What To Do When A Pre-Made Website Template Just Won’t Cut The Mustard

If you want to jazz up your website, the easiest route is to use a pre-made template. That’s because you can tweak things like colour schemes and layouts. They are cheap to buy, and many are even available for free. But, there will come a point where free website templates just aren’t suitable for your site.

You’ll know when you reach that stage when you wish to create some custom content on your pages, for example. Or you may want to integrate your site with another online system. So, if ready-made templates no longer cut the mustard, what should you do? The answer is simple: pay for a bespoke solution!

That might sound easy enough but what if you’ve never dealt with such a project before? Today’s handy guide will tell you all you need to know if you wish to create a custom design for your site. Here is what you need to know:

Define your goals

The first thing you need to do is think about what you are trying to achieve with your new site design. For instance, let’s say that you have a website powered by WordPress. Let’s also say that you wish to integrate the site with an online software system. Your goal may be to offer a seamless look and feel across both systems.

Your goal may also be to allow mobile users the ability to use your site without accessibility issues. It’s worth thinking about what you want your website to do and the value your users will get out of it.

Should you reinvent the wheel?

Sometimes it’s better to build on an existing design rather than starting from scratch. Of course, there will be times where you’ve no choice but to start from nothing. It’s worth researching if there is a design that you can use for your needs.

If you want to offer a unique experience for your site users, you may wish to go down the bespoke route. It’s worth bearing in mind support for ready-made templates could stop at any time. Whereas if you went with a custom design, you’ll know how to improve it as you built it!

Should you hire a web developer?

Designing a new theme for your website isn’t just about creating stunning graphics. You will need to connect the visuals with HTML and other Web languages for it to work.

To achieve that goal, a competent web development company can get used. You might be wondering whether you can do the work yourself. If you come from a strong programming background, why not

But, what if you don’t know your variables from your functions? It’s worth outsourcing the work if that’s the case!

Try and break your new design

As weird as it sounds, one of your tasks should be to try and kill your website! During the testing stages, it’s important to find any problems sooner rather than later. That way, you can resolve any issues that may turn into disasters at a later date!

I recommend asking a select group of people to use your site and try to break it. For example, ask them to try and bypass any controls like login pages.

Good luck!