Starting a website usings templates

carin

Free Member
Oct 25, 2012
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0
Hi
I am a newbie here and starting to get into the swing of using the forum which I think is great.
On my previous posts (2) I have breifly mentioned I am starting a sandwich shop soon so I would like to put a website up aswell so that customers can find me on google sooner rather than later.
Im looking to start with maybe a reasonably basic but nice looking website, just to show information really, not a website to order from. Not yet anyway.
I have looked a monster template.com which they do have hundreds on there aimed at restaurants but not a sandwich website template at all. So still searching..
Can anyone tell me what their opinions are of using template websites, do they look okay for say a new little business like mine or even if anyone could recommend where to find what I am looking for ie "a village sandwich shop website"
Any advice will be appreciated.
Carin
 
I tried moonfruit.com when I was about 15 years of age and found that even with 0 experience I could create something, just the problem was that something was hideous and dreadfully put together.

You are better off with themeforest or picking up a few online tutorials and dedicating a few months to learning how to get things going. Assuming you want no cost involved!
 
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K

kim_il_sung

Following the lead - I can design Wordpress or Drupal sites from £100, with SEO and as many pages as will fit on the menu.

I find that Wordpress is easier for beginners to get to grips with and can be a very powerful platform. Of course Joomla has it's advantages as well, but I'll let urban colour tell you about those.
 
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I would always advocate any business to have a website these days. Why not?

We've been using a MrSite template driven website now for nearly 5 years - very happy with it. Large range of themes and templates and customizable when and if your ready.

It can be a basic 5 page deal for £30 or so, right up to 50+ pages and fully integrated e-commerce and/or booking facility for about £100pa.

Don't forget to factor in domain name/email costs (typically about £15-30pa).
 
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LazyGeniusRecords

I can understand that you're not going to want an all singing all dancing website for a sandwich shop - but in general template sites can be quite poor. Certainly don't go down the route of Yell.com or anything.

I'd recommend trying something like Wordpress or just get someone who could build you a little Wordpress / Content Managed site which would allow you to optimise it for SEO etc.
 
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FutureNetMedia

Hi
I am a newbie here and starting to get into the swing of using the forum which I think is great.
On my previous posts (2) I have breifly mentioned I am starting a sandwich shop soon so I would like to put a website up aswell so that customers can find me on google sooner rather than later.
Im looking to start with maybe a reasonably basic but nice looking website, just to show information really, not a website to order from. Not yet anyway.
I have looked a monster template.com which they do have hundreds on there aimed at restaurants but not a sandwich website template at all. So still searching..
Can anyone tell me what their opinions are of using template websites, do they look okay for say a new little business like mine or even if anyone could recommend where to find what I am looking for ie "a village sandwich shop website"
Any advice will be appreciated.
Carin

You don't necessarily have to look for a specific 'sandwich shop template' because most probably you won't find one ;) What I would advise is to find a clean, professional looking template and add some images to it. You could even make the photos yourself - of your shop, of your products, of yourself and it will add more personality to your website than a premade sandwich shop template :)

And imagine customers staring at the photos of your delicious sandwiches and trying to choose one even though they're not at your shop.. YET :D

Although beware of free templates because they may contain external advertisements or some malicious code. Which may affect your website on different levels.

It all depends on how much money and/or time you can invest - because you have to invest something. If you want it cheap you need to learn to do this yourself - and you need time to do that. If you want it fast - you need to pay something. There are companies out there (like mine ;) ) who offer subscription websites which don't require a high initial investment - maybe look into something like this?
 
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fisicx

Moderator
Sep 12, 2006
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www.aerin.co.uk
Wix.com offer some nice free templates which are very flexible and you can make a very unique looking website.
But they are the pits if you want to rank for anything decent and you can't pick your site up and move it to aonther host.

Managing your own hosting with an installed template or a CMS like wordpress with a decent theme is a much better way to do things.
 
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