Wednesday, December 19, 2007

How to Choose Professional Web Site Templates

After you have decided to buy a web site template, now you are scrambled with all the web sites offering these web site templates. Some are free, some are packaged into tens or maybe hundreds but all of them share the various sales pitches thatis marketing these professional web site templates and pushing you to buy. All this is offered to you without the hints on how to choose from these templates the template that will create your niche web site that you have always dreamed of.

The beautiful designs of web site templates does not necessary make them professional web site templates. At this point of your web design search, you should by now know that the looks of the web site is a major thing but it is not everything. The looks of the web site will become a minor concern when it comes to the other factors that are going to affect your web site existence, such as functionality, readability, content and search engine optimization.

When shopping for professional web site templates, you should look to see if the web site templates are really professional! In other words, you should look to see if the web site template takes into consideration all other factors of a professional web site design.

The first major thing to look for is the theme of the template. Most of the web site templates that are sold on the internet are of a general theme. These kinds of templates usually look very attractive to you but you would want to know if it is attractive to your targeted clients. professional web site templates do not only look beautiful but also have a theme!

Do not over look a web site template theme, the theme of this template is going to present your web site theme. The theme should match your business or ideas that are going to be presented in your web site. If you are still confused, dedicate a couple of hours to research color representations, for example, red says stop and green says go. What does the web site template that you have chosen say? Does that match or approach your web sites theme?

Colors are good, but too many colors are annoying. professional web site templates will have fewer colors and a professional use of colors. Colors can distinct separate areas in your web site and can emphasis the difference and level of importance of your web sites content. A professional web site template designer knows this fact and uses it wisely. If colors are only used for decoration, then the template in hand is not a professional web site template.

Colors are not only found in text and bars, colors are found also in pictures, that also differentiates professional web site templates from just web site templates. The colors of the images inside your web site should also reflect the theme of your web site and they should also flow with the colors of it. Not only that, pictures in professional web site templates are enhanced for users and search engines. Web surfers will run away from your web site if it takes forever to load not to mention that your web site has lesser chances to appear in search engine results if the whole web site is made of images.

professional web site templates do not necessary need to be search engine optimized simply because this is not the web designers’ job to optimize a web site for search engines, but professional web site templates surly must take search engine optimization into consideration; especially if the web sites theme is informative or intended for content. To make this point clearer, when it comes to search engine optimization, it makes a big difference whether you have chosen your template to have buttons as links or images to act like buttons. Search engines prefer words over pictures, so again it comes to your theme and your priorities.

Readability, or in other words layout of a web site template, is also a major factor when distinguishing professional web site templates. When choosing your web site template, you would want to avoid getting glasses to read text; you also do not want to get dizzy trying to find an important section that does not stand out in the layout of the web site. Professional web site templates takes the layout of a web site very seriously and usually offers you few pages to put your content without damaging the flow of the design. You will usually find in addition to the main page, a content page and maybe some other pages depending on the theme.

Also, a web site template does not have to be so complicated to be professional. Choose usability over complexity. Your client should be able to identify the theme of your web site theme at the first glance and then easily find what he is looking for at the second. He must not feel at any point that he is lost, otherwise bye bye! See if the web site template you are buying takes this method into consideration seriously. If you can’t see what you want from the template, your client most likely will not.

Choose a web site template with familiar internet navigation system. That is, from your browsing experience on the net, where do you see the buttons? Most likely buttons are at top, left or right. As mentioned complicated templates are not necessary professional.

Make sure that your template will serve its purpose especially when buying a template for a system. For example: if you are buying a template for a shopping cart, you would want to make sure that all instructions of installation are available and error free. Functionality becomes a frustrating issue if you did not plan for it right. For this purpose, try to look for samples of the web site templates you are buying, take the time to install the sample and see how it works. If errors shows up, see how easy it is to deal with them, then go for the purchase phase.

One more thing that should be mentioned is that some work will be required from your side after purchasing a web site template. You will need to replace texts, images and information on the template to match your web site theme. professional web site templates will come with all sources and software requirements to make the necessary modifications to the template. After all, you do not want to end up with a template that you don’t know how to use. Also, you might not be able to find a template for the exact theme of your web site, but something close. You should look at the things that you are going to replace in the template and how that affect the design of the template. For instance, if you are going to replace major images in the template, check to see if your images can fit into the color scheme of the template.

Do not over look a web site template and since this is a one time investment, I think it is okay to spend few extra dollars to buy professional web site templates instead of buying cheap web site templates, then ending up with a cheap web site and hence paying multiples of the price on the long run.

Source : http://www.site-reference.com/

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