It is very hard to choose the best when you have multiple options. Same happen when you have to pick a best Joomla Template for your business website. There are a lot of Joomla Template Designer, who are offering free Joomla templates as well as Premium Joomla templates.
So in this post, I have conducted opinions of Joomla Template Experts on How you can choose a best Joomla template.
Let’s start,
Choose A Best Joomla Template for Your Website
Ramona Nemeth-Csoka ( Nextend Web )
In my experience the best way to choose the perfect template for a Joomla site starts by figuring out what is the type of the website where it will be used. For example, the type of the website can be a webshop, a business page, or a blog.
There are awesome webshop, business, portfolio, blog, magazine or multi-purpose Joomla templates’ out there, and once it’s clear that e.g. a business style template is needed for the site, the other templates can be excluded from the search, making it easier to find the best that suits most for the website. (Let’s be real, it is very unlikely that a blog template would fit well for a webshop, but it is possible that multi-purpose templates can handle a webshop type site.)
Joomla templates determining your site’s structure, look and feel. Naturally, you should choose a template that you like, but you shouldn’t rush and buy the first template you find appealing because it might not have a necessary function, what your site would require later. So once you start to look for specific templates types, the next thing should be important are the actual features of the template. Does it offer everything you need now? Or does it have other features that currently are not needed, but might be useful in the future? My money is on the template, that doesn’t just fits the needs now but offers other features that can be useful in the future.
Let’s say the template has a very basic layout: a header for the menu, a content area and a footer, which right now is fine for you. But as the time passes and your website (and probably your business) grows you might want to place a nice little sidebar beside your content. There comes the problem, as the template just doesn’t have any option to do that. With some technical knowledge, this problem can be solved easily (otherwise a freelancer need to be hired which costs extra money), but why don’t you look for a template, which offers a sidebar in the first place? (The best templates allow not to use a specific feature without ruining the layout.)
It is also imperative for the template to be responsive and mobile-friendly. A trendy, modern look wouldn’t hurt anyone, and it would be great if the template would be highly customizable. All in all, it should be user-friendly for both the visitor and the person who maintains the site.
The third most important part, in my opinion, is the price of the template and the included support. On a small budget, people tend to go with a cheap or even with a free template (which is not a problem at all). In most cases, developers who create free templates do not offer support or won’t do it for free. (And it is totally understandable, but the latter case can be a problem if you’re on a low budget, as it costs extra money.) If you have some HTML, CSS and even a little bit of PHP knowledge, not being able to get technical support might not be major for you, but if you don’t really have any idea what do the acronyms at the first part of my sentence mean, consider yourself the person, who will need support. And in this case, I would suggest choosing a template that comes with a long term (2-3 years) or even lifetime support.
To sum it up, the person who decides to look for a template for their site should identify the type of the website they want to build, consider the features the template offers and find the middle ground between the budget they have to purchase the template and the price of the template plus the support that comes with it. If these are all considered, I truly believe that the best Joomla template can be chosen easily.
Parth Lawate ( Tech Joomla )
Choosing the right template for your website is critical. In case you have a budget I always recommend getting a custom design and template but if not, then go for a professional looking template that suits your business requirement. The template look is heavily dependent on the Images, typography, and colors. Choose something that will look good when you add your pictures.
On the technical side, make sure you choose templates that are lightweight and have the least bloat. Such templates will make your site super slow. Its 2016 so obviously you need to choose a responsive template that works well on mobile devices.
Kawshar Ahmed (Joomshaper)
“How to choose the right Joomla template?” What kind of website do you want to launch?
Before starting the search for a template, at first you need to know exactly what type of website you are going to build. Today there are some special-purpose Joomla templates for specific website types. For an example, you can use JoomShaper’s Eventum to launch an event/meetup site. This template has all the necessary technical features that are required for such a site. On the other hand, if you are going to launch a restaurant site, Cuisine would be the best fit, and for News/Magazine sites, NewEdge will suite the best.
Which type of layout do you need?
The template layout defines the content presentation style of a website. Which layout you need depends on your site category and your preference. Both grids based and traditional vertical layouts may be usable for a given site. Explore and choose.
Select a reliable template provider
It’s a very crucial point. The template will always be in use on your site. It must be capable of managing and presenting your contents effectively. If anything goes wrong, where will you ask help? If you use a template developed by a reputable company, you will obviously get decent support and useful resources when you need. It also assures that you are getting a well-coded product.
Be careful with free templates
Free Joomla templates are a great way to launch a website fast and with minimum effort. But these may have limited features and functionalities. Moreover, less-known providers may provide free templates with loopholes which expose your site to cyber attack. So, be careful.
Before Choosing a Free Joomla Template, you must check it that How to Choose a Free Joomla Template?
Choose a responsive template
Responsiveness is a worldwide popular and recognized standard of website templates. Responsive templates let a site load perfectly on almost any screen size. The mobile-first web largely depends on responsive templates. To reach your audiences more effectively, choose a responsive template for your Joomla site.
Test Template Speed
A website’s overall performance is significantly affected by the template speed. Before finalizing a template, visit its demo site and perform some speed tests using tools like Google PageSpeed. Also notice its performance in real-time. Never choose a slow template!
Check Template Features
For a specific purpose, you will find several templates. See what features they offer individually. Do some research and determine which template will meet your requirements. Some standard features like SEO readiness, translations, drag-and-drop page builder etc. can make your task extremely easy.
Consider Template Support
As I’ve already mentioned, template support is very important. Choose a template from a provider that ensures a great customer support. Check their support forum in advance to get an idea about their response time and quality.
Template updating policy
Technology gets updated frequently. Can your site keep pace with that? For an example, in some cases, a template may not work fine after updating Joomla CMS. In such situation, you need to update the template to be compatible. But, if the template provider doesn’t issue an update, that will leave your site in danger. So choose a template from a vendor that acts quickly.
Fatema Tuz Zuhora (Themexpert)
“How to choose the right Joomla Template?“
Choosing the right template for your Joomla project is not just a matter of picking a layout that appeals to you. There have some considerations you need to keep in mind. However, it is my humble opinion, and you may follow this.
- Know your goal by asking yourself what type of website do you want to build?
- Choose the layout and design that fits your needs.
- Select a template that has featured your site need.
- Consider the price of the template. You may use free ones but be careful about this and try to use free templates from popular and trusted template providers.
- Choose a template that supports your language.
- Check and recheck the update schedule. A template would be more reliable if it updated on regular basis.
- Check – Is any Customer Support be there to help?
- Choose an SEO-friendly template. As you know, SEO plays the key role to meet the online marketing strategy.
- Consider the performance. Nowadays visitors or users become extremely sensitive to web performance.
I hope you can now find out a right and perfect Joomla template for your website that perfectly meets your needs. An appropriate template is the one which will give you a great look including all features that you need.
Final Words
These are the key point you need to keep in your mind while you are picking a Joomla or any other CMS template for your website. Let me sum up the key points from the expert here:
While you are choosing a template, alway keep your requirements in your mind or a notebook. Identify your audience and find out their behavior and then pick a template which can give a better user experience to them according to their behavior. On most important thing, your template should be cross browser compatible and should be mobile and SEO friendly.
