|
|
|
Good Web Design – What is it?
There is unlimited possibilities when it comes to designing a website. Flash, Database, content management, Client Login, etc,etc. A question to ask yourself when deciding how to do your website is: How can I most effectively present my...
The Straight Truth about Web Site Building Tools
Most business owners today know that having a web site is an essential component of marketing. In the past, the choices were to hire a professional web designer, hire a local teenager to create a site for mall money, or learn to do it yourself....
Web Source Web Design Tips - Cascading Style Sheets
The FONT tag is used to display your text in a specific style. Using fonts within a table requires you to add the FONT tag to each individual cell. This technique will cause your page to be larger than necessary. By using Cascading Style Sheets,...
Web Source Web Design Tips - Open A Window on Page Load
The code below will open a new window when a web page loads. This window may be customized to any size you'd like. Place this code under the tag within your HTML. window.open('http://www.yourdomain.com','windowname','...
Website Maintenance: What does it take to manage your website?
Every action has a beginning phase where you launch your activity, a middle period in which you must sustain and develop it and a conclusion. Many people set up a website enthusiastically but then they find that they don’t have the skills...
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Why Use a Web Design Template?
Why Use a Web Design Template?
By Julia Jackson
What is a Website Template?
Many smart and savvy businesses are choosing to use a website template, and avoiding employing a professional designer. Why? Well, there are clear benefits: saving on cost, saving on time, and ensuring quality.
Web templates close the gap between the amateur website owner learning to create his/her own website, and a one-off custom design.
What is a website template? A web template is a ready-made design for your website, including images, some navigation, preferably several sample pages and in some cases Flash animation. However, it has no content related to you or your business – that must come from you! Remember that a web template must be customized / modified (to whatever degree you are comfortable with) to turn it into your very own website.
What about hiring a website designer, or using a quick-and-easy tool to build your own website?
The answer to this question is easy – your, and your business’, professional image. There is no other way to say this - if you do not have appropriate web / Internet design experience, don’t put together a quick and dirty website and expect it to be a professional portrayal of you / your business!
So then do you have to spend a lot of money having a website custom designed for you? Well, you could. But you no longer need to!
A low-cost, but professional design
While selecting a ready-made web design template, you will probably browse through a collection of different website designs until you find one (or a few) that you like.
Expect to be able to at least see a screen capture of what your web page will look like, and hopefully a “see-in-action”– which lets you see exactly what you will be getting.
Choose your template carefully, and you will have a professional design, executed by a qualified designer with all due attention to accessibility, standards compliance, browser quirks and a lot of other things that you would not want to have to learn about from scratch, yourself! All for a fraction of the cost of hiring a custom website designer or design firm.
Avoid the common mistakes made when choosing a website template
Don’t assume that every last thing within the template can be changed, easily. Of course anything can be changed if you have
graphics knowledge, but for the novice, if you’re unsure whether a particular graphic used can be easily replaced by your own image, ask the template designer! This is why it is best to choose a template store where the template designer provides personal support for his / her designs.
Sometimes one or more elements of the template design are intrinsic parts of the template, and cannot just be “swapped out” without technical knowledge. Good, professional template designers will offer a customization service to perform this kind of function for you.
What a template is – and isn’t
The website template you have chosen is a look-and-feel for your site. Some high-end templates have database back-ends and so on built in, but straightforward website templates are generally a “shell” for your website. Adding the content which is specific to your website, and “making it your own”, involves editing the template.
Fortunately, these days html / web editors are very easy to use, but be aware that you will need to do add content to the template to make into your website.
You will want to add your own text, set your meta tags (keywords and description), and possibly insert some product images into your product listing pages (if applicable).
Not the only one!
Most website templates are sold more than once – which technically means that you won’t have the only website on the Internet that looks like yours. However, don’t consider this a problem – with Google having over 8 billion sites (May 2005) in its inde, the chances of someone seeing another site that looks like yours are tiny. However, if you need a copyrighted design, ask the template designer about buying the template for exclusive use. This will increase the price though, and also depends on the template not having been sold before.
Web site templates are a cost-effective way to produce an attractive, professional website at a fraction of the cost of hiring your own web designer.
About the Author
Julia Jackson is the owner of Xenon Web Services, with ten years experience in Internet development. She specialises in website and database design, and manages an online website templates store.
http://websitetemplates.co.za
http://web-site-templates.info
This article may be reprinted as long as the author's bio and all links are kept intact.
|
|
|
|
|
| Web Development |
| This web summarizes the complete life cycle methodology for web development: planning, analysis, design, implementation, promotion, and innovation. |
| www.december.com |
|
| Web Development |
| Professional Web site design, graphic design, and Internet development services. |
| webdevelopment.com |
|
| Web Developer's Virtual Library: Web Development Tutorials and ... |
| News, tutorials, and reference material focusing on technical web development topics. |
| www.wdvl.com |
|
| Open Source Web Development Tutorials - Dev Shed |
| Open Source web development tutorials, forums, and tools. Topics covered include PHP, Apache, mySQL, Zope, Roxen, Jserv, Zend, XML, DHTML, and Javascript. |
| www.devshed.com |
|
| WebDeveloper.com |
| Hello all, I am new to web development. I have an understanding of website development, but no scripting experience. I have heard of JavaScript, PHP, ... |
| www.webdeveloper.com |
|
| LevelTen Web Design | Professional Website, Flash & Graphic ... |
| Offers logos, web sites, multimedia presentations, and custom media. Quote form. Based in Dallas, Texas. [Requires Flash] |
| www.leveltendesign.com |
|
| Web development - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
| For larger businesses and organizations, Web development teams can consist of ... Since the mid-1990's, Web development has been one of the fastest growing ... |
| en.wikipedia.org |
|
| Web Design - HTML XML - Web Development - Web Site Design |
| Web Design and HTML are all about creating a great Web site. Use Web development and Web site design to build Web sites that customers return to over and ... |
| webdesign.about.com |
|
| Agile Web Development with Rails—Second Edition |
| Dave Thomas, Mike Clark, David Heinemeier Hansson, Leon Breedt, Thomas Fuchs, Andrea Schwarz; Pragmatic Bookshelf, 2006, ISBN 0977616630. |
| www.pragmaticprogrammer.com |
|
| CYGAD's WebDevelopment - Welcome to CYGAD’s WebDevelopment! - The ... |
| CYGAD's WebDevelopment - The finest Resources for WEB-Design, WEB-Master and WEB-Developer! |
| www.webdev.cygad.net |
|
| Web Development Bookmarklets |
| Includes tools for viewing and testing CSS styles, viewing scripts and variables, and showing the structure of a document. |
| www.squarefree.com |
|
| SGI - Freeware - Web Development |
| Links to freeware web development tools, browsers, software, etc. |
| www.sgi.com |
|
| Webmonkey: The Web Developer's Resource |
| Resources for web site developers including how-to guides, code libararies, server technologies and authoring resources. |
| www.webmonkey.com |
|
| Web Development Tools - Web Developer's Journal |
| Tips on Web page design and development, HTML, graphics, scripting, favicon, development tools, Java, sql basics, building web sites, and much more for ... |
| www.webdevelopersjournal.com |
|
| Web Developer's Handbook | CSS, Web Development, Color Tools, SEO ... |
| Web Developer's Handbook is a list of essential web-sites, which make the life of web developers easier. Compiled and updated by Vitaly Friedman. |
| www.alvit.de |
|
| Ceonex Web Development & Web Design - Full Service Digital ... |
| Web design, web development, online branding, application development and other full service business solutions focused on prospect conversion and customer ... |
| www.ceonex.com |
|
| Cayenne Web Development - web design agency, Oxfordshire, UK |
| Specialist web design agency based nr Banbury, Oxfordshire, offering a complete website design and development service. |
| www.cayenne.co.uk |
|
| Web development mistakes | 456 Berea Street |
| When I visit a website, especially if it’s the site of a competitor or a prospective client, I like viewing… |
| www.456bereastreet.com |
|
| Web development mistakes | 456 Berea Street |
| Articles and news on web standards, accessibility, usability, and other things related to web development and web design. |
| www.456bereastreet.com |
|
| Anil Dash: Web Development Trends for 2006 |
| Here, then, is a random assortment of new web development trends to be ready ... Web Development trends 2006: Überblogger Anil Dash maakte (een paar weken ... |
| www.dashes.com |
|
|