Choosing a Template
Find a template that corresponds to your product or service.
Let's assume you operate a pizza parlor.
You can start by entering the word "pizza" in the keyword field of the the search form above and pressing the "Search!" button. Voila!, two pages of templates with pizza themes or pizza references.
But then you say "Ah, but those templates are too narrowly focused—I serve other items besides pizza. I want a more general theme for my website." Okay, look through the template categories listed in the left-side menu to see if more general categories applicable to your product or service are listed. You'll find general categories such as "Cafe and Restaurant" or "Food & Drink" that might contain useful templates. You can also enter a more general term in the keyword field of the search form.
Find a template that corresponds to your clientele.
"I can't find a template for for my particular product or service."
Okay, what kind of clientele do you serve? Urban professionals? Look through the "Business" category. Farmers? Look through the "Agriculture" category. Find a template with a theme that corresponds to your clientele, and provide us with pictures of your product or service—we will incorporate your images into your chosen template.
Find a template that corresponds to your location.
What kind of area is your business located in? In the middle of the big city with skyscrapers all around? Look through the "Architecture" category. In an oceanfront resort? Look through the "Travel" category. Find a template with a theme that corresponds to your location, and provide us with pictures of your product or service—we will incorporate your images into your chosen template.
Full-Flash versus HTML
Full-Flash Templates
Full-Flash templates are preferred if you want spectacular page transitions and you expect to have a low to moderate number of pages in your site. To update a Full-Flash site yourself—as opposed to hiring someone to update it for you—you would need the Adobe Flash authoring software.
Full-Flash templates are categorized as follows: Flash site, Flash site 8 (newest version), Dynamic Flash site (some content can be edited with a text editor). (We also have Flash Intro Templates, which are short introductory animations which can be integrated into an HTML site.)
Flash templates also have HTML versions included; these have the animated headers and/or menus but lack the nifty page transitions.
Flash sites are generally not considered to be as search-engine-friendly as HTML sites. To the extent that you will be relying on search engine rankings to drive traffic to your website, you should avoid Full-Flash sites. On the other hand, if you expect that most of your website traffic will originate from other media that display your web address (e.g., your Yellow Pages listings, your newpaper ads, your tv/radio commercials), a spectacular Full-Flash site may be the better alternative.
Typically, the entire Full-Flash site is downloaded before the viewer sees the home page, therefore the wait time to see the home page is usually longer for a Full-Flash site than for an HTML site.
HTML Templates
HTML templates are preferred if you want easier maintenance, or if you expect to have many pages or pages with dynamic (i.e. database-driven) content. HTML sites can be updated with a simple text editor (if you understand HTML coding) or with more advanced design tools that provide a graphical interface and require no coding skills.
HTML templates are also more friendly to search engines. Search engines can easily index the content of each page of your HTML site and can link to each individual page.
Most HTML templates contain a limited amount of flash animation such as animated headers and/or menus, but lack the spectacular page transitions typical of full-Flash sites.
A Warning About Image-Based Websites
Some web contractors have taken to offering cut-rate websites based on page-sized jpeg or gif images. These types of websites may look like HTML websites at first glance; however, none of the text can be selected by drawing the cursor over it—as it would be in an HTML website—because all of the text is contained in the image.
Image-based text is not searchable, therefore image-based websites are very unfriendly to search engines and are very unlikely to rank highly in search results—especially in the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, or MSN.
The client who has paid for such a website may find that he cannot update it without access to the original authoring files. He finds himself going back to have it updated by the original contractors—cornered in their net, so to speak.
In addition, the viewers of such websites find that they cannot adjust the text to a comfortable size for viewing in their browsers, as the text size is fixed within the image. With our aging population, more and more people need to be able to select a comfortable text size.
Our HTML websites, on the other hand, are fully searchable, search engine friendly, text-size adjustable, and can be updated by any client who is sufficiently knowledgeable about HTML.