Designing a website may not seem like the easiest of tasks, but with the help of some new web building conveniences that have entered the market in the past few years it is possible to create a professional website for your business with only a small investment of your time and money. In fact, with the advent of greater choice in web design such as ready-made website templates, logos and other corporate necessities, you can build a website in three easy steps.

Step One: Plan Ahead

Before you delve into the world of web design and start looking for a suitable template, it’s important to plan ahead. You need to clearly define your company’s objectives beforehand so that the design selection process goes more quickly and you choose the right template.

For instance, who is your target audience? You must know your customer inside and out in order to choose the best site design for bringing in business. For instance, if most of your business comes from corporations and professionals you will need to choose a template that caters to that group of people - one that gives the right first impression and shows you are a serious business that can handle top-notch clients. In this case, a simple, efficient design will be your top preference. If, however, you are building an ecommerce website selling a range of goods, a template that can be customized for online shopping will probably be your design of choice. Perhaps you require a more “flashy” website? Flash templates are also an option and suit many different types of websites that rely on more than just text and a logo to make money.

Ensure that the template you eventually purchase is easy to customize and update. That’s the whole point of buying a template in the first place - to make both the building of the website and its maintenance stress-free, affordable and fast. You will need to add your own content to the template and work with the overall theme once it is downloaded. Also, most businesses will want to add fresh content, site updates, links etc. as time goes by so keep this in mind when searching for that perfect template. If you plan to incorporate interactive features into your site, such as forms and chat areas, the template you choose should be able to handle this as well.

Step Two: Choose a Template

Now that you are prepared, you can begin shopping for a website template that will work best for your business. Start by researching the many website template companies on the market that offer professional designs for reasonable prices ($20-$40). Most companies offer the choice between copyrighted and non-copyrighted material as well, so if you want to be the only one using the template design spend a little more money to receive exclusive usage. One such website template company I found that offers reasonably priced templates is http://templatedogma.com/. Once you purchase a copyrighted template it is taken off the market. If you don’t find a template that fits your business precisely, investigate which companies offer to design custom-made templates for your usage. This will cost more but prices are kept lower than hiring a designer and the results are just as good - if not better.

When you find the right template after reviewing the available designs, the rest is simple. All you have to do is purchase the template and download it to your hard drive in seconds.

Step Three: Customize

With the template all ready to go, all you have to do is add your own content, graphics, images - anything you need to make the site your own. If you can use a simple editor such as DreamWeaver or FrontPage, this can be done in a few days or less. If you are inexperienced when it comes to any aspect of web design you can hire someone to do the editing for you for a very small fee - much smaller than what you would pay a designer to create the whole site from scratch.

When adding content, if you only require a few simple words, consider writing the text yourself. If you need a lot more information, such as product descriptions, articles or sales content, consider hiring a writer to create unique, high-quality content. Because you saved so much money purchasing a ready-made website template, you can spend a little more hiring a great writer! If you write the material on your own, remember to keep it short. Keep paragraphs short and don’t bog the reader down with unnecessary information. People are in a hurry and don’t want to spend a lot of time reading pages and pages of writing. Let your visitors get the information they need so they can move on and buy your product or service, but also make sure the information you provide is actually helpful and written without grammar or spelling mistakes.

The overall design should be kept simple, but that doesn’t mean you can’t add graphics, pictures or even video. As long as you keep it uncomplicated visitors will not regret visiting your site and learning more about your business. Not everyone has high-speed Internet yet, so fast loading pages are still a consideration.

Other additions include tables, forms and quizzes. Tables specifically are an easy way to organize text on a web page and they load very quickly. Most HTML editors make it easy to generate tables on your website.

Website templates have brought web design out of its infancy and into the 21st century, catering to the unique needs of the online business owner, so don’t be afraid to take advantage of the convenience - you won’t regret the decision.

About the Author

This article was written by Katerina Mitrou sponsored by http://templatedogma.com/. Template Dogma offers a huge selection of professional, ready to use website templates and custom products too. Build your professional website in minutes with the help of Templatedogma.com. Reproductions of this article are encouraged but must include a link back to http://templatedogma.com/. -

With so many new websites going online every day it is no wonder many of them never succeed. We all hear about the new site that has only been online less than a year and has millions of visitors each month. Why do some sites do so well and others flop? There are many reasons for this and these are just some of the more obvious and often overlooked ones.

The landing page takes too long to load. Many website designers and marketers believe everyone has a high-speed connection, which is not the case. Even with a fast connection many pages will take up to 30 seconds to load, which is just too long. Unless someone really wants what you have, and can?t get it anywhere else, they won?t wait; and forget about the person on dial-up. Unless yours is a hobby site, or sales are not important to you, forget about Flash and large fancy graphics.

Site is not finished. This may not seem like a big issue except that people who go looking for something don?t want to see an under-construction animation where the information should be. You just wasted their time and probably annoyed them ?- not a good start. Do not advertise or promote something you don?t have unless you are doing a product pre-launch, and never lead your visitor down a road to an empty page. Its one thing to upload an unfinished site for testing, however, don?t promote it.

Bad navigation. If you have ever gone to a site and got lost, then you know what I mean. You click on a link and another to the point you give up looking for the information or product and just do a re-search for another site. This type of marketing may work in an offline store but it has no place online. Offline you could keep a customer in your store by creating a maze and therefore introducing them to more of your products. Online this does not work ?- the exit is never more than a click away, and don?t forget it. Make your site easy to navigate and have links, at least to the home page, on every page. Never try to trap your visitor.

No contact information. While I am not saying you should give out your address and home phone number, you must at least have an email link on your site. Many sites do not have an email and use a contact form instead. These forms are usually to hide their identity and your visitors will pick up on that. Remember, people hide their identity for a reason. The more open you are with people, the more open they will be with you.

Old content. If you want to get repeat visitors, you need new content; it?s just that simple. Many sites never change and rely on new visitors and customers. This is the hard way to do business, as a repeat customer is much easier to sell to.

Broken Links. It is a good idea to manually check your links as often as possible. Take a run through your site on a regular basis and mainly check links heading off your site. If someone else changed their site and you are linking to them as an affiliate, for example, your link may get disabled. You internal links should not cause many problems, but it never hurts to check.

If you are expecting to get a full time income from your site expect to put some work into it. The ?build it and forget about it? idea only works for hobbyists etc.. Most people making a full-time income online work at it full-time, no matter what they would have you believe.

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