Even if you are not completely tech-savvy, having a great website design that showcases your products or services is a snap.
From a basic, no-frills site to a more sophisticated site with a shopping cart and eye-catching graphics, a great Website Template will get your business up and running online with little time or effort required.
There are a lot of places to find templates on the internet. Your hosting service may offer some basic ones. There are many websites devoted to providing some great templates that are SEO ready. Many are free, while others are available for a small cost.
Deciding on which one is best for your business can be difficult, though. Here are some tips to help you choose the right template.
Decide On Platform And Structure
The first thing you must decide on is what you want to accomplish with your site. Are you going to sell products directly? Become an affiliate marketer? Provide an online forum or a directory listing? Your goals will determine the proper platform and structure.
Next, decide whether you want to create a traditional website or start a blog. There are advantages to each of these options. If you are going to create a blog, WordPress has lots of fantastic templates available, many of them SEO ready.
With a website, you will need to determine how many pages you want and the content you are going to include on each. A good Website Template will have the most popular pages, such as “About Us”, “Contact Us”, and “FAQs” pages already in place.
Consider the theme of your pages to determine an applicable template. For instance, a site selling sports merchandise should look far different than one offering accounting services.
Make Sure You Can Customise Your Website Template
The template you choose should be easy to integrate with your chosen theme. Ensure that it will be simple process to redesign it and that it won’t require too much effort to change it to your vision of ideal, particularly if you are not comfortable with CSS code or HTML.
The easiest templates to customise are those with placeholders for graphics and a standard layout that allows you to insert your personal information. You might want to change the font style or the background colour. A “what you see is what you get” (WYSIWYG) program helps to accomplish these tasks easily.
Customising your website should be done in order to enhance it. If the template you select needs a complete redesign, you should probably opt for a different one. You don’t want a cookie-cutter website, but if you are technologically challenged, then neither will you want one that is difficult to customise.
Make Sure Your Website Template Is Optimised
You will want a template that is already search engine friendly. It should include holders already in place for adding tags, video content and page descriptions and include a robots.txt page.
Avoid any templates that rely heavily on flash animation or other forms of content that are slow to download and do nothing to help search engine optimisation.
Online Help
No matter who made the template, ensure that they will be available to offer help if you need it. Companies that offer templates for purchase will most likely have tech support available for extended hours.
Templates that are designed by an individual may or may not offer help options. If your template was individually created, make sure that you a way to contact the designer is included with the download.
Above all, ensure that the Website Template you select looks professional. It should fit the theme of your online business well and be easy for visitors to navigate. Take the time to consider all of these factors before you download a template, it will save you a big headache later.
About Sean Rasmussen
When choosing a template, take into account that it doesn’t include links to external sites. Many templates include encripted code that can’t be deleted.
How can you find that out if you are not a full blown techy?
Hi Sean
I do like the the nice clean look of your website I feel it makes it for easy reading, and not at all distracting.
I had mine before I joined the forum, and now am looking for a new one that won’t loose the adds I already have in the sidebar.
Hi Rita
You can always copy the html code from your existing sidebar into your new template text widgets if they are not transferring over successfully.
Rita, just make sure if you have any code in your widgets to save them in text documents. Now might be a good time so you don’t forget to do it.
With my theme I knew I had to reinstall the code if I changed it, but forgot to do it. Then when I went to check my traffic stats there was nothing there. Lesson learned
Hi Sean and Gee
Thank you for that information had not thought of doing that, I am off now to copy it all.
Rita
Hi Sean,
Thanks for this valuable information here on choosing a website template.
I am learning so much and will know where to come back and review this info when is needed again.
Thanks again, Sean
Hello Sean,
Great tips on how to choose a great website template. I guess its harder to choose a template unless you are clear on what you want to have your blog/website about. I am seeing bit by bit how an idea, with the right template for a webiste or blog makes the world of difference. I am not great with html, but I am getting there!!
I like to use WordPress for my blogs because they are so easy to use, and easy to change themes. Have updated both mine today
Cheers
Lisa
Hi Sean,
I need a theme that’s easy to customize because I’m really not comfortable with html coding and I don’t even know what CSS is. This is great information that will help me remember to think first about what I want the site to be before I choose a template.
Hi Sean,
thanks for your tips on choosing a website template. I have to admit my main factor up to now was “how do I like the design” and next on the list “can I customize it enough”. Its fascinating how many templates are out there to choose from today.
Hi Sean,
I’m learning more about templates and reading this article has increased my awareness and knowledge on choosing the correct template.
First deciding what I want to accomplish with my site before choosing a template is very good advice for me. I can often put the cart before the horse and end up in a muddle at the end. It comes down to knowing what you are doing and this article certainly helps me with knowing how to choose a great website template.
When I started building my blog I only had very basic information about what to look for.
I was looking for a 2 column template, bland theme so I could put my own header in as it grew along.
I had no understanding of widgets, plugins etc and have learned these as I have gone along.
Information like this is always excellent as I can now start optimising my site for SEO as it grows along.