A web template or website template is primarily a web page, which is pre-designed with a custom set of elements, which anyone can simply pick and simply plug-in your text or image to build a fully functional website. Unlike the need for custom coding and designing, the pre-built website templates will let anyone, even those who don’t have any knowledge of coding, to set up their professional websites.
Website templates are usually built with HTML, CSS, and Bootstrap codes and will let anyone tweak the layout to set up a unique website. There is no need to hire a professional developer or designer to construct a website. Nowadays, even many of the developers who are into professional website creation make use of these templates to prepare business websites. Website templates will let the amateur web developers build their websites quickly and easily without the need to do the coding from scratch.
Usage of these templates also lets anyone make websites at a reasonable cost, and the entire process of web development is also made less time consuming with the use of templates. The modern-day templates are also coming search engine ready out of the box, so the users can easily search for and find your products and services online. Each template available out there in the website template repositories are also self-contained. You just have to plug-in your unique content as text, images, or videos, and then tweak the layout according to your needs with drag and drop options to complete the layout and publish the website.
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Various types of web templates
As discussed above, the website templates come self-contained as downloadable zip files or kind of an online web builder user interface. If you are a bit coding-savvy, then you can use an HTML code editing program also to do the customization. These could be made simply static or highly responsive and dynamic. You can configure these templates to be adaptive to the needs of any mobile or PC browsing. You can also put the file extensions as.htm, .html .php, .asp and so in. In any case, these could be built using the HTM and CSS codes. The modern-day templates are coming responsive out of the box, and the layout could simply flex to the entire width effectively for a comfortable view.
What are all there in the website templates?
Usually, you can find or include text and images (.jpg, .png or .gif formats), HTML5, CSS3 elements, jQuery, shopping carts, payment gateways, contact forms, slideshows, dynamic image galleries PDF download, video, and graphic players, embedded YouTube, etc. to point out a few. The designs and codes of the web templates may vary largely from case to case, so the users need to be very careful and picky while choosing their most appropriate website template. Ensure that you check all the functions of the template as well as the scripts, functions, and applications you need for your website. With the Designmodo free website templates, you can all add custom text, scripts, stock photos, third-party plug-ins, or anything to the template easily to create custom-built pages. The default stock images could also be replaced with the user content like.jpg or .gif images.
The website templates come as standalone zip files, including built-in scripts for multiple pages. There may have been many developers who worked behind it to create these pre-built templates and for the clients. In addition to it, the website templates can also be purchased by the clients and make use of a developer at their end to customize the layout and design. Most of these website templates can be used as a base, and using a professional to complete it will help save a lot of time and effort compared to building a site from scratch. Using website templates, there is also no restriction as to how to customize a website and what all elements to be included in it later. However, you can also have a look at the user agreement while downloading a website template to see if there are any such restrictions.
More about HTML and CSS-based designs
HTML, as well as CSS, are plain text coding languages which can be used for browsers to render the webpage designs. The latest versions are HTML5 & CSS3, which are now considered as the website standards. It is W3C, World Wide Web Consortium, which updates and maintains the standards for these.
The web templates now come in various flavors, and you need to be very careful while considering the options and choose one. You shouldn’t instantly commit to any design without scrutinizing them. It is also ideal to choose one which will be compliant with the current standards and also ply responsive on the mobile screens. Ensure that the website you develop passes the Mobile-Friendly Test by Google.
Adaptive design vs. responsive design
Adaptive web templates are similar to responsive web designs and will consist of the media queries of CSS code. The major difference in terms of adaptive design is that it targets the desktops and mobile devices separately. There could either be a separate design or another set of web pages for each device. Detection of CSS, PHP, jQuery, or ASP could be used to redirect the users from various devices to corresponding web pages. However, there could be many gray areas in adaptive design. On the other hand, responsive web design only needs one type of development. Bootstrap uses a grid-based system with which the web page gets open based on the characteristics of the browser and the device screen on which the website is open.
There are also many web builder systems offered by hosting companies and proprietary CMS providers. However, while combined with the template designs coming packed with the hosting packages, your websites may not be portable, and you will find it difficult to port it to another hosting server later. So, it is best to stay away from such hosting service add-ons, and it’s ideal to choose independent website templates, which you can seamlessly customize and personalize with code updates.
