Website Design Templates

We’re going to let you in on one of the biggest secrets of web site design… you can create an exceptional web site for less than $100 and in as little as a couple of hours.  It’s true!  Rather than designing everything from scratch, you can purchase a ready-made design template and customize it as needed, saving you hours (or days) of creative work.

Who are website design templates for?

  • non-technical people who need to implement a professional looking web site
  • technical staff who know how to implement a site but may not be graphic design experts
  • designers and technical staff who are under budget or time restraints
  • designers who are looking for a good starting point

What do I get?

You’ll receive all of the source files with any website design template that you purchase, including HTML, CSS, and PSD files.  Flash source will also be included if you purchase a template with Flash.

What this means to you is that you are able to customize absolutely every aspect of the design.  Need to change the colors to match your corporate identity?  Then change them.  Need to insert your logo?  No problem.  Want to add photos of your products?  It’s easily done.  The bottom line is that you won’t lose any flexibility in using a template.

Advantages

There are many advantages to using website design templates, including:

  1. Save time – The creative aspect of designing a web site is usually the most difficult part to get right and can take a great deal of time and effort.  Why bother? 
  2. Save costs – If professionally done, the creative aspect of a design can cost anywhere from $1000 to $5000 (or more).  By using a template, you can achieve the same result for $50 - $100.  Seriously!
  3. It’s easier – Do you have a group of stakeholders to satisfy, all with different ideas of what the site should look like?  Then definitely don’t design a site from scratch or you’ll end up creating many designs before you’re able to satisfy everyone.  Instead, present a short-list of suitable templates for everyone to review and comment on.  It’s much easier to choose 6 or 10 templates than to create them!
  4. Standards compliant – Are you concerned that your site should be viewable in all browsers?  Template sites are tested in many browsers on many platforms and comply to best practice standards, so they’re an excellent way of ensuring that your site appears properly in all browsers.

Disadvantages

There are none really.  If you can find a template that you like, there is absolutely no reason to not use it. 

Designers may protest that templates are not original enough or they’re not creative.  Honestly, those opinions come from personal interest.  If you can find a perfectly good starting point, why not use it?  Put your own touches into it and customize it until it’s “yours”, but why start from scratch?  You can even purchase exclusive rights to the template so that it will not be used again if you like, ensuring that your site will remain unique.  But really, the odds of running across another site using the same template among the millions of sites that are out there is extremely remote.

Remember, your web site is not your designer’s work of art or a piece for their portfolio—it should be a functional marketing and promotional tool for YOUR business/organization.  It doesn’t have to be completely original and it doesn’t even have to be a creative masterpiece, but it does have to represent your company/organisation well, which a good template will.

Where do I get a template?

We recommend the following sites for templates.  Template Monster's our personal favorite and has the most selection, but they all offer high quality templates along with a good level of instruction:

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