Where to look for website templates?

There are several ways of getting a Template that will be right down your alley:

• Hiring a professional team. You are always free to address a company specializing in custom solutions building right for your needs. In most cases, depending on the price, you’ll get the support, fast troubleshooting, and help with the integration.
• Finding a freelancer. Lots of freelance coders and designers are offering a service of building a template right for your needs. Depending on their work experience the prices can vary. 
• Using the default template that comes included with the website building software.  
• Visiting a marketplace. Thousands of ready templates are available for purchase on special websites – marketplaces. Their cost varies quite a lot – some of them are even free. 

When choosing a solution for their websites, most users usually come up with two options – a premade template found on one of popular marketplaces and a custom one, made right for their needs by a skilled developer. Let’s take a deeper look at them. 

What is a template marketplace?

A template marketplace is a special ecommerce website that brings multiple third party sellers and buyers together with the transactions processed by the marketplace operator. Some popular online marketplaces include ThemeForest, TemplateMonster and many, many more.

Premade solutions usually come in opposition to custom ones. Both ways have their advantages and disadvantages. Below are some of the pros and cons of them.

Custom built templates vs marketplaces

Custom Solutions

Which way to go? In case you want your website to be unique, scalable and search engine friendly you should pay attention to custom made variants. 

Pros:

• Completely unique design with company’s branding built to meet your needs.
• Works on any device and doesn’t require any testing. 
• Search engine friendly. 

Cons:

• The process to create a custom solution takes time, sometimes a lot.
• Customized templates are way more expensive than those from marketplaces.

Marketplace templates

If your goal is to set up a website with a modern look as quickly as possible at the most reasonable price, you should definitely take marketplaces into consideration.

Pros: 

• They are perfect for companies with limited budgets. There is a cheaper upfront cost. There are even free website templates available.
• They have a shorter development cycle and help save time.
• Lots of templates offer customization options – you don’t have to worry about other websites who bought exactly the same template as you did.
• Templates simplify website launches – most of them already have built-in optimizing considerations and don’t need to be tested.
• You don’t have to learn any coding – templates can be integrated in a few clicks.

But you should always keep in mind that Templates are generally limited to the features and functions they are built with.

Cons:

• Customization options are usually limited which means what you see is what you get.
• Not all templates are built to be search engine friendly. To fit your business, they need to be customized.
• Custom or added technologies are not possible to be integrated as templates usually run on a structured system.

In most cases it comes down to your business and preferences that will influence your choice between a website template and custom web design. And if today you lean toward a marketplace solution, we’ve prepared a list of best ones to choose from.

TOP 5 places to buy website templates

There are lots of websites where you can find templates suited to every fancy. You can begin your searches with this ones:

ThemeForest

About: developed by Evanto, ThemeForest is an extremely high traffic marketplace that allows you to buy and sell HTML layouts as well as designs with regard to favorite CMS items. 

• Categories: ecommerce, blogging, marketing, forums, courses and more.
• Free templates: yes.
• Prices: from free to $63.
• Platforms: WordPress, Joomla, Bootstrap, Drupal, Moodle, Webflow, Concrete5, Mura, Miscellaneous, MODX, Weebly. 

For more details check the official website.

Mojo Marketplace

About: it may not be as elaborate as the bigger marketplaces, but it’s definitely worth seeing. Templates vary from basic Photoshop templates to advanced premium WordPress ones. Premium area is their speciality.

• Categories: blog, portfolio, business, charity, ecommerce.
• Free templates: yes.
• Prices: from free to $499.
• Platforms: WordPress, Joomla, Majento, PrestaShop, OpenCart, Tumblr, Weebly, Shopify, HTML, Drupal.

You can choose your template here. 

TemplateMonster

About: it’s a large marketplace where you can sell and buy 31 types of digital products. TemplateMonster offers thousands of templates to choose from – it’s one of the biggest collections that can be found around the web. 

• Categories: ecommerce, web design, real estate, entertainment, games, business, education, fashion, food, holidays, and more.
• Free templates: yes.
• Prices: from free to $4,170.
• Platforms: Shopify, Magento, PrestaShop, OpenCart, MotoCMS, VirtueMart, ZenCart, BigCommerce, Joomla, Drupal, WordPress, Elementor.

You can get more details on the official website.

Etsy

About: Etsy is an online marketplace allowing you to search for vintage and handmade products from people all over the world. It also offers a wide range of templates as they fall under the category of handmade. 

• Categories: holiday, wedding, birthday, baby shower, ecommerce, design, portfolio.
• Free templates: yes.
• Prices: from free to $50,000.
• Platforms: Shopify, WordPress, Blogger, HTML, Wix, Mailchimp, Joomla, Woocommerce, Weebly.

Start choosing your template here. 

Creativemarket

About: it’s a platform for mousemade design content and handcrafted from designers all over the world. One of the main features is the absence of a review process for sellers when uploading templates.

• Categories: presentations, cards, magazines, resumes. 
• Free templates: yes.
• Prices: from free to $500.
• Platforms: Bootstrap, Ghost, Joomla, OpenCart, Drupal, HTML, Magento, Tumblr.

Find the best suiting template here. 

Comparative table

See all the key features of each marketplace in our handy table. 

Conclusion

If you don’t want to spend a fortune on creating a well-designed website, finding a suitable template is a must for you. With themes, lots of aspects of your website can be improved – from aesthetics to SEO. 

All you’re up to now is to choose the marketplace suiting you best and find that one theme that will help you achieve your goal. And if you already have favorite ones, don’t hesitate to share them in comments!

The post Where to buy website templates in 2020 [best places review] appeared first on Elfsight.