A Website That Catches One’s Eye: 5 Tips for Picking the Right Template

Launching a new or redesigned website can be truly exciting and helpful. Many good designed websites today use templates that turn stock platforms like WordPress into more visually appealing destinations.

The template you choose for your website will so fundamentally influence its looks and usability that you should always put plenty of effort into choosing well. The following five tips should help you pick a template that suits your site correctly.

1. Keep Your Branding in Mind

Most businesses of any size end up with graphics and other sorts of branding that contribute to a sense of identity. When choosing a website template, it will always be best to opt for one that reflects and reinforces that background.

Experts at custom website design can always produce results that will support existing branding well. When it comes to adopting an off-the-shelf template, it will sometimes be necessary to accept a somewhat looser fit.

Many templates can be customized relatively quickly, though, and that can be enough to hit the mark. Make sure that the most prominent colors in your established branding assets, for instance, can be reproduced with each template you are considering.

This will ensure that the template you choose will add to the branding work you have already done. That will ultimately help your company or other organization grow well into the future.

2. Align With Your Website’s Focus

Every website has a purpose, and it should be reflected in the template you choose. A silly, energetic-looking model might be perfect for a retailer of children’s toys but a lot less so for an accountant.

Think about how the look and feel of every template under consideration will mesh with your website’s theme and content. That will make jarring, disruptive experiences less likely for visitors, in the end.

3. Make the Most of Your Budget

Some website templates are available free of charge but hardly worth the price of entry. Some relatively expensive models produce impressive returns on investment for the few who cough up the cash.

Think about not just how much you want to spend on a template, but what you hope to gain by doing so. A sleek, refined model that makes your business seem even more professional could be worth paying a premium for.

An inexpensive or cost-free template that serves its purpose correctly might allow you to invest the same sum elsewhere to better effect.

4. Don’t Forget About SO

SEO ensures that your website will feature prominently in the results returned by Google and other search providers. A poorly designed template can make it impossible to optimize your website effectively.

On the other hand, templates produced by designers who understand SEO often reduce the amount of work required after that. Since SEO is almost always worth paying attention to, look for a model that will make it easy.

5. Ask for Some Opinions

Everyone has distinctive tastes and preferences, but most websites need to serve reasonably large audiences. Ask for some opinions from others about the templates that impressed you the most before you settle on one of them.

This will ensure that your judgments were not overly personal, as sometimes happens.

As long as the people you trust are honest about their own opinions, you have nothing to lose by asking them to look at a few templates.

Heed the five pieces of advice above, and you should be able to identify an excellent template for your website. That should allow you to get off to a strong start with a new presence online.