David Fiske A subtle blend of affiliate marketing and web development

Conscious that I'm submerged in another project and hence neglecting this site, I thought I would share a valuable lesson - something I've touched on before.

A lot of my sites now follow the same kind of design principles - so much so, I have built a standard template that can be adapted in half an hour to suit most of my sites.

Furthermore, scripts I use get recycled too. My current project architecture will be used on two sites. All I'll have to do is change a configuration file.

So in a nutshell, here's the benefits of recycling your websites.
 
1 - Save Time

The major bonus of having a folder full of templates (e.g. Wordpress, static website, etc) or scripts is that you can rapidly develop a site. If you have a basic Wordpress template, you can use this on umpteen websites and just simply change the colours.

The best example of this I know of is Lee McCoy's Get Visible Blogs site. There you'll find dozens of blog screenshots and they all follow the same sort of design principles. All Lee has to do is modify a template, install Wordpress and upload the theme. Hey presto, a new website.

By reusing or slightly redesigning templates, or reusing scripts, you can save a lot of what would have been wasted time.

2 - Save Money

Not techy minded? Do you hire the services of a tech person? If you do, you'll be familiar with the phrase "time is money". By reusing a template or script, you can save on development costs. And the more you use it, the cheaper each incarnation becomes.

For example, we've paid £1,000 for a script. If we can use it on 10 sites, that equates to a development cost of £100 per site - significantly better than the £1,000 for one site!

Just make sure that all the variables are placed in one file so that it is possible to easily edit them.

3 - Similar Results

Once you find a layout or script that works, you can reproduce it across your portfolio. If you don't have to worry about the layout because you have a 'template' template, you can put more effort into content. The same goes for a script.