Customize your template and your website

You have already made the choice of the website template that you would like to use for your website and would like to customize it. If you have followed our tips on how to choose the right template, customizing it will be easy. A customized website template will allow your visitors to feel welcomed and have a good first impression of your website.

The global structure

Once you have added a template, the first thing that most people would like to do is to start customizing it. This is the most fun step and even more so than creating content as you see the end result immediately. However customizing content such as the homepage, the pricing page etc. without knowing what content you will have, is not advisable. You may be faced with discrepancies between the style you wanted to have and the content that you were going to put on these pages.

Once you have established a structure, it is then highly recommended to customize this part before adding in content onto your pages.

We are talking about customizing the elements that will be, in large part, present throughout your website:

• the header: define how you want this part to be like - the height, width, where you’d like to place your logo (usually top left of a page), your menu (this is defined when you think about how you want to structure your website), the background color or not.
• the footer: this area is where you will place all complementary and important information such as the links towards pages that aren’t obvious in the header, links towards your social networks, a subscription area to your newsletter, etc.
• the font: define the font that you would like to have for your different types of texts, the style you’d like to adopt in size and color.

The above elements are important to help you harmonize your website in order to not have to customize each new content that you will add along the way.

Choose your color palette wisely

The colors and the images that you choose for your website will either make your website look beautiful or unattractive. Take some time to choose your colors wisely and avoid choosing random colors because you think they look pretty.

The best way to have a harmonious-looking website is to create a color palette. With 2 or 3 colors and eventually light or dark gradients of these colors, will help you have a visually attractive website. With your color palette you can color in:

• the backgrounds
• the links
• the titles
• the paragraphs
• the buttons
• the borders
• etc.

If you need some inspiration, this color palette generator will help you create your color palette that will work well on your website.

The important thing to do is to define what needs to be seen in priority in order to use more lively colors to illustrate useful information.

For example, a subscription button is important, thus it would be recommended to use a lively color that contrasts with the background. Once you define the color that you would like for an element, make sure to keep the same color for all the other similar elements. That way your visitors will be able to understand that the color you chose is associated to a type of action (in this case to subscribe).

Another example, the menu which is typically found at the top of your website, will need less visibility as visitors will automatically look at the top of your page if they need your menu. Therefore, only a readable visibility is enough for the menu.

In regards to the background, a light background color, such as white, is a more preferable option. If you opt for a dark background, you will have difficulties trying to make your website look beautiful across your pages and will have to use light font colors to make your text readable.

Heek offers a number of templates as well as a number of different color palettes to choose from. Even if you have chosen a design template that you like for your website, you can choose a color template to change it around and customize the colors accordingly.

Give your content style

As previously mentioned, it is advised to anticipate the layout of your content before customizing the style of a specific page or section.

For each page, create a small plan of the texts that you will display. Think about the images that you will also use to illustrate the page and start thinking about the overall layout.

For example, if you are making a page regarding Pricing & Services, structure your content in the following way:

• Title - centered in a large banner with a background color
• Subtitle - same banner as the title
• Service 1 - Display image on the left and the text on the right
• Service 2 - Image to the right and the text to the left
• Pack Service 1 and 2 - a banner with an image in the background
• etc.

By just taking 10 minutes to think about how you would like the page to look like before you customize it, will allow you to have a better overview of how to make your website beautiful and efficient without having to spend too much time on it.

Unlike most of the website templates out there, Heek offers different types of content in different designs for each type of template. For example, for the pricing & services page, if you do not like the layout of how this section looks, you can simply check out the next design whilst the overall template of the website stays the same.

Ask your clients and network for feedback.

Ask around you what they think of your website: the design, the browsing, images, writing style, whether it’s clear and visible etc.

It is important to ask around you for feedback because even if you think that your website looks great and presents things in a clear and visual manner, maybe an outsider won’t agree with you.

However, try not to only ask those close to you for feedback as they may not be completely honest with you to avoid hurting your feelings. You can ask your colleagues or even your direct clients, if they have time. They will definitely be happy to give you their thoughts and feel as though they are helping you out.