Today we’re announcing that Envato will soon be running an experiment on ThemeForest to promote hosting for WordPress items. We’ll be partnering with a few WordPress hosting companies to offer packages to ThemeForest users browsing and/or purchasing WordPress Themes.
What about Envato Hosted?
For the last few years, we have proudly offered our own WordPress hosting solution, Envato Hosted. With thousands of customers using the service, we received a lot of feedback about how the platform is going and where there is room to improve. Overall, it has become clear that a more full-featured core hosting solution would make for a better long-term experience. We’ve carefully examined the options and ultimately made the tough decision to power down our own infrastructure.
Who are the hosting providers?
To kick off, we will be running this experiment with four respected WordPress hosting providers:
- DreamHost
- Flywheel
- SiteGround
- WP Engine
What are the packages on offer?
Each hosting provider will promote their own, specific packages, including features, pricing and discounts available to ThemeForest customers.
How will we know the experiment worked?
Our goal with this experiment is to see if the combination of hosting and a great theme from ThemeForest helps customers achieve their project goals. We believe that providing customers with recommendations on high quality hosting from industry-leading providers will eliminate some of the challenges they have when trying to get their newly purchased theme set up on their site.
We believe that customers with high-quality hosting will have greater success setting up their theme. We’re hopeful that this will mean customers are more likely to leave a positive rating on the theme, generate fewer support requests around installation and have a better overall experience with Envato that could bring them back for their next creative project.
Where will these hosting services be promoted?
The various hosting packages on offer will be promoted to ThemeForest users browsing or purchasing WordPress Themes on our platform. Messages unique to each hosting provider will appear across the following pages:
- Item Page (a short message in the pricebox, and a “more info” modal)
- Order Confirmation Page
Next Steps
We want to assist our WordPress customers at every stage of their journey toward creating and launching new sites. Web hosting plays a key part in this process and by partnering with well-regarded hosting providers, we believe our customers will have a great experience bringing their ideas to life.
If the experiment is successful it could lead to further opportunities for us to make the setup experience better for customers.
We welcome your comments and feedback. Please remember our community guidelines as you post. We’ll respond to comments in batches for the next seven days.
