Woohoo! We are so proud and glad to announce that three of our Power Elite Accounts have finally got WordPress Requirements Compliant Badge!
We want to give you proof we have a say in this because we’ve got the badge ourselves, and we also want to tell you what you should do to get it as well. This is definitely a battle worth fighting for! 🙂
Some of you may ask what this badge is and why it is important or even what is it?
WordPress is changing and evolving all the time. To make the products released by authors in the marketplace meet the latest WordPress standards, Envato has presented the WordPress Requirements Compliant Badge. It helps authors get better results in Envato search and provide clients with products of the highest quality compliant with modern WordPress requirements. It also gives an author an awesome badge, confirming that you keep your themes and plugins updated and follow the latest WordPress quality standards, including security, quality, performance, and modern coding standards.
You have to meet certain coding quality standards to get this badge. Envato reviewers pick out random themes from your portfolio and check them very thoroughly. If they find some minor mistakes, they give you a rejection, and you have to fix the error. It is awesome when you have just one theme, so there is just one place where this mistake is located. But imagine if there are hundreds of themes built with the same core, and this mistake is everywhere… Yep, this is a nightmare. You should find and fix such errors and upload your update every time you make a fix, which is very time-consuming.
As of 30.09.2021, there are more than 5000 authors currently registered in the Envato marketplace. Only 156 authors have got the Envato WordPress Requirements Compliant Badge, so you may only guess how much effort we have applied to rank among those 156 profiles. o earn the badge, we had to thoroughly check all WordPress themes and plugins made by ThereREX, AncoraThemes, and AxionThmes. We had to update even those products that were not supposed to overcome such changes.
To make it clearer, let’s compare the process of updating old and very old WordPress themes with an old vehicle’s renovation. It takes much time and effort to transform your old Volvo into a trendy sports car that accelerates as fast as the most lightweight and fast-loading WordPress theme.
To get the badge, we decided to delete 60 oldest WordPress themes from the marketplace. Currently, there are 432 products available on our Power Elite Accounts:
| Power Elite Accounts | The Current Number of Themes | The Number of Themes Prior to the Revision |
| ThemeRex | 157 | 8/10 |
| AncoraThemes | 175 | 215 |
| AxiomThemes | 100 | 105 |
We didn’t want to miss the products we released long ago and couldn’t update according to the latest standards, so we released them as new Elementor-based WordPress themes. Such changes applied to such products as Cloe Brooks, Booklovers, and Frank themes (check them listed below). All of them are available for download from the marketplace as updated Elementor themes are compatible with the latest WordPress version.
Cloe Brooks | Psychology, Counseling & Medical WordPress Theme
Booklovers - Publishing House & Book Store WordPress Theme + RTL
Frank - Jewelry & Watches Online Store WordPress Theme
How to Get Envato WordPress Requirements Compliant Badge
Here comes the most interesting part. We want to share our experience with you and share guidelines on getting Envato WordPress Requirements Compliant Badge.
If you have already created ten or more WordPress themes, we recommend you build one of them the way you like and feel. Send it for review through the Envato tickets system. When you receive feedback from Envato saying that the theme is perfectly created and matches their standards, you may go ahead and adjust the rest of your products similar to the approved WordPress theme. By doing so, you will understand how the system works, and in case of any questions or remarks to the rest of your products, you will know what you can appeal to.
Step 1: Decide How Many Products You Can Update to Get the Badge
Decide on what you can do to make them match the latest standards. You can either re-launched the selected themes or remove them from your portfolio if you realize that you can do nothing to make them better. The chances are that updating very old themes is not worth your time and effort. However, you should keep in mind that releasing regular updates for your products tells your customers how much you care about the quality of every theme that you sell. As a result, it will bring you the desired sales boost and an increased users’ interest in your offers.
Step 2: Plan Your Tasks and Set Deadlines
It may not be easy to dedicate all your time to updating old themes without releasing something new. Make up your mind to invest your time and mind in product updates without making a profit from new product launches.
Step 3: Ensure that Your Updates Are Compatible with the Latest WordPress Version
Luckily, Envato may get past the fact that your update targets a different version of the WordPress engine provided that you have taken proper care of the rest of the things.
After you finish working on updates, send a request in the Quality Indicator Application field. Your application will be reviewed in a matter of days.
- Was your application confirmed?
Our congratulations! Do not forget to tell your customers about updates in your email newsletter and attach badges to each theme that you have updated, because you now meet Envato’s highest standards. Also, do not forget to keep the updates at the same level. Otherwise, the badge will be taken away from you if Envato notices that some themes (including new ones) do not meet their standards.
- Did your first attempt fail?
Suppose you fail at your attempts to update the theme. In that case, we recommend you make ALL the changes that Envato found in the first theme you submitted (better in the same one that was the example initially) and then update the rest of the themes in your portfolio the same way.
Moreover, if Envato found something that they initially did not require of you, or you fundamentally disagree on something, feel free to initiate a dispute. But it will work only if those remarks were not mentioned in the initial requirements or in the general rules. According to the Envato rules, if you have two unsuccessful attempts to update your themes, you can make the next attempt no earlier than in six months. But if you do it earlier, we recommend not waiting and applying for the badge earlier because Envato is also very interested in getting more accounts to reach this high standard.
In Conclusion
#1 Hint
Ensure that everything is perfect in the core, and only after that proceed to the updates of your products. You don’t want to drag this same mistake into all of your themes and then fix it one by one.
#2 Hint
If you are unsure whether you have done everything right – update your oldest theme in the portfolio and send it to Envato for a check. If everything is fine there, you are alright. Those are the oldest themes that require the most work for many reasons: they were never meant for these kinds of requirements, but also following Envato’s unique set of requirements for all these years leaves a certain mark on these themes.
It is really hard to get the badge. There are only 156 (as of today 29.09.21) authors on Envato that got the badge. The rest ~5,000 WordPress authors were not eligible to get it, and we managed to. Well, let’s be honest, not every author even tries to get to this high level. Getting there means putting in a lot of work and having a lot of iterations with Envato reviewers to get it. It is not easy, but it is possible.
