Webpage design has always changed rapidly with new developments in the Web. SEO, Flash, feeds, CSS, and blogs have all impacted webpage design.  Considering the poliferation of coding shorcuts with online sitebuilders and design packages like Front Page and Dreamweaver it’s no wonder website design has both simplified in
some ways and gotten more complex in other ways.

Over the last year I have been studying the uses of webpage templates.  These ready-designed webpage templates are now made for almost every possible use, from blogging to Flash to Liquid CSS applications.  In one respect it’s easy to understand why the price of web templates has been falling too.  It’s easier, cost and time effective, to make 100 of a variety than to make one unique product.

Although the demand for webpages and blogs is expanding geometrically - so have the number of designers and design tools.  Webpages can seldom bring the relative price that they once did - just as videocams and laptops have adjusted in price, and usually in quality, over time.

Web templates have been used more and more as their technical and esthetic qualities have improved.  In fact, I began asking webpage designers - both amateur and top level professionals - about their use of web templates.  The array of responses was very interesting.  In addition to conversations with designers, I sent out questionnaires for information on web template use.  I also conducted some interviews with webpage designers on my Web Templates Blog.

The results of these verbal and emailed reports was substantial.  To summarize what I found I will list the issues most often mentioned by designers.  These issues are rank ordered by number of times mentioned.

1) Template Cost    vs    Project Revenue
2) Time needed to alter a template    vs    Time needed to design in total
3) Graphics and look of a template    vs    Time and money to find graphics
4) Client need to see and make decisions from a working template    vs           Showing original design steps for approval
5) Designer’s familiarity with templates    vs    Designer’s lack of       familiarity with templates.
6) Designer’s desire to do certain parts of a design    vs    designer’s       desire to do the entirety of the design
7) Designer knowledge of a type of template    vs    Never having worked with    a type of template
8) Ease of code editting    vs    Ease of code writing

While the major issues are easy to list there were a few other considerations that were mentioned in various ways.  These considerations were lumped together into two other categories:

1) Designer comfort with a certain brand of template
2) Designer specialty and/or type of clients

Early on I realized that these issues and resulting decisions, as to when web templates make good design sense, would be almost impossible to quantify.  But as a general rule of thumb - it only took 2 clear-cut decisions on the above issues, pro template use, to cause designers to use a template.  The last two categories get into a more personal, less calculable area.

I found two other very strong trends in web template usage; these involved: 1) Once a designer begins using templates, they use them more frequently  2) The more freely a designer spoke about using templates in design projects, the more frequently they tended to report that they used
them in projects.

For the designers who interviewed publicly I can provide a few quotes here
with links:

I asked Pat Heard about pricing of his work, particularly a website design like North Shore: “template along with subpages would run around $600 USD. That site was actually a template project, so I created the code, and then gave it to my client for him to create the subpages, so it ended up costing him $350.”

Isaac Forman: “I have created custom templates for other development companies. . . For clients on a budget or someone starting out in the industry, I think they would be a useful tool - either simply to get a quality site online, or as a learning process.”

I wanted to know about Stuart Robertson’s experiences with website templates. “I think giving people a choice of nice looking and well coded templates when they’re getting started is a good idea. Once they’ve been using their site for a while they can make more informed decisions about what they would like to see in a custom website design, and hire a professional web designer to create it.”

I asked Adrian Mullan if he had ever worked with website templates. “Yes, I’ve used a few good templates over the years. . .        http://www.templatemonster.com/ , http://www.oswd.org/ , http://www.pixellogo.com/ , http://www.designgalaxy.net/ . . . I think the true test of any website template is how easy it is to modify the template to suit your needs. While many templates look great on the surface, they can be a nightmare to modify.  Occasionally we see templates where the original PSD file is hard to work with because the layers are not properly named/organized - but it’s getting better. . . It would nice to see more template providers go towards lean and mean templates, instead of the usual flashy stuff. . . The problem is, if you pull the regular person off the street and ask them ‘what do you think of this website’ instinctively they will base their decision on the aesthetics (not content, usability, search engine friendliness, etc).  Having said that, I can understand why template providers promote graphics intensive layouts.”

I asked Kimberly Barreda had she ever worked with website templates? “Extensively - we have 14 sites in the network and I believe 10 are template based. I used to use Moira’s web jewels, then I paid a known cartoonist to design some, then I found Template Monster. Moira’s was fun, they were free. . .Template Monster has worked out really well for us.”

I asked Robert Burridge about templates: “I personally specialise in template editing (HTML, etc.) since by using a template we are able to offer our customers the very best product at the lowest amount of time and money. . .I have worked with web templates since 2002; 80% of my work is based on templates.”

Numerous other conversations and questionnaires provided similar anecdotes and viewpoints.  I expect a boom in the near future of CSS based blog sites for both business and recreational use.  As a side question I often asked bloggers about WordPress Templates usage.  Notably blogs are becoming more complex and more beautiful.  Bloggers like variety in their themes.  Two examples of Wordpress themes:

Christine Rodriguez: “I set up a family recipe repository. . . I’ve been blogging for four years but this particular site is new . . . I blog for fun. . . I love it. It’s simple, elegant design, and very easy to install.”

Aspire Youth Ministries: Jessica Weiser explained, “I customized the design for our website, but overall the theme was okay.”

My Way or The Highway,
Arthur Browning

The webpage template makes an affordable internet marketing strategy for any book business, whether for local or mail order business.  WordPress Themescan be used for book blogging or sales.  Flash Templates give a book business site real status and make the bookseller attractively communicative to visitors.  An excellent example of these templates - WordPress Themes and Flash Templates, as well as eCommerce templates appears below.

Webpage Template for Books #3911

For a book business in publishing, ebooks, antiques, school or college bookstores, new or used books, comic books, rare publications, or any local neighborhood or international seller of print and images - a complete selection of webpage templates can be seen here.

A Bookish Lad,
Arthur Browning

One big challenge with the long tail becomes “how long” do you want to make it. You can’t type every phrase into a search engine for your topic. It’s not possible.  What you want to do is pick phrases that are still searched on a regular basis. You want phrases that will be productive, not just bringing a visitor by random chance.

This is the reason you should make the most of your keyword research. You want the keyphrases that customers actually use yet few of your competitors have noticed. That’s where your best chances of making a living from your long tail comes from.

To use the long tail effectively you must be able to work it naturally into your content text. You need to be readable by all the search engines. You must use a lot of different but similar keyphrases. Originality of content can be hard to maintain when you’re trying to optimize a site.

This is makes a long tail relatively productive for pay per click traffic.  Long tailed phrases are more likely to be cheaper yet
possibly more productive. Such searches are more serious and you have a super pay per click situation.

Don’t Play Me Cheap,
Arthur Browning

How Long is your SEO tail? Search engine optimization has named the number of 3-5 word keyphrases, that are also competitive and bring you in more visitors, as your tail. The length of that tail explains your optimal appearance on SERPs for these second level keyword searches.

Don’t limit the length of your tail to just 3-5 word phrases. In some cases you barely describe your content or products in 3 words. Things start to get interesting when you optimize for 5 words in any phrase.

The advantage of a long tail is getting more traffic from serious searchers, those who know exactly what they want to find. Most people typing in two word searches are just exploring. They aren’t that ready to buy.

As the phrases take on more words, the searcher becomes more particular, more ready and able to make a purchase. Looking at the longer search phrases used to find your site will give you some suggestions to further optimization for those and other longer phrases.

The Idiot’s Guide to Genius,
Arthur Browning

When is a webpage template a good idea for a plant business?  Whether WordPress Theme, Flash Template or regular full webpage - a template makes a fast and attractive solution for internet presence.

Some plant lovers only want to blog - whether for business or pleasure.  An excellent example of this is the WordPress Theme just below.

WordPress Theme #14115

For a small business in horticulture, hydroponics, greenhouse, florist, plant store, garden supply, landscaping and landscape plants - a Flash Template might make better sense.  A complete array of webpage templates can be seen here.

Green Thumb of Small Business,
Arthur Browning

If you sell services or products online, you can list them in comparison shopping websites, or “shopping engines” like Shopping.com. This will add at least one good listing to your searchresults per service that you list with. You only have to list one product per shopping engine to start.

Because search engines still consider a page’s number of relevant backlinks to be a valid indicator of quality and relevance to a search term you should consider listing in these directories.  Octopedia, WorldSiteIndex and Microsoft’s Small Business Directory are a few examples of solid directories that allow you to link to deeper pages of your own site, like your About Us page, to help raise their rankings for your company name.

Post An E-Help Wanted Sign that will show on search results. Leverage the strength of sites like Craigslist.org to post an offering from your company for a current job offering. Make sure you use your company name first in the posting headline, this will ensure the title tag for that page is optimized, which is very helpful for SEO. And make sure to describe your company in the ad, repeating your name three or four times.

Many SEO experts recommend setting up an account with Google Alerts (free) which monitors the top 50 results, or with Google Alert, a professional tracking system that will monitor the top 200 results for you for as little as $4.95/month. You will be notified daily when new references to your name have been found in Google.

How long will it take to get all positive search engine results to show in the top 40?  That will vary, and it won’t happen overnight. You can manage your reputation with effort and patience.  It might take a few months to a year. Monitoring for your strategy will be a long-term activity. As new pages are being added daily to the Web, search results for your name can fluctuate daily, even hourly. - - And remember to be a “good guy” in the neighborhood.

The Mr. Rogers of Templates,
Arthur Browning