What is a website template and how to find the best for your business?

In our digital-first world, every business owner is quickly realising the importance of having a professional website. Acting as the window into your brick-and-mortar or online store, a sleek and modern design will set you apart from your competition.

Apart from making your business more competitive, you can attract new clients and improve business profitability. While these are just a few of the standout reasons to have a website for your business, you may be wondering where or how you should get started. The very first step you should consider is looking at free website templates.

But what are they, how do they work and what other benefits can you enjoy? We answer these questions and more below. Keep reading to help your business grow.

What is a website template and how does it work?

Whether you call them website templates or themes, these ready-made professional website layouts offer you vast choice when creating your business’ online portfolio. 

They come packed with pre-installed features that are perfect for the industry in which your business operates, including restaurants and coffee shops, online or ecommerce stores, service businesses and many more.

Examples of some of the features you can take advantage of include a homepage, an “About us” section, product or service pages and categories, checkout pages, a blog, contact forms, a gallery, landing pages, website use terms and conditions and much more. 

The best part is that you don’t need the help of professional and costly web designers. In some cases, you can find a free website template, depending on the website builder you choose.

Once you choose the right website template that suits your business’ brand, you can start populating it with content. Website templates often work through drag-and-drop functionalities. They enable you to add images, visuals and photography, content and other design elements, such as call-to-action buttons, to make your website stand out.

How to choose the best website template for your business

A quick online search for free website templates will give you dozens of results. You can choose from a one page website template, a minimal portfolio template or create a more complex website, depending on your business’ needs. 

So, how do you choose the best website template for your business? 

Here are some factors to consider:

1. Choose a solid web hosting provider who can offer you sound hosting with fast webpage loading speeds. Some providers offer hosting along with free site templates and seamless integrations with your online checkout. Make sure your provider offers you a secure protocol for sending data between a web browser and a website, namely, HTTPS or hypertext transfer protocol secure.
2. Develop the branding for your business. This will include your brand colours, logo, business tagline, tone of voice and other elements that will distinguish your brand on the market. Once you’ve created your “brand bible”, make sure that each of these elements can be added to your chosen template so that you build brand consistency for stronger brand recognition.
3. Whether you are a corporate business or a creative agency, choose a template that aligns with your business’ visual persona and the mission and vision you stand behind. A children’s toy store will have a much more colourful design than an online store that sells electronic equipment. Be true to your brand and consistent in your messaging throughout.
4. Also be sure to choose responsive website templates, which accommodate your users or customers’ search and shopping needs. Always make sure your site caters to your users and creates a welcoming, intuitive and user-friendly experience.
5. Make sure you consider the pricing of your website templates and the hosting services, in addition to the payment gateway you will use. Some providers offer a tiered pricing model while others take a flat fee together with a small percentage of each sale. You need to carefully consider pricing and look out for any hidden fees that may add up over time.
6. Look for varied and multiple customisation options in your template. You should be able to customise your site as your business grows. This can mean adding more pages or elements to it without it costing you too much in time, effort or resources. Look out for fixed website templates that can’t be customised as this will potentially cause more hassles for you further on.
7. Search engine optimisation and search engine friendliness should be another priority. You don’t just want to have a website. You want that website to rank high in search engine result pages (SERPs) so that your site can get more visibility and enjoy greater traffic, with potential sales being the ultimate aim. When your audience browses for certain keywords, you want to ensure that your site is optimised for them so that you appear higher in search results.
8. A further defining feature should be compatibility with content management systems (CMS). Whether you use WordPress to publish your personal blog or personal portfolio, or you’d like to publish a landing page, you need to be sure that the template and the CMS “speak” to each other. Otherwise, all your efforts will be for nought.

The last suggestion is to ensure that your HTML template partner offers you the right type of support and help you need, whether you’re facing a challenge with set up or publishing or when your business is growing and your site is ready to be made bigger.

Benefits of ready-to-use website templates

Using a ready-made website template design not only means you can choose from vast portfolio HTML templates. It also means you can help your small business grow faster. 

Apart from these advantages, take a look at a few other perks to using ready-made website templates below:

• Website templates are very easy to set up. You do not need to know how to code or use the help of professionals such as web designers or developers.
• Ultimately, this can save you a lot in terms of business costs.
• The vast amount of choices that you have at your fingertips is astounding. You can choose a website template and start building your site with a plethora of options that cater to virtually any industry under the sun.
• Many website templates offer convenient functionalities, ranging from helping you make edits to optimising your site with suitable functions and tools. Examples include placing internal links and external ones that help create link equity and drive your website’s authority higher.
• Another advantage is that your business can enjoy responsive design, helping to strengthen your company’s marketing efforts.

For a startup, a website template builder can help you present and launch your project much faster, getting in front of a big audience as quickly as possible.

Conclusion

When you have a creative business idea and you want to share it with the world, you need a fast, effective and cost-efficient solution in developing your website. 

The best choice is to use ready-built website templates when creating your site, using simple and intuitive techniques that can help your business gain more visibility online. 

There are many benefits to making this transition and building a website with templates is a worthwhile endeavour to invest in.

Frequently Asked Questions