?
- Huge traffic. Your themes get exposed to lots of relevant people. Not just some random traffic, but those who are already familiar with the topic (and sometimes know more than you do about it). All you have is to convince them you have a good product.
- The choices are really yours. I am not talking about the strategy here (multipurpose vs. micro-niche themes, for example). I am talking about the freedom of choosing the prices for your products. It is totally up to you, whether to join the “race to the bottom” for the lowest price and sell your half-a-year work for $1 in revenue just to build your name and climb to the top. Or, go in the opposite direction, like some at the high end of the charts, setting your price at hundreds per theme.
- Another big choice is the exclusivity. Some choose the non-exclusive method of selling their themes everywhere, not just Envato, and are happy with 50% revenue. But most are sticking to Envato and selling their themes only there. The fee then depends on the gross sales, but you can get it as low as 12.5%.
- Envato does care about you being recognized as an elite/power elite author. Lots of perks, badges, the wall of fame inclusion, interviews on their blog and other significant boosts. Like for example, the new theme boosts your theme gets on Envato’s homepage when it is released and gets super-exposure in the first days.
- You get to raise good money for Support! Though the quality of support does matter a lot.
- Finally, last but not least, the community. You have an opportunity to talk to real developers like yourself. You can learn from them, you can share thoughts and pick up some interesting ideas yourself, and let’s be honest, not so many of us invent things nowadays.
Is it your first time?
If it’s the first time you are making a theme for ThemeForest it’s not impossible but it might be a bit hard at first to get approved. The requirements and standards are really high, but if you really want to get approved you will. Today I’m going to give you few tips on how to get approved and also avoid rejection.
What is ThemeForest Rejections types and reasons?
Soft Rejection
When you get soft rejected it means that your item is almost ready for sale in the marketplace, but it needs some improvement.
These improvements are described in the email or can be found in history tab in item page placed in the hidden tab in user page.
You just need to read them carefully and correct/modify your theme accordingly.
Hard Rejection
Please don’t give up if you received hard rejection dozens of times, each time without explanation. Yes sure, it is hard to continue working on a template, if you don’t have any idea what is the cause of the hard rejection.
Once your item rejected, have a fresh look, you will really find some new errors. You should make significant changes before re-submitting the item.
Let me tell you about My Big Mistake in this case that is every time move reject item to trash and start from scratch with the new idea and new item. PLEASE DON’T DO THAT. My advice work on your item again and again but please don’t start from scratch every time and don’t give up!
Reasons for Hard Rejections may be as follows:
- Your Item doesn’t achieve the minimum requirement and standards of the marketplace. Related article
- The common problems about design are you item has unequal shifts and impact typo-graphics, this problem always pay attention to it. Related article
- Your documentation about the template is lack and incomplete, the documentation must be very clear and include all info about your item. Documenter
- Parts of design are either difficult to read or have contrast issues. Related article
- Create your own Item, don’t copy others!. It’s more likely to be rejected. ThemeForest staff will disable your item and most probably your account and you’ll never be able to sell again there.
- You have no rights to resale some assets and you included it in your main file download. ThemeForest cares about Copyright, so be careful when using others assets.
- Free resources are OK, but you not listed them in documentation or template description.
- Your code not clean and formatted or not write any comments, where buyers can’t easily modify your code.
- Your code has errors, you should test for each functionality you did and your site should be compatible with All major browsers.
In PSD template, If you have several hard rejects. I think you must think about convert PSD to HTML or Wordpress.
Quick tips to get you started with ThemeForest for the first time!
Analyze Market
Make some analysis about the market and what is looking for and create awesome items for that.
Don’t work alone
If you are a developer, please work with some else for designing, because some items reject because of design issues. That will give you more chances to each other focus on his work and Every person in you tells the other about his feedback. This makes your item almost perfect and has more chance to get approved.
Keep It Simple
When worked on your item, try to make it simple. It’s very nice to make the item have a lot of options to customize to provide the user a possibility to change things. But think of it this way, the fewer options you add the less code you’ll have to write and the less code the reviewer will have to go through to check your theme and the less time the user will actually spend figuring out the theme works.
Do not be rushed
Take your time to review your item and test it before submitting. Every time you review and test your item, you will find some errors or having the new idea to improve your item more and more. Don’t submit your item in a rush in order to avoid further rejection or errors.
Listen to feedback
Always listen to what the reviewer says even if you do not agree with what he says because this will lead you to improve more and more your item.
A presentation is a king!
Don’t use low-quality images. Invest some money in quality stock images, they are definitely worth it! Tell your customers what they can do what they can achieve with your item.
Offline Documentation
Your item will reject if you do not provide proper documentation. So please take time to prepare detailed documentation before uploading to avoid rejection.
Conclusion
Generally, if your Item complies with the following common tips and avoids rejection reasons, you’ll probably have a chance of getting your Item approved on ThemeForest. Creating a high-performance theme is about creating an aesthetically pleasing design and everything display correctly but also marketing it just right. If you mess up one side, don’t expect to achieve high sales.
Finally, share your thoughts in the comments. If you’re a buyer or a seller, why not explain what makes you buy a theme or upload one?
References: Icons8, Envato, web3canvas, tutsplus, icypixels, sitepoint, Medium.
My Profiles: Website, ThemeForest & LinkedIn & Behance & Dribbble.