Learn about the benefits of display: flex and how it can make things like content development, element spacing, and mobile development so much easier!
Templates
Templates are almost like starter web pages. When someone selects a template, certain things like website headers and footers are already included and visible on the page. Depending on the template, there might be other modules/content included automatically also. This can greatly reduce the amount of time that it takes to create new content for a website.
I have found that templates are very often underappreciated in HubSpot, with loads of sites that were all being built on the same template. Depending on the size and purpose of the site, it works fine. However, it can also end up causing some serious headaches for you or your developer down the road.
Take for example a general contracting company who specializes in solar panel and geothermal installations. Their site has a total of 40 pages. 15 pages are dedicated to different solar panel types the company has available. 10 pages are dedicated to different geothermal systems offered. The remaining pages are dedicated to miscellaneous purposes such as about pages, contact pages, meet our team, ect. It is a well-functioning site and all the pages were built out using the exact same template.
If the company decides they would like to include a form at the bottom of all the pages displaying solar panels, they will have to go into all 15 pages individually and add the form. If they decide they would like to add a PDF about the benefits of geothermal at the bottom of all the pages dedicated to geothermal services, they will have to go into each one of these pages individually too. If they decide they want to remove an element from their pages displaying solar panel, they will once again have to go into every page individually.
This is a whole lot of back and forth for either them or their developer. There are also chances that something is going to get missed and cause inconsistencies on the site.
A much better approach would have been to have multiple different templates. If instead they had three separate templates, one for site pages, one for solar pages, and one for geothermal pages, then they would be able to go into the template for the page category and change everything all at once. This decreases chances for inconsistencies across the site and is much less of a headache for the person in charge of completing the changes. Not to mention it is so much quicker!
A well-built theme should have at least a few different templates included with it. A good developer or content editor should be aware of the benefits of these templates and use them accordingly. Doing so will definitely pay off in the future.
