OK, before I start, there will be a lot of fail in this post. I realize it, but I have to work with what I've got

I am designing a site for a new venture my wife and I are getting ready to launch. I use MS Expression Web 2 ( ) and have designed several sites for us before. That said, I am not a designer.

I have been so busy with a lot of things lately that I do not really have the time to create a site... so I was thinking of just getting a template ( ), and modifying it. This would really take me very little time to edit and would likely look much better then what I come up with.

Anyone have experience with these? I found some MS Expression Web templates on i3dthemes.com, but do not know much about them. My concerns are: do sites/themes like this put anything in the code to track you or in any other way manipulate the code (example, set expiration on features, track you, send traffic reports to the creater, etc?). I have no problem purchasing a template, but just don't want to have to worry about frivolous code, etc...

Thanks for any insight you can provide... and please... be gentle

 

Have you looked into paying someone to build and manage it for you? That way you spend more time on your business then screwing around with website.

I've seen tv add for web.com. They will build for free and then you pay monthly fee if you like it. No idea what monthly fee is.

 

Not really. Would be a redundant expense since I already have monthly hosting and such in place from other sites... so it's just a matter of getting the initial site done. For the most part, once it's done, it would be small updates here and there... which would not be time consuming and which I can handle... as long as it's in MS Expression Web ( )...

Worse case I'll find a site I like and use it as inspiration, but wasn't sure if the template route would just be a better option...

 

I've never paid for a template, but have used free WordPress templates before. While making my own tweaks to the template, I've looked over the code and have never noticed anything suspect.

I'd imagine it's the same especially with a template you have to pay for. If anything suspect was found, I'm sure that company would be in trouble or wouldn't be in existence anymore. I think if you make sure the templates are from a legit/established company and check to see if there are any bad reviews on the company before buying, you should be fine.

You could also put the template up somewhere and PM people links to it to have it checked out before you use it too.

 

^ Thanks for the reply... good info

So far, from what I have seen, the feedback for that site has been pretty good...

 

If you are not planning on having a shopping cart, wordpress is your easiest option. I run a blog on it. The beauty of it has great SEO. And very straight forward editor.

But I'd just design the website from scratch. I'm old school. I believe it's easier to create than to copy and modify. :P

 

not even sure if this is browser based but this is as much help you're getting from me

http://hackdesign.org/

 

In short, here's what I found important if you're going to use a 3rd party template.

1. It's best to purchase a template/cart from a reputable site. Many times these templates are glamorous from the exterior but the coding is a nightmare!


2.Be weary of Russian built templates, as they are poorly built and may also contain several holes which can lead to code manipulations, security breaches and etc.

3. Check and confirm that when you purchase the template that you'll be able to remove affiliate links and etc, beyond modification. We've had to deal with this issue a few months back after we purchased a template. The dev. wanted extra $ on top of what we paid to remove his link from the bottom of the template.

I decided to launch our venture with Drupal CMS a few months back after dancing around some of these issues. I hope this helps. - Not a web dev, but we're working with a great one.

 

Thanks for the replies all. I have been thinking about Wordpress as well... so we'll see. I'll keep looking around to see what info I can dig up.

 

I would say Wordpress as well. You get a lot built in. My experience with templates is that they are pretty much designed to be exactly as the sample page shows. By that, I mean a lot of fixed widths and little room to expand upon it.