Maxmillian's Gold: Building Great Websites from Templates

Published on this site: April 4th, 2005 - See more articles from this month...

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.

Ronald. J. Saunders owner of http://www.Maxmillian.com
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