Choosing A Template For Your Webstore

Go to ThatsASite.com and select one or more templates that you think will work well for your company’s webstore.

Please note that the webstore imposes its own basic structure—especially on product pages. The best templates are those that allow for a full-width top banner (Flash or plain HTML) and an HTML side menu, as in the images below.

We’ll review your template choices and give you our recommendations. Once we are agreed on the template for your webstore, we will proceed with its development, applying your chosen template to your webstore as best we can.

Here are some suggestions for finding a suitable template design:

Find a template that corresponds to your product or service.

Let’s assume you operate a security firm. You’re reselling our CintronicsOnline surveillance systems but in addition you sell alarms, keycard readers, etc.

Go to ThatsASite.com. Enter “security” in the keyword field of the the search form and press the “Search!” button. Voila!, pages of templates with security themes or security references.

But then you say “Ah, but those templates are too general—I specialize in restaurant security.” Okay, look through the template categories listed in the left-side menu to see if other categories more applicable to your product or service are listed. You’ll find general categories such as “Cafe and Restaurant” or “Food & Drink” that might contain useful templates. You can also enter a more general term in the keyword field of the search form.

Find a template that corresponds to your clientele.

“I can’t find a template for for my particular product or service.”

Okay, what kind of clientele do you serve? Urban professionals? Look through the “Business” category. Farmers? Look through the “Agriculture” category. Go to ThatsASite.com and find a template with a theme that corresponds to your clientele, and provide us with your logo, pictures of your facility, etc.; we will incorporate your images into your chosen template.

Find a template that corresponds to your location.

Where is your business located? In the middle of the big city with skyscrapers all around? Look through the “Architecture” category. In an oceanfront resort? Look through the “Travel” category. Find a template with a theme that corresponds to your location, and provide us with your logo and any other images; we will incorporate your images into your chosen template.

HTML Templates

HTML templates are preferred for webstores or sites having many pages or pages with dynamic (i.e. database-driven) content. Most HTML templates contain limited Flash animation such as animated headers and menus, but lack the spectacular page transitions typical of full-flash sites.

Full-Flash Templates

Full-flash templates cannot be directly applied to your shopping cart; however, it may be possible to create a introductory site or sub-site using a full-flash template, and then extract elements to use in your shopping cart’s header, etc. A good example of this approach is our full-flash CintronicsOnline.com main site, which links to HTML sub-sections (like this Resellers sub-section) and shopping cart sites whose headers incorporate elements extracted from the full-flash site.

Full-flash templates are preferred if you want spectacular page transitions among a low to moderate number of pages. They are categorized as follows: Flash site, Flash site 8 (newest version), Dynamic Flash site (some content can be edited with a text editor).

We also have Flash Intro Templates, which are short introductory animations which can be integrated into your webstore like a splash page. They can be set to run only once per user.

Flash templates also have HTML versions included; these lack the nifty page transitions but often have animated headers which can be used in your shopping cart.

Full-flash sites are generally not considered to be as search-engine-friendly as HTML sites. The typical full-flash site is entered only via its home page—no external links to other pages. To the extent that you’ll rely on search engine rankings to drive traffic to your web pages, you should avoid full-flash websites. On the other hand, if you expect that most of your website traffic will originate from other media that display your web address (e.g., your Yellow Pages listings, newpaper ads, tv/radio commercials), a spectacular full-flash site may be the better alternative.

Typically, the entire full-flash site is downloaded before the viewer sees the home page, so the wait time to see the home page is usually longer for a full-flash site than for an HTML site.