Best practices for Live Demos?

Envato Authors Theme Authors
1

Hey guys…

I’m working on a theme and I could really use some tips/best practices for the Live Demo.
For example: should I let the search engines index the demo? How about the content, should I use Lorem Ipsum, should I get some real copy? If real copy is better, where do you usually get it?
Is it ok to use call to actions leading to buying the theme?
I see many themes come with placeholders instead of the demo photos… how do you do that? I mean, do you use 2 wordpress installs, 1 with the placeholders from where you export the content and 1 with the original photos which is also the demo?

Right now I think there are enough questions, but of course any information would be useful.

Thanks in advanced!

2
  1. Yes, index the demo. 2. If it is niche theme then instead of lorem ipsum add something related to that niche, or just list theme features. 3. Yes, call to action is ok. 4. I upload placeholder images on same installation with suffix “placeholder” and just change the name in xml file for images (be sure to check months as they can differ in xml if images are uploaded in different months).
1 Like
3

Thank you Ray! This is really helpful info!