I get a lot of emails asking me all sorts of questions, but at least once a week (often more) a potential client will say – “Please copy the look of this website….” or “I want my website to look very similar to….”.
My answer is always “Why?”.
Of course I know the answer. It’s because they like it, or they know it’s successful. I’ve had two requests this year already for sites like Yaro Starak’s Entrepreneur’s Journey.
But “Why?” is not really my question. It’s “Why would you want to be like someone else?”.
Be different, or be better but don’t be the same as anyone else. Case in point is a competitor to Headway Themes (that I use on my site and for many clients) – Ultimatum. Below are side-by-side screenshots.
While there is nothing really wrong with what they’ve done by being similar to Headway’s layout, again I always wonder why? They’re both drag and drop themes for WordPress (though work differently), so they’re already similar to Headway in that respect, so why have a similar website? Differentiate yourself, make it look better, unique, new.
There’s a difference between being inspired by someone and trying to emulate them, and being a lesser version of them.
It’s time to stand out and be yourself.
