Template Monster Conversions – CMS CSS / XHTML

Posted on November 9, 2007
Filed Under Design, Products | 5 Comments

Real Estate – CMS – Joomla – WordPress – Open Realty Template Monster

It seems to be an increasingly popular request by people wanting to take a design they find in a template club or template house and have it converted to function with a CMS. The converting of stock templates from Boxed Art, Template Monster, and other template suppliers into a fully dynamic solution for popular CMS can be a rather complex chore. Many of these template suppliers provide visually attractive designs in largely static variants that are all to often also coded using standards now since expired.

Taking one of these designs and converting it to a valid XHTML / CSS layout then porting the template to work with Joomla, Open Realty, WordPress among others is really a task best suited for the Rapid Template Design Series. This single minded approach assists myself and my partner with the kind of conversion speed necessary to put the RTDS through its paces.

But how much is a conversion to one of these flavors of CMS solutions? Lets look at just three in summary to help you get an idea.

Joomla – Converting templates to XHTML / CSS for Joomla CMS $125+

Joomla as many would agree, is likely the worlds most popular and effectively built CMS solutions available today. What once cost corporations and government agencies tens of thousands of dollars in the past can now be done for a fraction of the cost. What I mean by that statement is that CMS solutions were and quite honestly still are expensive investments. With the availability of applications like Joomla the cost can be reduced and better allocated toward training and features in design that better suit the visitors needs.

Taking a template from one of the template suppliers and converting it is by no means a quick operation as many things need to be taken into consideration. When such requests are asked of us we always recreate the design in XHTML / CSS valid layout prior to porting it to Joomla.

WordPress – Converting templates to XHTML / CSS for WordPress $125+

WordPress stands in my fully biased position as the ONLY blog worthy of attention by serious site owners. I make such a bold statement like that after spending several years working with this marvel of publishing prowess and I have found no application quite like it anywhere on the web.

When serious businesses want to improve market effectiveness many opt in for WordPress. Every single real estate site I’ve ever built that ranked and did so well, did so because of WordPress. I can go on for hours on the ways we achieve this but very few words would articulate what WordPress is prepared to provide out of box.

The simple fact is no one wants a site that looks like someone else’s (carbon copy that is). So many times we take clients Photoshop concepts or templates from a variety places and convert them to work with WordPress after XHTML / CSS validation is achieved. The powerful benefits in the RTDS makes this possible for a fraction of the cost of a custom design and reduces turn around to an afternoon in most cases. WordPress template conversions are particularly suited to my field of expertise.

Open Realty – Converting templates to XHTML / CSS for Open Realty $125+

Open Realty is one of the premier Real Estate Listing Managers available today. One of the difficult things that has troubled Open Realty site owners is the lack of good quality templates at turnkey prices. Custom designs begin on average at $350 and quickly go up depending on integration and features.

Using the RTDS with client provided designs reduces costs to well below $200 on average. Frequently I encounter people who wish to have an attractive template monster design converted to operate with Open Realty. I’m happy to say that in the three years I’ve been building templates for Open Realty I’ve only encountered two designs that could not be effectively converted. Some designs are simply better suited for CMS systems like Joomla with an Open Realty Integration.

Open Realty Joomla WordPress Integrated – Converted templates as XHTML / CSS $425+

Not yet in my product list, the conversion of a commercial template from a template club to an integrated solution is by no means a simple procedure. However with the code snippets we use for integration we are able to bring together truly impressive designs in a valid XHTML / CSS solution to site owners at a fraction of the cost of full blown custom coding.

Feel free to contact me with questions regarding templates you are considering for conversion.

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