Zemez is a professional team with lots of experience in creating easy-to-use themes, powerful plugins, and stunning designs for all kinds of projects. In this interview, we heard from
CEO, Oleksii Karaman about their story in developing web products and key advice in setting up and looking after your website.
Please share the story behind Zemez: Where did it start and how has it evolved so far?
The history of Zemez is very closely related to the history of TemplateMonster, because not so long ago we were one, creating and selling our web products and being one of the biggest players in this market.
Since 2017, Zemez is an independent author who develops and implements products for the most popular CMS in the world – WordPress & Shopify.
In our twenty years of history, we have developed hundreds of thousands of products for every CMS platform that has existed. Our portfolio includes many bestsellers that have become a model of quality and functionality for generations of developers. We have huge experience in our field and invest this knowledge in the development of new products.
Today, Zemez is part of the large JetMonsters holding along with such projects as:
- TemplateMonster
- Crocoblock
- MotoPress
- MotoCMS
- JetApps
- Weblium
- MonsterONE
- Novi Builder
- Web Design Library
As an independent author, we continue to create products for WordPress & Shopify, sell and support them on various digital marketplaces. In particular on TemplateMonster, ThemeForest & CreativeMarket.
We are Ukrainians. Currently, the Zemez team has more than 30 specialists. All of them, like the company itself, are based in Ukraine. Even now, during the war in Ukraine, our developers, designers, supporters, and marketers continue to work hard to create the best products for our customers.
What services do you offer?
As I already mentioned, we have managed to work with a very large number of CMS. We were able to evaluate them both as developers and as customers. Therefore, we have now concentrated our efforts on, in our opinion, the most promising areas – WordPress & Shopify.
We currently have more than a thousand active products in our assortment on the three largest digital marketplaces: ThemeForest, TemplateMonster & CreativeMarket.
While working on our products, we study every niche, every business and try to take into account all the necessary functionality for our client. A simple example: if we are making a hotel website template, it must include a booking form and room reservation functionality, a lookbook and a gallery will be included in a template for an online clothing store, a multi-level filter and functionality comparison will be included in an appliance store template, and so on.
Our main task is to build a product in such a way that it satisfies the requirements of any, even the most demanding customer.
Additionally, we offer installation, fine-tuning, and personalization services for our clients’ businesses. We try to make the process of installing and configuring the site as comfortable and fast as possible for each client.
Occasionally, our products may not meet some specific customer requirements. When this occurs, we apply an individual approach, work with the client to find the best solution, and implement it.
All our products are kept up-to-date, and receive get regular updates and support.
Do you have any top tips for teams that are building their first website?
You must understand what tasks the website will perform before you create a website for yourself or your business. Once you have completed these tasks, you can begin choosing a product for yourself. So you can avoid situations in which an interesting and even high-quality product cannot satisfy your needs because it was created to solve other problems.
Quite often there are situations when a person needs to launch a site as quickly as possible to test a business model or to launch his business promptly. This is a very crucial time for the correct choice of product on which the new site will be created, as further processing and optimization of the template can be both extremely time-consuming as well as very expensive if it is not designed for those tasks.
Therefore, to prevent such situations, we have preliminary consultations from our support service, whose specialists help the client make the right choice.
What are some of the fundamental things people should look for when selecting a WordPress theme?
Actually, choosing the right WordPress theme is not that difficult. It is necessary to have basic knowledge and understand what the final result should be.
Indeed, there are fundamental things that should be paid attention to as a matter of priority. In the case of WordPress themes, this is a version of WordPress itself. It is currently relevant to use version 6.0.2, which is updated frequently. Therefore, the compatibility of the theme with the “fresh” version of WordPress is a guarantee of adequate operation of your future site.
You should also pay attention to the additional characteristics that the author notes for his products. The compatibility of the theme with the most popular builders will allow you to edit the website pages and the content on them easily. With woocommerce support, you can easily add a store, etc. to the website.
I would like to draw attention to our flagship product – the Monstroid2 WordPress theme. I can confidently say that it meets all the requirements I mentioned above. Regular updates to match compatibility with WordPress; creation of new skins taking into account client requests and market needs; bug fixes and new functionality development. And so we try to keep all our products up to date.
Of course, now we are not talking about such things as adaptability, basic SEO optimization, and retina support. In modern products, these and many other things should be a priori.
Also, an essential factor to pay attention to is the product’s checklist, which contains information about its payments and their regularity. From it, you can draw conclusions about how long the author supports his product, and how often he updates, adds new features, and corrects errors.
Well, you should not neglect customer reviews. They are the ones who shape customers’ perceptions about the product and its customer service.
WordPress popularity makes it an incredibly attractive target for hackers. What are your suggestions to secure a WordPress website?
Yes, unfortunately, the issue of hacker attacks is relevant for WordPress users. But, with the right approach to the security of your site, you can significantly complicate the life of hackers and protect your resources.
I hope everyone knows that there are a number of rules and recommendations for basic Internet security. These recommendations will be useful not only to owners of WordPress sites but also to all Internet users. It is about the basic rules of protection. About the need to protect the site with a complex password that needs to be changed regularly, about protecting the mailbox, the need to enable two-factor authentication, and others. I will not dwell on this in detail, everyone already knows about it.
With regards to more comprehensive protection for sites, WordPress, being the most popular platform, has a sufficient number of security plugins and add-ons available for installation on the site. The appropriate level of protection against attacks is provided by them.
In the course of our work, we regularly encounter requests for such protection, so we developed our own set of security plugins to ensure comprehensive protection. Starting with blocking spam comments, and ending with full protection of the admin panel from third-party interference.
Any exciting new updates or developments that you would like to share?
In our work, we strive for excellence in everything. If we are working on a flagship WordPress product, it should be the best in everything, beat all competitors, and satisfy all cliches. This is exactly what our Monstroid is – the most popular product in the entire history of the TemplateMonster marketplace.
When we create Shopify products, we try to make them not only convenient but also help the customer save money. With Roxxe and Vendy, our customers can save over $2k per year with additional features.
There are currently 90+ skins on the Roxxe template that can be customized to suit any store’s needs, be it a clothing store, a home service store, a pharmacy, a travel agency or anything else you can think of. And all this for a reasonable price. Moreover, we always try to please the client additionally. Make themed banners in advance of Black Friday or Halloween and add them to the pack as an update. Or integrate interesting Shopify applications that can expand the functionality of the store.
