Accounting Website Templates: A Comprehensive Guide

Website templates

A website template is a layout assigned to your website’s content by the web design platform you use to create your website or what makes up your website’s homepage.

A website platform is a software you use to put the website together. Good examples of website platforms are WordPress and Wix.

Website template types

Website templates are divided into two types:

File extension type-This means the type of coding used to put the template together.

Some examples of code-creating file types are ASP and HTML.

WordPress templates- As the name suggests, these templates are made using WordPress as the coding source.

Templates to put your website together will be widespread in 2021.

There are two main ways to obtain a template for your website:

Paid-These are the templates you pay a one-time fee for and can then use on your website forever. 

These paid options typically guarantee that the designer will update the template regularly.

These updates are necessary, so page speed and performance do not suffer.

There are several places where you can get paid templates for your site. 

My favorite place is Themeforest.net.

Themeforest offers paid and free templates and themes that can be used for your website.

It is where I purchased the template for this website back when I started, and I’m pretty sure accountant website templates can also be found here.  

Their web forum is packed with valuable answers to all website-related questions. 

Free-A free template is a template you can download and use for free to use for your website. 

Which is better? Paid or Free Template

Paid or premium template features:  

1-Once purchased, you are provided with a visual builder that allows you to edit the template in many ways. 

2-It is better created for business websites as it has plug-ins specifically designed to make the template look better/fix any future online bugs. 

The best-paid website  templates as of 2021:

DIVI-Costs are divided into yearly access at $89.00 once a year or lifetime access for a one-time payment of $249.00

Jevelin-This template is charged one time for $59.00

The limerick-This template will set you back $39.00 for a one-time fee. 

Gentium-$49.00 will get you this template which boasts an impressive 4.38 stars out of 5. 

Free templates:

1-They are free. 

2-Does does not provide as many features as a paid template(mentioned above), but usable.

The best free website  templates as of 2021:

OceanWP– OceanWP has been around for a while. I even used it as one of the first templates for my site. 

Over 700,000 downloads and counting. 

Astra-Made by Brainstorm Force. Definitely a good one with 1+ million downloads. 

Storefront-Best one to use if you are trying to start an E-commerce website. 

Neve-A newer template with 200,000 downloads so far and counting. 

My recommendation between a free and paid template would be to go with a paid version. 

Usually, only a one-time payment is involved, and the quality between the 2 is visible. 

Top template design rules to keep in mind 

1-Have your content ready before you add the template

Knowing what will go on the page before you design it(add template) will allow you to pick a better template.

For example, imagine adding an E-commerce template when your website is for accounting services. 

Another reason for having content first is that it will be easier to enter the template once it is installed. 

i.e., landing page content, “about us” content, “services” content. 

Lastly, having the content ready first saves you time once the pages in question go live within the template. 

Content writing services

SAAI Consulting-Here at SAAI is consulting; we offer content writing services for blog posts and every other page of your website. 

Please take a look in more detail here on our services page. 

SEO Content Hero-These guys have been around for a while and are pretty good. 

They have different tier prices based on the kind of content writing needed.

Their services can be found here, and their prices can be found here. 

Writing your content-If, you choose to write your content will save you the most money(free).

The downside to writing your content is that the copy’s quality might suffer because you are not a professional copywriter. 

We recommend this fantastic blog post by the guys at backlinks which takes you through the things to keep in mind when writing your copy. 

2-Do not rush

Focusing on the most optimal or effective template early on will save you lots of time. 

If you take your time initially, once your website starts ranking on Google, you won’t have to return and fix things. 

3-Make sure to research your template provider

Jumping into any flashy-looking template you find can be very tempting. 

Be careful to research online first to ensure the template you like has good reviews and solid customer support.

Take a look at the reviews provided by the template builder plus:

Google the name of the template plus the word “reviews” like this:

This will allow you to see reviews outside of the reviews provided by the template provider. 

The last thing you want is your template having issues you cannot receive support for. 

4-Make sure your template is SEO optimized

SEO or search engine optimization is vital for a website to reach the widest audience possible. 

With this knowledge in mind, choosing an optimized template for SEO is the most innovative way.

Remember, just because a template looks flashy does not mean it will perform well if SEO strategies come into play. 

To find out if the template you are about to use for your website is SEO friendly, simply:

1-Go to SEOsitecheckup.com

2-Enter the template URL into the “Check your URL” field, and click “Checkup”:

3-Work on your resulting score so that it gets as close to 100 as possible, or choose another template with a higher score. Here is the score for our site:

Top template mistakes to stay away from 

Website templates can save you lots of time in the overall website design process, avoid the  following mistakes, and life will be a lot easier for you and your visitors:

1-Template is not clear enough

Are you able to display your USP(unique selling proposition)?

There is no point in having a flashy-looking site template that does not allow you to communicate what your company is about to visitors.

If there are SO many design elements on the template that you can barely fit your message, think of using a different template.

2-Is the template AMP optimized?

AMP, or Accelerated Mobile Pages, is an HTML framework allowing mobile devices to load images more quickly. 

In this case, the template you use for your website should load on any mobile device within 2 to 3 seconds.

Make sure to test your template loading speed as part of your research before building your entire website with it. 

An excellent place to test for this would be the Google AMP test website:

1-Go to their website here. It looks like this:

2-Enter the template’s URL or code in the search bar:

3-Is the template easy to customize?

Make sure that the template you choose allows you to convey the brand and products you sell.

Meaning making sure the template is as easy to customize as possible.

Some templates are so hardcoded that minimal customization can be done.

This leads to a limited amount of limited revisions or edit options on your end. 

4-Is the template easy to navigate?

Specifically, are the icons that come with the template easy to spot and click on?

Make sure you don’t end up with a template that takes forever to scroll through. 

5-Is there too much going on with the design?

Nothing stirs visitors away(besides slow loading speeds) than a template design that is too busy. 

Busy, in this case, means there are so many images/graphics/colors that it is tough to discern what is going on. 

Here is an example:

Do you want to guess how long it will take to find what you are looking for on the above site?

Exactly, you would leave. 

6-Stay away from templates using only Flash

Flash is a very tricky platform for website templates and web design in general. 

Try to stay from templates that, although they look flashy(due to using only flash), can cause loading speed issues down the line. 

For best performance, use templates made with good old HTML or CSS.

7-Do Do not choose a template where the images are too large

Nothing slows down a website like large images or large files.

Use image files like JPG or OGG, which can be displayed at a smaller size yet retain image quality. 

The sound ideal image size for your template is no more than 1MB.

Top Resources You Can Use

Here are the best places you can go for immediate template options:

WIX.com

There is a large number of business owners who have chosen WIX as their website service provider, and for a good reason. 

From excellent customer service to ease of use(less hands-on), Wix is here to stay.

Squarespace

Like WIX, Squarespace has become a force to reckon with in the website creation and maintenance world. 

As far as templates, Squarespace has better-looking options than WIX. 

Remember that a smaller mom-and-pop website will work best for both of these. 

Once your website reaches a certain growth level, something like WordPress will improve.

Envato Elements(Paid images)

If you need images for cheap(around $198.00 a year), Envato will be a valuable source for the photos that will go on your template. 

Envato boasts a stunning selection of images in different formats, from graphics to video; these guys have it all. 

Unsplash(Free images)

I used these guys for a while before I jumped over to Envato. 

They offer plenty of free images that you can use to populate your template beautifully. 

Thank you so much for checking out our latest blog post!

Before you go, here’s a bit about us at SAAI:

Here at SAAI, we do Web Design

WITH a helpful page, DESIGN- Your online presence will make people want to stay.LOOK around! Ever been to a store where everything was so easy to get to, you NEVER got lost and knew precisely how to get everywhere? That’s what an effective, SALES-oriented well-designed website will do for your business. Our Brooklyn SEO agency can make a difference.

WITHOUT an effective page DESIGN-Your website will look like a war zone. People will know they are IN a store but have no idea WHAT is going on, WHERE they should go, or HOW to buy IF they find what they’re looking for.

People will leave your website almost immediately; you won’t get the sale, you will not pay rent.. affairs in order… headstone shopping. You get the idea.

Here at SAAI we do SEO

WITH SEO-Your website will allow you to pay your rent/bills/employees. It’s that simple.

Ever walked into the mall and had NO choice BUT to go through a random store first? Well, SEO will make YOUR business that store people HAVE to walk through.

SEO will place your business on page 1 of Google, so your product is seen FIRST.

WITHOUT SEO-Your website will falter and fail.

It’s that simple. Imagine your store is located in the BACK of the mall where it’s too far to walk, so NO ONE ever goes there.

If patrons do not come through your doors, your business will falter and fail… you will not pay rent.. affairs in order… headstone shopping. You get the idea.

We looked around the net and made sure WE are doing what others are not:

1-We respond to all inquiries within 24 hours.

2-We go through precise details on our contracts to ensure all information is clearly understood before moving forward.

3-We ONLY take on about 2 to 3 ideal clients to ensure we give you our undivided attention.

We feel it is more essential to provide QUALITY service than to meet some insane “100 client quota.”

4-The above rule allows us to meet deadlines without issue, ensuring the quality of service and guaranteeing that you will stay with us for the long run.

5-To avoid any issues or misunderstandings, we only take on clients that we know we will be able to help.

If issues prevent us from providing you with the best service, we will tell you before any paperwork is signed.

Please email or give us a call and Let’s chat! 

You can also continue learning about web design and SEO for your website by reading some of our other blog posts below.