| Web templates are raw materials that need
to be refurbished/edited to be published online. Editing web-templates could include
content insertion, graphic insertion/modification, inserting company logo, changing
styles, changing links, changing flash images etc. Editing is quite easy but in case you
feel otherwise you can always make use of template customization services that most
template providers offer at affordable costs. Some template providers like
http://www.buytemplates.net offer affordable customization services irrespective of where
you actually purchased the template from. This article discusses the techniques that you
can use to edit your web templates effectively to create unique looking websites.
Editing website templates effectively
For editing web templates (www.buytemplates.net) all you
would require is an html editor like Dreamweaver, Photoshop, FrontPage or Go-live. Most of
these html editors are WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) kind and have a user
friendly interface. You can do two types of editing to your web-templates. One is content
editing and the other is graphics editing.
1.) Editing the content of your web templates
The template provider would have supplied you with an
'index.html' file along with your template. This is the file that you would require for
editing content of your templates. You can edit content using a text editor or an html
editor software program.
Editing using text editors
Editing using text editors is the best possible way to edit
your templates. This will ensure that your html coding remains clean and no unnecessary
junk code is added. But of course you need to be some what conversant with Html to hand
code your templates. Notepad is probably the most well-known of all text editors. Other
than Notepad some other good and advanced text editors are editpad (editpadpro.com),
NoteTab Light (notetab.com), and arachnophilia (arachnoid.com/arachnophilia/index.html).
Editing using Html editors
Making use of an html editor is probably the easiest way of
editing templates and would be useful to those who are not conversant with html. Most html
editors are user friendly and have an easy-to-use interface. Some well known html web
template editors are Dreamweaver, FrontPage and Go-live. To edit content of the template,
all that you would need to do is load the index.html file in an editor. After that you can
simply cut and paste your content where the dummy content is provided and you are done.
Adding content would also include changing links, adding content to tags and changing
image sources if required.
Handy tips for content editing
- Make sure to change the title of all pages. The title can be
a keyword or words that are most repeated in your content. It can also be a description of
your webpage. For instance you can use 'Florida tourism' as the title for a webpage
related to tourism in Florida.
- Change alt text of images and keep the alter text as a
keyword. Search engines don't read images but they do ready the Alt texts. For instance
you can use the tag 'Florida beach' for a Florida beach image.
- Make sure to add proper anchor text to all your links.
Anchor texts are given special importance in search engines.
- Give proper headings to all your pages. Heading can contain
specific keywords. Headings are given using 'h1, h2, h3 ... h6' tags. Text with-in heading
tags are given more value by search bots.
- Be sure to check for spelling mistakes, grammatical errors,
broken links and misspellings before loading the site
- Provide contact information.
2.) Editing images and graphics
Editing images would involve changing image colors,
add/remove image layers, add/change text used in images etc. In order to make changes to
the images used in the web template you would need to use the PSD file. Almost all
template providers would supply you with a PSD file (although some may charge you extra
for the file). PSD file is basically a layered file that is created using Adobe PhotoShop.
This file is compatible with many graphic editing programs. Some good programs that can be
used to edit PSD files are Jasc Paint Shop Pro 7, Ulead PhotoImpact 7 & 8, ImageReady
and of course Photoshop. For more information on PSD files you can visit adobe.com.
In case you don't have access to any of the above mentioned
software programs for editing the templates, you may request your web template provider to
give you BMP files instead of PSD files. A BMP file is a high quality bitmap image file
that can be edited using any image editing software program.
Handy tips
- Change the color of images to suite and enhance your text
visibility
- If needed you can also replace images used in the templates
to add your own professional images. (One good website from where you can get professional
images is 'gettyimages.com')
3.) Editing the styles of a template
CSS style sheets are the ones that allow you to make
changes to the style of the webpage like changing font color, line and paragraph spacing,
font size, link color etc. Style sheets are useful as they allow you to make changes to
many WebPages by altering one document. CSS can be edited using any Html editor or text
editor. Although there are some specialized programs available that are meant specifically
for editing CSS Stylesheets like 'TopStyle' (bradsoft.com).
There are many web template providers who offer internal
style sheets or multiple font styles. It is difficult to edit internal style sheets and
therefore is not recommended. Always make sure to go for template providers who offer you
with external CSS Style Sheets.
Handy tips
- Make sure to use contrasting text and background colors
- Make sure to use same font type through out a webpage.
Making use of different font types can make reading difficult. Arial and veranda are best
suited for online reading.
- Never use justification for your text as it can make reading
difficult.
- Provide a site map
Quality tutorials to help you with HTML
If you are not familiar with html/CSS and need some start
up lessons then there are plenty of free resources available over the internet that will
allow you to do just that. Some of the best ones are 'w3cschools.com' and 'webmonkey.com'.
W3cschools offers the best tutorials for html where as webmonkey offers the best tutorial
for CSS Style-sheets (just type 'Mulder's Stylesheets Tutorial' in a search engine like
google or yahoo! to reach directly to the tutorial page). For getting knowledge about web
usability you can refer to 'http://www.usability.gov/guidelines'. For researching keywords
for your website content you can refer wordtracker.com or overtune.com. There are also
many sites that give step by step instructions on how to edit templates. One good site
worth visiting in this regard is 'template-help.com'.
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