Pick a Template Design. Assemble Your Content.
Choosing a design for your site among the many templates will be the most fun, and putting together the content you want on it, not so much. The content will play a role in your site design e.g., if you are restauranteur you will probably want your menu included in the site. But how, as a downloadable document, or visible directly on a page of the site? You may want some photos of your establishment included but unless you are a photographer, artist, or want many photos showing your wares, you won’t need any type of photo gallery.
The hardest part will probably be writing the textual content you wish to include. Here are "10 Writing Tips for Web Designer" and, if you really want to dig into this, here are "50 Free Resources That Will Improve Your Writing Skills". (Note that, while I can help with photos, writing the copy is up to you.)
Now the fun part! Choose a site template; You’ll be amazed at the beautiful designs $10 or $20 will get you at Theme Forest , and CSS Hub also has some fine templates. Be sure to choose the proper type of template. At the Theme Forest home page, in the upper left is a button labeled “Categories”; in the drop down be sure to choose “Site Templates”.
CSS Hub is part of Dream Template, be sure to pick from the "Dynamic CSS Templates" category.
Now the fun part! Choose a site template; You’ll be amazed at the beautiful designs $10 or $20 will get you at Theme Forest , and CSS Hub also has some fine templates. Be sure to choose the proper type of template. At the Theme Forest home page, in the upper left is a button labeled “Categories”; in the drop down be sure to choose “Site Templates”.
CSS Hub is part of Dream Template, be sure to pick from the "Dynamic CSS Templates" category.
Being on a Macintosh computer I have a program called RapidWeaver. It uses templates designed specifically for it and allows quick and easy modification of certain elements.
What the template designer allows for variation differs from one template to an other, but basically colors can be easily changed and content areas; such as columns and side bars, can be easily rearranged.
Third party templates written for RapidWeaver are also quite stylish and priced in the $10 to $25 range. This video demo of the "Mirage" theme from "NimbleHost" is a demonstration of what the more advanced "RapidWeaver" templates can do. Below are links to some of the third party template developers, most of which have live demos of their site designs.
I have also provided screenshots of the template themes that come packaged with the RapidWeaver program; using one of these themes would not cost you anything for the template. However, the 3rd party designers listed below have much nicer designs with more optional features.
Third party templates written for RapidWeaver are also quite stylish and priced in the $10 to $25 range. This video demo of the "Mirage" theme from "NimbleHost" is a demonstration of what the more advanced "RapidWeaver" templates can do. Below are links to some of the third party template developers, most of which have live demos of their site designs.
I have also provided screenshots of the template themes that come packaged with the RapidWeaver program; using one of these themes would not cost you anything for the template. However, the 3rd party designers listed below have much nicer designs with more optional features.
I have several site templates ready to go. This one in particular is themed for a construction contractor, which is hard to find. Two that are general business templates; this one I used for the CMS demo screencast and this one is a clean, straight forward looking template. All three of these templates are available for free.
Below are links to some fine template designs by third party template designers for use with the RapidWeaver program. Between them, and the templates at Themeforest and CSSHub mentioned above, you should not have any trouble finding an attractive design for your website.
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