lundi 3 décembre 2012

Using Website Templates For Web Site Development

By Jemser Reik Bary


In the past, if you needed a web site built you either had to hire a website designer or learn how to design and build your own site. Both options were (and still are) expensive and time consuming. With more recent technology, you can instead easily install a content management system (CMS) with all the features and facilities built in. How then can you ensure your site stands out from your competitors? By making it unique in appearance with a nice theme.

Website templates are basically designs you can patch on to your site. The most simple designs are created from the language of the web - HTML, and you have to add in your content piecemeal. More complex designs are made to fit on a framework such as WordPress, Joomla or Drupal so that your site has all the power of the framework as well as the beauty or utility of the design you choose. These ones are usually easy to install and include the ability to customise them with your own images and text. You can often get as good a result as from a custom built website.

Generally speaking, business website templates are relatively cheap, especially compared with the cost of hiring a designer. So you can get a nice looking website while saving yourself quite a sum. However, to get the desired result, you need to carefully choose your design and its features before you buy.

There are issues you should consider if you want to optimise your sites design. Since it is likely you prefer your website to be as unique as possible, try to avoid using any template that is common or popular.

Try to avoid the trap of constantly adjusting your sites look. Choose a design with a good degree of customisation such as the ability to change its logo, background, and colours, but don't spend ages tweaking its appearance. Traffic visits for your information, content and resources not your design. Remember the objective is to save you time and effort.

In choosing a website template, it is essential that you pick one that matches your purpose and industry. You need to be sure it will work before you pay for it. . If you don't look at the small print you won't be able to get a refund - especially if the template is not defective and you just didn't check properly. Realistically, you have no basis to request a refund if their product works and they have no guarantee that you are not using it.

Choose a template to suit your audience and your industry. Though most templates can be adapted to suit various industries, it is much better to choose ones that have been designed for a particular sector such as law firm website templates. Niche specific templates often include facilities that visitors expect, or which can enhance their experience of your site. For example a Real Estate template could include facilities to showcase floors, rooms, maps, video etc.

Ensure that the website template you get fits the foundation you have installed e.g. a website template built for one CMS will not work on another. Even though the designs may look identical they are completely different under the hood.

To summarise:

You can rapidly and easily dress up your site with an attractive website template. However, you should endeavour to choose an ideal, compatible template if you want to ensure you actually save money. Ideally, spend as little time as possible on customising your site. Rather, you should focus your effort on adding lots of excellent information to your site.




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