Web Design Made Easier - Cheat by Using a Web Site Template

by Mark Shapiro

Would you like to create a cool looking website but you are not a designer or a brilliant artist? Do you know how to use a basic web page authoring program like FrontPage or Dreamweaver or GoLIve., but you have the design and artistic expertise of an amoeba?

Well that's me. I know content. I think I know how to write copy and articles that people want to read.  I know how to organize and maintain a web site so that visitors can find the info they really want. But... when it comes down to picking out images, backgrounds, colors, design fundamentals - I am hopeless.

So instead of hiring someone smart to do all of this for me, I cheaped out and did a google search for website templates. I checked out a few of the results and the one I decided to go with was Template Monster. They advertise everywhere.

A template is a pre-designed site that you can download and then you customize it and fill in the content. Depending on how much money you want to shell out, you can get just a single home page for your site (cheap) or you can get a complete flash enabled web site, with numerous pages.

I chose to spend a big $62 bucks and bought one of the dynamic sites with Flash - even though I don't know flash. Most of the the sites also come with Photoshop versions of the pages as well as raw HTML pages.

After paying my money, and downloading the site, I imported the raw HTML pages into FrontPage. I used an simple image editor (Ulead PhotoImpact) to add text to the various buttons to make it work for the site.  I then added content from the previous ugly version of the site.  Within a few hours, I had the whole site up and running.

Davis-Marrin Communications

No planning and design sessions, minimal damage to my pocket book and I got it done within a day. Yes, it is isn't the most creative way to create a site and yes, others may end up using the same basic template for their sites, but what the heck, it was affordable, fast and it worked. By the way, if there is a template you really like and don't want anyone else to use, you can buy an exclusive deal on it. However, for that price you could probably hire a starving design professional to create a site for you from scratch. 

Check out Template Monster

And if you are into flash ....

Make FLASH Easy - Wildform develops video, animation and presentation software including the Flix Flash video encoder, the Wild FX Pro video titler and text animator, the Linx easy Flash editor and the Wildform Video Library.
click here for more info....

* By the way, I had a professional design the template for Internet Video Magazine. If you like his work, check him out at Dangerous Media