I was holding this video until Unique Blog Designs unveils their new services but its almost pubcon so I thought I would post it 
Unique blog designs seems to be getting some hate from the peanut gallery lately which means they are making it big time. These guys are a great success story for some kids who sucked it up did a bunch of hard work for zero low return for a while and now are doing incredible revenues. I was happy to see them have one of the biggest and busiest booths at Blogworld.
About the author...
Jeremy Schoemaker – who has written 2415 posts on ShoeMoney.com.
Hi I am Jeremy Schoemaker and ShoeMoney.com is my blog. 99% of the post here are done by me but you will see others occasionally make guest posts. This blog is fun to write but for my day job I run several online companies.
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{ 56 comments… read them below or add one }
Yeah I saw some of the hate. Looks like they did a decent job with the sites I have seen.
I hope they are coming to Pubcon.
Balls to UBD, I want to know what they’ve done to get those booth girls!
I attempted to hire these guys recently at the recommendation of Shoe and they were just way too slow in getting back with me. I ended up doing it myself. I might have caught them at a bad time as I think they were attending one of the trade shows.
Hopefully I will have some future prospects for them and we will be able to work together on a project, or two, or three…
Nice designs. By the way, you should fix the post tile: Unqiue Blog Designs At Blogworld… It must be “Unique”
shoemoney.com is still featured as the “most recent blog design” on their site.
The Tips for Success at the bottom of each of their pages was a nice touch. It made me check out all the different pages of their site. I’ll definitely try to utilize that concept for my own sites and really gave me a feeling that they understood the blog world.
@Shoe,
It’s not that they are getting hate because they are successful, I think I might know why your saying that, but for the price they are charging for a custom design is very well over priced, because the quality of the design isn’t good. To tell you the truth I was very surprised that you paid the amount you did for this custom design.
Shoe can’t spell, leave him alone! Maybe he is going for typo traffic ya know.
Sounds like a nice economical way to get blog designs that work.
I like their work – but I havent used them. I also thought they were overpriced. I got my blog redesigned for less then half of their cost.
Hmm – yeah – its spelled wrong. Eh, just a typo.
Please, Can you give me url?
TIA
Hmm…at those costs, some of us still have to slap ourselves first.
-Mike
p.s. The bloggingthemovie.com booth girl looks way better
Yeah, Nate and his team did my design from scratch, and I must say I’m pretty pleased with it.. I’ve seen a few that were not so good, but they were that way because the clients wanted them to be… So Kudos to Nate for a job well done.
of course you can always find people who are cheaper, but think about the time you waste dealing with designers that never come through or build you an inferior product . . time is money, so if you don’t want to waste time with no-name designers, then you should check out UBD . . .
I presume you’ve not had your design done by them? I presume you’re not a happy customer? I presume you didn’t have the cash to buy a design? Then stop speaking for the people who did (and are freaking happy like myself) and go wallow in your own success (or not as the case may be).
On the otherhand, you could just buy me pizza and we can forget any of this ever happened! j/k
Sorry if I came across as a little harsh. I’m merely trying to point out that I think I got FANTASTIC value for money with my design and if you’ve not worked with Nate, then chances are you won’t understand what I mean. Ah, well…
This was in response to SasaVtec – My bad.
I requested a quote and it was a lot more than I was hoping to pay. I am a developer by trade, so I know quality work is expensive, but I guess I was just hoping for a bargain. =) Maybe after I start making some actual money.
UBD are not expensive. You gotta Pay to Play
indeed quality work usually cost more. when your site grows and become popular, i’m sure you dont mind to pay premium to get premium design.
shoe had a few things that either didn’t move over well to the new design because they were custom or because of the design, not sure which way it was. i am not as familiar with who uses what. cow said he got a different company to do his, and it looks decent. they need to make chow a new one so he can get more ads on the front and center…
Unique Blog Designs has to be the best designers for the time being
I don’t know the whole story behind the whole “hate” issue but I hope it wasn’t because they were successful. I also don’t know what they charge for their work, but I do think their work is very average. Nothing about their work stands out in any way, but kudos to them for marketing themselves so well.
Yeah they got success, but I cant believe that pple like their designs :S I have seen sooo many nicer looking designs out there. To me they look nice, but nice back in 2001.
I don’t about the hate either, or what you prices you guys are getting that is considered expensive?
Like above, I think the designs are OK, but they are a bit outdated, and personally not my preference. I think that many people sorta jumped on the UBD bandwagon after seeing that JC and SM got their designs by them. I wish the best success to Nate and team though!
I hope you’re kidding about chow needing more ads.
$$$$$$$$
AFAIK, most of the hate issues were centered around the price (too expensive… w/e), and the designs looking to similar.
Whatever…
how much did it cost you to make this design ?
durrr…
I agree with you David – however I think it would more fair to point out (and I’m assuming this is where you were headed with your post you just didn’t touch out on it) – that we all view ROI differently. And ultimately there are those that have no idea what that acronym even stands for – for those of you – I just smile and think of how the wolf will devour you…
For people who have obtained the services of these guys – they are very happy. I think their track record speaks for themselves. Yes for “most” under-traffic’ed blogs they can’t afford something like that. But for someone who is earning good revenue on their blog like Shoe, or John Chow or David perhaps – then the tables turn. They can afford to “upgrade” and obviously are foolish if they don’t. After all – even if they’re not blogging for the money – the money is coming in – it’s allowing them to add features that their viewers want, and that asthetically are more appealing, etc.
I think overall to knock folks just because they are higher priced or you can’t afford them – doesn’t really make sense and it just sort of/actually does make you look very foolish. I know there are probably people out there too who feel they can program and design and that they are charging too much money – again folks – law of supply & demand. If you truly don’t like their work – how hard is it to not make a post – why deliberately post something negative like that – that only starts negative posts? I learned very early on – you get out of this world what you put in.
Just my thoughts… for what they are/aren’t worth…
J2ZTX
I love to see the guys who do hard work and get nothing finally get some pay off for all they’ve done
?
if you’re implying that my comment wasn’t interesting, how do you explain yours?
it’s kool enough
Interesting observation
Having spent some quality time with all the guys from UBD, they are the shit. You guys bitching about prices clearly haven’t spent anytime around quality work. You get what you pay for with UBD, well you get a bit more than you pay for actually.
Exactly. You pay a premium and you GET what you pay for. I’d prefer it if the only people who bitched about UBD were the people who’d handed over cash.
UBD does nice work, but there are only 8 designs on their website and no prices for custom work. It seems like it would be a good idea to get some new templates up before they spend the money to go to PubCon.
Thats the beauty of things today… you dont have to be awesome! you just have to get your name out there sometimes… I mean common there isn’t anything phenominal about JLO or britney’s hairstylists it is just because they are THOSE peoples hairstylist that other people want them… While i think these guys do some nice designs i prefer briangardner.com blog designs, some are paid, some are free, plus he does custom designs and he is quick.
it is bad, because you can almost see content without scrolling down…
$$$ ussually works. i should get chicks to walk around with me at conferences next year, kinda a reverse strategy to the booth chicks.
Mike and Neon: I meant expensive, relative to just buying a design for $75. The value they offer is a completely unique design that stands apart from the rest of the web and suits the blogger’s specific needs. When I asked for a quote, they first replied with a questionaire, to gather the information they would need to properly provide a solution that would be best for my needs and fit what I’m looking for. This is the right way to do things and clearly a factor in their success. In no way am I saying that their quote was unreasonable… just that it didn’t fit into my budget and that I knew that it wouldn’t in the back of my mind when I requested the quote. I was just being overly optimistic.
The more cheap designs there are, the less likely you are to pay the big bucks for a custom solution. Trust me. If they had a cheap design on the site that would have met my needs, I would have just gone with that and never would have inquired about a quote.
I dont wanna toss a link in – check my blog – bottom right of the page
Like i said – I got what I wanted from another designer for less then half what UBD asks – and Im quite happy. Their designs are nice, but in my opinion, pricey.
I’m in desperate need of a unique blog design. He looked way cool with the pretty girls hanging around him in the video.
Dont you just love how Geeks now get women here and there?
Its the $$…lol
Revenge of the nerds
Do Nate and his team still only do Wordpress skins?
Seriously, you gotta be kidding about Chow’s theme and the ad’s. I love the Chow man, but sometimes it’s hard to find the content (except when you’re in your RSS reader)
Coulda been cash, but maybe they were Nate’s sisters?
Pretty easily I would say!
Yeah good points – sometimes what the client wants is just whack!
You bet your ass.
Hah. If you started a blog that looked like Chow’s, you’d be hard pressed to find people that would return. You have to EARN it.
Aw man, I didn’t go to Pubcon this year. Next year, for sure. I’m on it.
UBD is definitely legit. they’re awesome guys, and they’re bloggers. add really great design and support to that and it’s worth the investment