If you’re maintaining, or even just assigned to manage, a website with a large network, and receiving heavy traffic, it would be wise and practical to create a template for your site. While a strong and long-running layout may create a sense of stability and prolonged viability of the said website, people do need change every now and then.

However, since it is receiving heavy traffic, you can’t just pull the site down just for a layout revamp. Causing a temporary disruption would inconvenience a lot of people, and may reflect much more damage to your site traffic than it would seem.

What could be a solution for this problem? One way to merge design without compromising the site operation would be to create a template. This template will be the one that you will use through the whole site, and for a long period of time.

What the template can do for you is to create a long-term image that you want to establish as perception of the people towards the site. However, you have to leave room for it to be editable in some way, in a small way, in which cause minimal interference to the website operation.

For example, Yahoo! And Google are two kinds of sites with a simple website template, but they can still customize their headers/banner to fit current seasons, holidays or themes. This could work for your website as well.

Headers are not the only thing you could customize; themes can be presented through the use of relevant colors, and maybe a bit of background change. Little, subtle alterations sometimes make the most impact.

Other cases, however, might call for more dynamic and complex add-ons. You could arrange the layout in a way that would provide ample space maybe for a small flash movie, or maybe add a flash introduction at the welcome page of website (of course, don’t omit the “skip” button for the convenience of regular visitors). This could be arranged by making use of a plug-in called SiteGrinder, which easily converts layouts or templates you’ve designed in Photoshop into HTML and CSS files. Add to this, another plug-in called PSD2FLA, which allows Flash files to be opened and edited in Photoshop. With these two tools, you won’t have a problem designing, editing and revamping an interactive template.

You could use one, two, or a combination of the tips above to make a versatile website template that would be sure to stand the test of time. Remember to also look for guidance and inspiration from other, established web portals. Never pass up the opportunity to look through portfolios or online galleries of professional artists and graphic designers; you can pick up techniques and styles you normally wouldn’t see anywhere else.

As always, keen observation of the current styles and trends, and self-studying the designs that capture your attention would be the best way to go. Learn, and apply it to every design and template that you’ll make. When you’ve become well-versed in the language of design, and with the help of the tools above, you probably wouldn’t even need a template anymore.