Simplify Building a Business Website by Strategically Choosing the Right Template

Despite the sheer volume of “DIY” website builders and AI-assisted design tools, setting up and managing a website has not gotten any easier. While it is more accessible for people to create a website themselves, the sheer number of options available can make it more confusing to know which is the “correct” tool to use. Setting up your entire website from scratch, on any platform, will wind up being a major investment in time and effort—and most non-professionals find that they struggle to create a responsive, professional-looking, and functional user experience.

Instead of blindly starting your website from scratch, define the functionality you need your website to provide and pick a high-quality template that supports these goals. Continue reading to learn how to define the requirements of your website, select a template, and apply your brand.

In this post, you’ll learn:

• How to define the primary purpose of your website.
• Why the right template will save you time and effort.
• The importance of choosing a website template based on structure and functionality, not visual design.
• When it makes sense to upgrade to a paid template.
• Tips for making any template fit your brand.

Define your website’s primary purpose

Before you begin looking at templates, you need to define the core function, or functions, of your website. Having a clear list of functionality you need your website to provide will make it easier to filter out incompatible website templates. By ensuring you pick a template that is built to support the functionality you need, you will make it easier to implement and use. Remember, you will need to set up any functionality that is missing from your template, so save time and effort by picking a template that already has it configured for you.

As you define the primary purpose of your website, consider your long-term goals. If you want to have a content or e-commerce focus in the future, consider selecting a template that supports this functionality. It’s much easier to disable any extra functionality now than it will be to set up that functionality in the future.

Common purposes of websites

Informational-focused

The primary purpose of an informational-focused website is to let people know who you are, what you offer, and how to find you. Informational websites do not have a lot of interactivity or functionality and are typically the easiest type of site for which to find and implement quality templates.

Content-focused

The primary purpose of a content-focused website is to help people understand more information about a specific topic. Content-focused websites will likely leverage a blog to publish posts and articles that educate visitors and build authority on subject matters that are relevant to the business.

Booking-focused

The primary purpose of a booking-focused website is to provide people with a path to schedule specified services. Try to define the requirements you want from a booking service as well: Do you plan to require a deposit or collect an up-front payment during your booking process? Do you want customers to be able to schedule services directly from the booking flow?

E-commerce-focused

The primary purpose of an e-commerce website is to sell specific products. When defining the requirements of an e-commerce website, consider the following factors: Are you selling physical products, digital products, or both? Physical products will need to collect shipping information and be physically distributed to the purchaser, while digital products should be available as an immediate download. Are you managing shipping and inventory, or using a drop shipper? What types of payment methods do you need or want to be able to accept?

Evaluate potential website templates

It is critical that you define the primary purpose of your website before you begin looking at templates. Having a clear definition of your website’s primary purpose and the functionality you need it to support will help you eliminate templates that fail to support these needs.

A common mistake many small business owners make is to select a website template that aligns with what they want their website to look like. This approach will often result in a website template that fits your business aesthetically but fails to provide the structure and functionality you need—the two most challenging aspects of setting up your own website.

Updating the colors, fonts, and other stylistic elements of a website template is usually the easiest part. By ensuring you select a template with an effective structure, responsive layout, and support for required functionality, you’ll find it requires significantly less effort to set up.

Can you get by with a free website template?

The answer is maybe. Ultimately, it depends on the primary purpose and the functionality your website requires.

For simple, informational-focused websites, it’s more likely that you can find a suitable free template. For more complex websites with robust content needs and booking or e-commerce flows, free templates are less likely to support the flexibility or functionality that your website will need. A paid template is more likely to support robust functionality and be easier to adapt to your specific needs—making it easier to launch.

When deciding if you should invest in a paid template, consider the level of time and the amount of effort you’ll spend learning how to adapt a free template to your needs versus spending a one-time fee of only $50 to $300 for a template that’s ready to go.

Where to find a website template?

Most website builders have a library of website templates you can search through. These templates are typically developed by the website builders themselves or by official partners. Depending on the website builder you’re using, you may be able to buy and install templates from third-party websites as well.

We recommend starting with your website builder’s specific template store, as these themes will be the easiest to install and have usually been verified for compatibility.

Customize a template to fit your brand

Once you’ve selected and installed your website template, you’ll need to input your content and update the template styles to match your brand. Most popular website builders have support for site-wide global style attributes. These global definitions typically include your brand colors, fonts, and styles for interactive elements such as buttons, inputs, links, and more.

The easiest way to update your website template is to start by updating the global styles. Assign your brand colors and fonts, and update the site-wide components like buttons and inputs to match your desired aesthetic.

Once you update these global definitions, make sure you go through the site page by page and look for anywhere you don’t like how the template is applying the global brand styles. For example, the template might be using the primary brand color as a background fill. If you don’t like how that looks, you can easily change which color from your styles is used here. Once you’ve adjusted the application of your brand to your site as much as you need or want, your site will be ready to go live.

Set up your website with confidence

Building a website doesn't have to be overwhelming. But, as any expert will tell you—you can’t build a website if you don’t know what it needs to do. Start by defining the purpose of your website and the functionality it needs to provide, then use that list to evaluate the structure and capabilities of templates. A template that already supports the structure and functionality your website needs will always be easier to work with than a template that looks good but doesn’t come with the support you need.

Want to learn more about what makes a website great? Check out our resource on user experience.