After you have decided to buy a website template, now you are scrambled with choices of several websites offering website templates. Some are free, some are packaged into tens or maybe hundreds but all of them share various sales pitches for marketing those website 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 website that you have always dreamt of.
What to look for:
Beautiful design alone does not necessary make a template a great one. At this point of your web design search, you should by now know that the looks of the website is a major thing but it is not everything. The looks of the website will become a minor concern when it comes to the other factors that are going to affect your website existence, such as functionality, readability, content and search engine optimization.
While shopping for a website template, you should look to see if the template is really professional and related to your niche. In other words, you should look to see if the website template takes into consideration all other factors of a professional website design.
The first major thing to look for is the theme of the template. Most of the website 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. Great website templates do not only look beautiful but also have a theme!
Do not over look a website template theme, the theme of this template is going to present your website theme. The theme should match your business or ideas that are going to be presented in your website. 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 website template that you have chosen say? Does that match or approach your websites theme?
Colors
Colors are good, but too many colors are annoying. Professional website templates will have fewer colors and a limited use of colors. Colors can distinct separate areas in your website and can emphasis the difference and level of importance of your websites content. If colors are only used for decoration, then the template in hand is not a professional website template.
Colors are not only found in text and bars, colors are found also in pictures, that also differentiates a good template from a not-so-good template. The colors of the images inside your website should also reflect the theme of your website and they should also flow with the colors of it. Not only that, pictures in good website templates are enhanced for users and search engines. Web surfers will run away from your website if it takes forever to load not to mention that your website has lesser chances to appear in search engine results if the whole website is made of images.
What do search engines prefer:
Great website templates do not necessary need to be search engine optimized simply because this is not the web designers job to optimize a website for search engines, but those website templates surly must take search engine optimization into consideration; especially if the websites 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 website template, is also a major factor when distinguishing good website templates. When choosing your website 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 website. Professional website templates takes the layout of a website 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.
[blockquote align="left" author=""]Choose usability over complexity.[/blockquote]
Also, a website template does not have to be too complicated to be awesome. Choose usability over complexity. Your client should be able to identify the theme of your website 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 website template you are buying takes this method into consideration seriously. If you cant see what you want from the template, your client most likely will not.
Choose a website 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 great.
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 website 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.
Customizability
One more thing that should be mentioned is that some work will be required from your side after purchasing a website template. You will need to replace texts, images and information on the template to match your website theme. Good website 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 website, 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 website template and since this is a one time investment, I think it is ok to spend few extra dollars to buy professional website templates instead of buying free or cheap website templates, then ending up with a cheap website and hence paying multiples of the price on the long run.
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