It's Your Choice: Web Page Backgrounds or Web Page Templates - By: Matthew Paolini

The wallpaper you choose for your computer's desktop and the web page background you'd like to add to your web site have at least one thing in common: they're both great ways to add a background image, texture or pattern to your website. Regardless of whether you use a PC or a Mac, adding or changing your desktop's wallpaper is a simple point-and-click exercise. However, adding web page backgrounds to a web site goes beyond basic point-and-click skills. Luckily, changing a web page's basic white background into something more appealing doesn't have to qualify as rocket science.

Creating your own web page backgrounds is arguably the most demanding of these alternatives. To do this, you'll need to have a basic knowledge of some kind of graphic design software, so you can create the good-looking GIF or JPEG images your backgrounds will need. You don't need to be a Photoshop expert, although quick learners can download a free 30-day evaluation copy of Photoshop at the Adobe web site and jump right into creating their own background images. Remember, too, that you'll also need a basic understanding of HTML to add the HTML tags to your website that will make your background images appear.

If you don't feel you should have to learn the basics of graphic design to give your web page a background, another approach is to find web page backgrounds on the web.

Web masters working on their first website will often look for free clip art sites as a source for their web page backgrounds. This is exactly the choice I made a few sites ago and the backgrounds I found were pretty uneven in terms of quality. What they frequently lack is a truly first class image that doesn't show any seams as the image tiles across the browser window. Many of the web page backgrounds found on clip art sites also have a tacky or garish quality.

While researching this article, I found it fascinating that a fairly large percentage of people trolling the search engines for "web page backgrounds" are actually looking for a professionally designed web page template.

The third way to ensure that your web page will have a great-looking background is to start with one of these professional-grade templates. These ready-to-use web designs are not only easy to use and customize, they also look fabulous and come with beautiful images and backgrounds that will absolutely make your site stand out in a crowd. If you start with a template, you basically just need to add great content to make your site sing.

That's why, in the long run, choosing a template is the fastest and easiest way to get your web site up and running while also giving it the professional look you want.

About the Author

Matt Paolini is an experienced webmaster with an interest in graphic design and website design. Visit his site at www.webpagebackgrounds.biz to learn more about web page backgrounds.

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