print this page

Professional Looking Web Templates

EcoFriendlyNet.com features thousands of professional looking web templates. To get the most out these templates, it’s recommended that you use the .psd or the photoshop file only and get your web designer to re-slice the image and work with you on customizing the design for your unique situation.

Here’s some tips and suggestions:

  1. Purchase the template design you like the most and that will basically handle what you intend to present on your web site. Then instruct the freelance designer to use that as a basis for the look/feel of your web site’s design.
  2. One of the first things he/she will need to do is to replace the photo(s). You can get fantastic photos for 1.00-2.00 each (check our resource directory). This step is highly recommended so that you protect yourself from any remote possibility of copyright infringement from the photographer, or the photographer’s agents, as well as making your site look unique. The main photo or illustration really brands a site. Now remember: though the cost of each photo is only 1.00 - 2.00 each for web usage, the time finding photos can take a long time. So please consider this and actually find the photos yourself or be aware that there’s a cost involved in having someone else look for you.
  3. Ask your designer to work with you on a design based on the look/feel of the template that will best fit your content. These templates assume that you’ll have the same amount of information to present. What if you have less or more?
  4. Then get your designer (if she or he has good xhtml and css chops) to slice the new, approved design up for valid xhtml and css. If not, check out the resource directory, there are design shops, who, for an extremely reasonable fee, will take the finished .psd file or vector file and make beautiful code.
  5. Finally, if you have a site more than 10-15 pages, have your designer/developer, put your new design in a nice CMS (content management system). There’s quite a few free, open source, scripts that will allow you to update your site yourself. Wordpress is one of them. You can even use Blogger (by Google) as a CMS. Most blogging platforms can be made to look un-bloggy. Otherwise, she/he can make global includes of the the main sections of the site, and create pages the old fashioned way. When a site is created with semantic html, it will be easy to update the text with a simple text editor program (like Note Pad or Simple Text). Do not use Microsoft Word or Front Page to edit or create your site, the code they spit out is the worst on the planet.

By doing it this way, you save loads of development time, money, and headaches.

But what if I want to have flash web site or I like one of the flash templates?

Flash is much different from css and xhtml designed sites. If you like the look of the flash site, your designer/developer can still use the above recommendations and create a site using css, xhtml, and javascript to make it somewhat flashy. It won’t work the same way, but it will get more traffic. However, if your heart is stuck on flash, there’s a couple of things you can do. Get a good flash developer. Then have your developer work with you to modify the .fla file (the flash source file) to suite your needs. In addition, have him or her, place your flash so your page will validate and so that you can have alternate content that search engines will eat. Having a flash site, without any alternate html, will make your site invisible to search engines. Many of the templates come with a flash version and an html version. The people who made these templates are really good with flash (though they need help with their css and xthml code). So you can use them (by clicking on the thumbnail image or details link on the template you like and then clicking the “customize the template” link) for one part of the developement, and for the developement of alternate content you would simply do the following. Take a look at the source code of that page and follow the instructions.