Web templates can be used by any individual or organization to set up their website. Once a template is some purchased or downloaded, the user will replace all generic information included in the web template with their own personal, organizational or product information. Examples of common uses of Templates are listed below:
- Display personal information or daily activities as in a blog.
- Sell products on-line.
- Display information about a company or organization.
- Display family history.
- Display a gallery of photos.
- Place music files such as MP3 files on-line for play through a web browser.
- Place videos on-line for public viewing.
- To set up a private login area on-line.
Various agencies and organizations use web template systems for mass-production of content when slower production alternatives prove unfeasible.
For an introductory overview, take a news website as an example. Consider a “static website”, where all web pages are static, built by a web designer. It would be very repetitive work to change individual pages as often as the news changes. A typical strategy to automate the web designer’s “repetitive work” using Templates could be as follows:
- choose a web template system to maintain the website;
- group news items with different presentation needs;
- specify the “presentation standards” through web templates, for each group of news;
- specify a content resource to generate or update the content of each news item.