Choosing The Right Template And Design For Any Website

There's a lot to think about when you're building a website - but one of the most important things of all is simply making sure that your new site looks right. Thankfully, there are plenty of options; you can pick one of the many tens of thousands of free templates available online, you can purchase a premium template from the internet, you can learn how to build your own template or you can hire someone to create a brand new one especially for you. In this article, we look at some of those options in more depth.

Consider Your Website's Main Goal

Different websites have different purposes, and the template you choose needs to work well with the overall goal of your site. If you're interested in selling a range of products, for example, you need a template that's set up to do that - lots of images, snippets of text and good virtual cart integration. If on the other hand you're raising awareness of a cause or discussing a specific issue, you're going to need a few pages with plenty of room for longer texts on them. Not all templates are right for all things, and it's important that you think about this carefully before choosing one.

Use A Skilled And Talented Designer

Even if you're downloading a free template from the internet, you should look into the designer's other work before you pick it. You want one that's well-coded and stable, and preferably one that you know other people have used with no problems. If you're hiring a designer, it's even more important to examine their credentials in advance - ask to see a portfolio and maybe even for some references.

Always Be Prepared To Customise

Don't be afraid to tweak the template you choose to better suit you - unless you've hired a designer to build is specifically, in which case it's best to ask them to make any changes. If you're going it alone, you'll need to learn a little coding to get this right; it's not as hard as you think, but it is vitally important that you're careful.

Think About The Layout Carefully

Make sure that the layout you pick is properly suited to the overall purpose of your site. If you need charts and graphs, is there room for them? Are your pictures going to fit in seamlessly, rather than needing to be shoehorned in? Is the navigation bar where you want it, and is there room there for all of its menus? These are all things you need to consider very deliberately.

Don't Forget To Consider Accessibility

Good websites are set up to attract all manner of visitors. Sure, you can look through your site just fine - but what about if you had poor eyesight and struggled with small text, or if you were dyslexic and couldn't easily read certain text/page colour combinations? Could someone with photosensitive epilepsy browse your site safely without fear of flashing images that could trigger a seizure? That's not all, either: some people will be using text-to-speech software, for example, so they'll miss any text that's part of an image or a Flash module rather than ordinarily printed. Web crawlers can't see image text either, meaning that it will penalise your SEO efforts. Making sure that your website is accessible to all regardless of disability or special need is not only the right thing to do from a moral perspective - it'll help you make more money and climb the search rankings, too.

Consider Your Website Template An Investment

Whatever you decide, you need to remember that by getting a good template for your new website you're investing in the future of your venture. Bear this in mind, and be sure to choose wisely - it will definitely turn out to have been worth it in the end.