Pat Geary and Tina Clarke first brought you a series of twelve Expression Web Site Templates that you could add to your Expression Web program and have them available for your design projects. Next, they brought you a series of five Equal Height Site Templates that you could use in the same way. Now the two Expression Web MVP’s add a series of seven Content First Equal Height Site Templates FREE to the Expression Web Community.
Expression Web COntent First Site Templates
Put Your Most Important Content First
When you are building your website, it is important to optimize each page for the search engines. PART of that process is putting the important content first on the page. Each of the templates in this series does just that. The html code presents your main content first, then the side navigation, the footer, with the masthead and top navigation last in the code. By using floats and positioning, you masthead and top navigation display at the top of your page. Take some time to explore the site templates as well as some of the example sites created with them.
Site Template Layouts
The site templates are available as four different layouts:
- one column with top navigation, header, and footer
- two column with right sidebar, top navigation, header, and footer
- two column with left sidebar, top navigation, header, and footer
- three column with left and right sidebar, top navigation, header, and footer
With the exception of the three column layout, each of the others is available as a fluid width and a fixed width to 1024px. The three columns layout is available only as a fixed wdth to 1024 px wide. Each of the templates makes use of a background image to achieve the equal column look of the layout.
Each of the site template packages include the main pages for a small site including:
- Home Page
- About Page
- Contact Us Page
- Resource Page
- Search Page (includes Google search box)
- Site Map Page
- Privacy Policy Page
- Dynamic Web Template
- External style sheet and all supporting images needed
You can rename the pages and create new pages using the DWT.
Problems Encountered
Because of some bugs in Expression Web 4, there are some display issues working in Design View with some of the templates. Each of the problems is explained and workarounds are offered. For this reason, the Content First Site Templates are for intermediate to advanced users of Expression Web.
Download the Templates
These Site Template are FREE and a gift to the Expression Web community. They will work with all versions of Expression Web. You may download them as either a web package that can be imported into Expression Web OR zipped files. Visit Content First Expression Web Site Templates to download any or all of the templates offered. You will find also find Instructions for Working with the Content FIrst Site Templates.
If you encounter problems working with the site templates, please let us know.Once you have download one of the Content First layouts and tweaked it with your own colors and graphics, send us the link to your site so we can include it as an example of what can be done with the layouts. ENJOY!
