Building a website from a template can save you lots of
time and
frustration. In fact, building a website from a
template is the
most efficient process for people to get their
website up and
running in a relatively short period of time.
There are a variety of appearances and
layouts to choose from
when browsing through the thousands of
available website
templates. It all depends on what you might
have in mind as to
what you would like to do with your site
design. If you need a
website to host games you can find a
templates for that; if you
need a website to advertise your home
based business you can find
that as well. The variety and range
of website templates is very
broad and comprehensive.
Graphics - A good website template comes
with graphics that you
can tweak to your own desires. You can
replace the existing
photos with your own pictures, that you may
already have on
your computer, to customize the website. You can
also have
your company logo placed directly onto the website for
easier
brand recognition.
Content - The content that you want to
put on your website will
determine which type of template you
will finally choose to
utilize. There are a wide variety of
categories of website
templates that you can browse though to
find just the right
kind of template for your own website.
WHY USE A WEBSITE
TEMPLATE?
Truthfully, there are dozens of reasons
why you would want to use
a website template to build your
professional website. You will
find a few of these reasons
listed below.
CONTINUITY OF
APPEARANCE
Using a website template allows your
website and all the pages
in it to have a good flow and
continuity in appearance. When
building a website you want the
visitor to your site to be able
to have the same links on each
web page so that they can easily
navigate the site. Imagine if
you built the HTML yourself and
had trouble getting the link for
“home” in the same spot on each
page. Using a template allows
you to easily have all of your
sites links in the same spot with
the same design. Additionally,
you company logo will appear in
the same place on every page, as
well as information about
contacting you.
INCREASING SALES WITH A SHOPPING
CART
A good website template will also allow
you to add a shopping
cart to your site with little to no
effort. As you probably
already know, a shopping cart allows
your customers to pick out
the items that they want as they go.
This way they do not have
to go back and forth from the product
page to the payment page.
A shopping cart simplifies the
purchase process for your site
visitor, which in turn will
increase your sales. It has been
proven in testing that a good
quality, easy-to-use shopping cart
will actually increase your
overall sales and reduce your amount
of lost customers from your
purchase pages.
COMMON QUESTIONS CONCERNING THE
USE OF WEBSITE TEMPLATES
People generally have lots of questions
for website template
providers. Some of these questions include
the formats of the
template and what they are allowed, or not
allowed, to do with
the template. Most website template
providers use Photoshop and
HTML formats for the display and
distribution of their templates.
As far as what you can do with a
purchased website template: you
can use it to create a website,
but cannot resell the template to
others. Nor are you allowed to
claim intellectual property of the
template or make more than
one project from the same template.
For most users, this is not a significant
issue because you are
allowed to make any modifications to suit
your purposes. This
includes using your own copyright and
removing the copyright of
the seller of the template. If you
chose to have a custom
website designed for you, you are likely
to encounter the same
intellectual property issues. As an
example, most designers will
reuse their own cascading style
sheets or Java Scripts for menus
so that they don’t have to
recreate the work that they have
already done. These scripts are
therefore, their intellectual
property. When in doubt always ask
before you buy the product.
Most distributors of website
templates include an FAQ (Frequently
Asked Questions) page on
their website for more detailed
information.
SAVE YOUR VALUABLE
TIME
If you do not have a great deal of
experience designing websites,
it can take weeks to complete
your site and you will still most
likely have to consult people
who have hands-on experience to
walk you through the basic
processes. Even if you do have
experience building websites, a
template can still be a real
time saver.
The cost benefits are noticeable as well.
Simply put, buying a
website template is a great investment.
Anything that can help
you to get to the business of selling
your product or service
faster is definitely a worthwhile
investment. Add to this the
fact that you know that you will be
creating a quality website
design that your visitors will
appreciate. If you build your own
website and run into
difficulties which take more time, then
you are losing the
business of customers that could have been
visiting your site
during that time period. Buying a template
also keeps you from
having to pay a website designer...and keeps
you from having to
wait for them to complete the project to your
satisfaction.
One of the biggest down sides of using a
website designer to
build your website for you is that you are
having to lay out lots
of cash on an idea unseen! Sure, you can
discuss at length with
the designer that you will hire as to
what you would like your
site to look like and accomplish, but
it is nearly impossible
for a designer to have the same vision
of a site that you have
in your own head. Whose to say that at
the end of the lengthy,
expensive process of designing your
website, that you will not be
disappointed with the final
outcome, but agree to use it so that
you can get down to
business? This is one of the best arguments
for using a website
template instead of hiring a professional
website designer.
Having the ability to see the actual design
before laying down
your hard earned money, you are assured that
you will not be
disappointed with the final outcome.
CUSTOMIZING YOUR
SITE
The website template that you purchase
can be set up just as it
is, or you can customize it to your own
specifications. This is
totally up to you and how much
individuality you want or need in
your particular website. If
this is a website for your friends
and family, then perhaps
going with the basic template is what
you want, if you are a
business who is competing with similar
sites, then perhaps you
want to individualize it to a larger
extent.
It is easy for most people to customize
their website using
their purchased template. The templates come
with easy to
follow instructions and offer a wide range of
answers to common
questions. All templates are provided with
source files, and you
only need to tweak the source code with
your custom changes.
Using HTML editors in conjunction with
Adobe Photoshop makes
customizing your website a breeze.
Some people wonder if they have the
necessary skills to use a
website template. The skill set that
is required depends on what
you want to do with the website and
the level of customization
that you want to implement. If a
simple website is all that you
want with little customization,
then only beginner level skills
are needed. Obviously, the more
you wish to customize the
website, the more skills you need.
Overall though, if you have
patience and read the instructions
and help manuals, most
Internet users can build their website
from a template.
In order to download the available
website templates, you will
need to have unzipping software. If
you do not have unzipping
software it can easily be found
through a search on the Internet
or you may download a minimal,
but free and useful, tool, at
http://www.maxmillian.com/
GOOD PLANNING WILL PREVENT OF HOST
OF PROBLEMS
Choosing the right template for your
particular website does take
a little bit of thought. The
easiest way to choose the template
is by browsing sites such as
Maxmillian.com and their many
categories of websites. This
allows you to find the type and
style of template that best
suits your needs. As a website
builder, you should only buy the
templates that you actually
need. Depending upon your planned
use for the site, you can
decide how in depth the template
really needs to be. If you only
need a company logo template,
then buy that; if you need a flash
intro template buy that. If
you need it all, that is available
too.
WHEN UNIQUENESS IS
IMPORTANT
Some sites that sell website templates
offer a membership whereby
you can have access to multiple
website templates as long as you
remain a member. This sounds
like a good idea at first, until you
start to consider that the
templates that you are downloading
have also been downloaded by
potentially thousands of other
users. This means that your site
will look the same as many
other sites...potentially thousands
of other people’s sites.
Maxmillian.com does not offer a
membership; instead they offer a
single point of sale template.
What this means is that you are
able to purchase a template and
then that template will never be
sold again. This insures that
your site will have a high level
of individuality to it. Do keep
in mind however, that others who
bought the template before you,
and did not choose the single
point of sale option, will be
using the same template. Before
buying your template, you can
see exactly how many people have
actually bought the rights to
that template before you, giving
you the option of knowing how
unique your template design will
actually be. You should also
visit your competitor’s sites to
assure yourself that you will
not be duplicating their website.
From a practical point of
view, except for affiliate storefront
sites, you probably won’t
encounter the same template being used
over and over. Google
states that they track over 8 billion
websites from their search
engine, so if you do some quick math
the odds are definitely in
favor of using a template to build
your website.
IN CONCLUSION
There are so many reasons to use a
website template. Whether you
want to save money, time, or
simply want to be in control of
your site without having to rely
on web designers, a template is
for you. The templates allow for
individuality, customization,
and are much easier to use than
you may think. Check out
Maxmillian.com today and get started on
building your own
high quality, professional and personally
customized website.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
All articles in the Maxmillian*s
Gold Series are written by:
Ronald. J. Saunders, owner of http://www.maxmillian.com/
~~~ Maxmillian.com Provides Turnkey Website Services ~~~
Our company provides a comprehensive service of website
development, domain name selection and registration,
affordable hosting, and first class, high quality web site
templates. We are your resource for website authoring and
the home of MaxmillianSoft software. http://www.maxmillian.com/
