Build Your Own Site: Making Pre-Set Templates Your Own

This part of your site design gets a little trickier. Most of the WYSIWYG Web authoring programs come with templates that you can edit to suit your needs. It's a good way to introduce yourself to Web design -- by using someone else's! It can also produce some professional-looking results.

One way to personalize your site while still using a template is to create your own top and side navigation banners. By using the same dimensions of the template's navigation graphics, you can make sure yours still fit and don't throw off the rest of the page.

You can also change the color palette of the site. Matching the color of your logo and creating new graphics in the same style as your logo will help pull the site together and give it a more consistent look and feel. But what is look and feel? It's the overall impression you get when you look at something. Does it make you think of old money? Something trendy? The flower-power generation? That sort of thing. The feelings and images you think of when you visit the site. The impressions you have of the type of company.