Building the ultimate money making Wordpress theme

This blog can look back very proudly on the creation of a number of Wordpress themes that gained popular support in the cooler corners of the blogosphere. However, there is still one theme, or style of theme, that is missing from my portfolio. The money making Wordpress theme.

The ultimate money making Wordpress theme is, by its very definition, a click seeking missile whose job it is to attract traffic and turn that traffic into actions that result in sales and, ultimately, revenue for the blogger.

Though I hate to admit it, sometimes cool isn’t enough. Occasionally cool is counter productive. Because cool, if it is anything, is an expression of individuality.

I’ll give you an example.

My personal blog, brassrevolver.com, uses a palette of red and black tones that has caused many readers to question my design. But that doesn’t matter. It’s a personal blog. It’s the place where I can do whatever I want. My personal blog isn’t intended for masses of traffic, it’s a personal space. The red palette, with tones taken from sources such as Miles Davis and Bjork album covers, looks great on my Mac, and the Myriad Pro typeface sits perfectly in black with links in an understated red black ink hue.

But on a typographically challenged operating system like Windows, it’s certainly not going to win any beauty contests.

And so, even though it’s available for free download here, it’s not to everyone’s taste.

The need for a Wordpress theme that ruthlessly and shamelessly chases money is 1 part of the something wicked this way comes teaser that I posted a little while ago. People who come to Upstart Blogger for cool personal themes are, I hope, very well catered for, but people who come here looking for a way to make money, big money, might not find the design they are looking for.

And that’s a big part of the missing link.

30 Days teaches readers how to build a profitable blog in 30 days. Genesis Rocket teaches anyone how to grow their Twitter followers by around 1,000 every week. And the affiliate program gives everyone an opportunity to use those products for their own direct financial gain. But, currently, I don’t offer a free Wordpress theme that really allows bloggers to leverage the power of those products.

But that’s going to change.

Next week I’m going to release 3 free Wordpress themes. A 2 column white theme, a 2 column dark theme and a 1 column slab theme. Each theme will come preconfigured with matching advertisements for use with the Upstart Blogger affiliate program. Of course, you can do whatever you want with the theme if you don’t want to use them in conjunction with the Upstart Blogger affiliate program, however, the design will be geared heavily towards making money with that program.

It is my personal opinion that the classic 2 column Wordpress theme is the easiest way to make money, especially with a new blog. Magazine themes need a lot of content, well organised content, to make them appear aesthetically correct. I have included a 1 column theme in my plan simply because my last 1 column theme, Voluptua, was so well received and I’m sure that many 1 column bloggers will feel left out if I only release 2 column themes as part of this initiative.

Design work has already begun and will take place of the next 2 days. During that time I am actively looking for any suggestions that you may have.

What do you want to see in a money making Wordpress theme? What features would you like to see? And what do I need to create to make you drop your current theme, money making or otherwise, and switch to a new design?