Working With Templates
If you don't want to deal with designers but you don't want to
design a website yourself either, there are plenty of websites
that would just love to meet you. They sell templates, which are
an easy way for anyone to buy an already-existing design and
apply it to their website.
Free Templates
A quick search for 'free website templates' turns up a lot of
offers. You have to realise, though, that almost any template
you get for free is either going to be really very amateurish -
looking through the results, in fact, a lot of it is downright
nasty. There will also probably be some annoying conditions of
use, such as having to link back to the designer's web page from
your page, or not being able to use the design commercially.
If you're really determined to get a template for free, a better
way of doing it is to use the ones that come for free with
whatever software you're using. WordPress, for example, has some
very clean, attractive templates.
However you do it, though, you have to realise that free
templates will never be unique: your website will look just like
hundreds of other websites out there that found the same free
template you did.
Cheap Templates
Once you start to get into the territory of paid-for templates,
things start to look up. The idea behind sites that sell
templates (templatemonster.com is the market-leader) is that
they can pay designers a proper rate to do something good once,
and then resell it as many times as they want for a relatively
low price. This lets designers be paid for as many designs as
they want without ever having to deal with customers, and it
lets customers buy and use the designs for a much lower price
than they'd usually pay for something a lot worse - and that
they can't see in advance.
Although the effect isn't quite as bad as with free templates,
you still have to understand that other people out there are
going to have the same design as you. This can be a problem,
especially if you use one of the big template sites and pick the
obvious design for the type of site you're running. Used
carefully, though, it can be one of the best ways to get a
good-looking site up without breaking the bank.
Exclusive Templates
After realising how much some people dislike other sites being
able to use their design, many template sites started selling
exclusive templates - ones that are only sold once, to one
website, and then taken down. They found themselves with a
runaway hit on their hands.
The reasons for this might not be immediately obvious, as buying
exclusive rights to a template are often more expensive than
just paying a designer to do it to begin with, and you get less
say in what the site looks like.
If you ask me, the popularity of exclusive templates is down to
removing the often-fraught relations between a web designer and
the customer. Customers all too often come into the design
process with all sorts of requirements and preconceptions, and
designers will fail to understand what customers care about and
what they don't.
This way, designers are free to create something great, and
customers can take it if they like it or look at hundreds of
alternatives if they don't. It takes all the uncertainty and
negotiation out at both ends, and leaves both the designer and
the customer much happier than they would have been. Of course,
if there is something small you want changed, most sites are
happy to get the designer to do it for you for a small extra fee.
Putting Text in Templates
Once you've got a template, the only remaining step is to take
your text and put it into the template. The designer might be
able to help you with this, or you might prefer to add the
template to whatever software you plan to use so that your
content and navigation can be added automatically.