Don’t Buy Templates, Invest In Knowledge
It seems that the number of Web site experts, SEO gurus and Internet service firms grows by about a thousand every hour, and most of them end up clogging our inboxes with their so-called amazing and bargain-priced offers. Truth is, there is only so much real genius in the world, and so many real geniuses, so you have to exercise the most diligent variety of due diligence to separate the wheat from the chaff. If you are thinking of revamping your existing site, or building a brand new one (and doing the work in-house), you need to know where you can get the best kind of components, Content Management Systems (CMS) and support to ensure you get where you want to go.
What complicates Web work, on both the producer and consumer sides, is the fact that it involves both art and science, as some components are born from creativity and others are stamped out with high-tech cookie-cutters. For all of it, however, real expertise is required, which makes it incumbent on customers of Web support firms to know enough going in to understand what is going on. So get ready for a quick cram course in how Web design and development firms can help you get the building blocks for your ever-evolving site.
Educational support
You can go online and find a zillion places to get various kinds of templates for your site. You can get freebies, but then you will look like half a million other sites. You can spend money and overlap with far fewer folks, but you are still just playing swap-the-image and insert-the-text games with a pre-made design. This is all well and good for a quick start, but what do you do when you want to revise, refine or upgrade your site, your look, your entire online presence? Well, you spend more money, that’s what.
On the other hand, there are some suppliers of templates, including highly customizable ones in advanced formats like Joomla, that take a slightly different approach. Instead of handing you some paint-by-color-level templates, they provide you high quality, layered and well-designed site templates that are also used for instructional purposes. The intent of these vendors is to make you an informed, ever-more-competent Web master, to whatever level you wish to go. If you cannot afford an on-staff Web expert, never mind an entire IT department, it really is incumbent on you to learn as much as you can about building and maintaining your site.
Online school
The best of the Joomla, Drupal and even HTML template providers will go the extra mile and offer what is essentially online college. The approach varies somewhat, but the top firms will let you choose from various topics at your proficiency level, or set you up with a full-blown curriculum so that you can rise to the level required of you. This can work not only for the one-person firm and small business, but relieve larger firms of the need to develop and implement their own training. For companies both large and small, education in Joomla (or whatever platform you prefer, even multiple ones) will require some investment, of course. However, it is not even arguable that education has a great ROI (Return On Investment), and you will reduce the amount of money spent in the future on plug-and-play solutions, the ones that cannot possibly distinguish your site from many others.
On the other hand, learning about the real nuts and bolts of Web design and implementation allows your creativity to come to the fore, and is a smart move. There is little downside to attending a “Joomla online college” or taking courses in HTML5, the latest generation of HyperText Markup Language. The more expertise and experience you (or your staff, however big or small) have, the better for your firm. You can do what you need to do when you need to do it, and not have to rely on (or pay) template providers or other consultants.
Bottom line
The bottom line is clear – shop around until you find a source of assistance that is also capable of training you and your Web staff. Instead of continuing to spend money on pre-made, cookie-cutter templates, start with educational templates and consider taking the courses you need to develop the expertise your firm and its goals require. Make sure to check bona fides, of course, and get referrals from satisfied customers. If you use your head in this regard, you will have to use your wallet a whole lot less!
For professional joomla templates, visit Joomla Shack.com online for a design that can deliver clean content for medium to large scale sites for complete control over the look and feel.
October 3, 2010 | Posted by Chris Haycox
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