- Just starting out and need a quick website?
- Consider a website template to get going fast, and cheaply
There’s a real potential for you to save money on website design procedures by considering website design templates for your site. A template can be used to give your site a good design without the cost of an external contractor or website designer. Using WordPress Templates can save time and money that you need for other things in the early stages of a startup.
There are several benefits that come with using an off the shelf website design.
First, the design is already laid out for you, looking awesome. It will include enough columns and open spaces to make it easier for you to display your information to as many people as possible.
Second, you can customise templates in more ways than ever before. Many templates will allow you to import your own header or side graphics. Other templates will include support for different Flash graphics or other multimedia features.
The third benefit is that it saves you the time of having to wait just to get a template ready. You can easily download a template file onto your computer and starting working on it through any web editing program. The process of working with web design templates should not be all that hard to do especially since some templates may even be based around familiar systems like WordPress.
When you use a CMS like WordPress these template are easy to install because the designer creates a framework around the design. You can upload the template, upload your graphics, and select how you want the structure to behave using widgets.
The biggest benefit is that a ready made website template will cost you less than $100. You could even buyout the rights to a license for a few thousand dollars and then sell the rights to that license off to other people if desired.
The cost of using a template is clearly less than what a professional might charge for it. The average website designer will charge several thousand dollars for a project and that’s just for an offshore company. A professional firm will charge at least five thousand dollars for a project that would take about thirty hours for it to complete. The cost will be especially high if you require Flash, social media integration features or SEO help.
The fact that there are many websites that offer themes to use on your site only makes it easier for you to enjoy the benefits of this service. Places like themeforest.net currently provide people with several templates including WordPress-based options for sale. These include a few that cost less than fifty dollars to use.
There are a few negatives that come with templates though. There’s the lack of control over a template in some cases. You might be at the mercy of whatever you have available for you to use.
Also, your site might end up looking relatively similar to another person’s site if the template is not too creative. This is a risk that could come as you use something that another site might have taken in.
Things to look for in a template while you are selecting your WordPress Templates:
- Ensure it is Responsive (so it will look good on a mobile phone)
- Can you imagine your content on the design?
- Does it have a page builder (So you can arrange content as you would like on each page?)
- Does it come with multiple skins (Can you change the colours easily?)
- If you need specific functionality like a calendar, or ecommerce store – is the design built in already?
It’s clearly a good idea to consider website design templates if you want to make your website design plan work out right until you have the money to get a professional design done. The best templates should give you the most out of anything you want to ask for in the web design process. The money you’ll save with a template instead of a traditional design procedure is especially useful to bootstrapping your business early on.
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SixFive is a web and mobile app developer – If you’d like some assistance in making your website work well on mobile, or creating and launching a mobile app for your business, drop us a line, we’d be only too happy to assist you.
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