If you have decided to use an admin template for creating the back-end of your website, and searched the web for one, you would have come across so many admin templates that you don’t know what to choose. There are so many choices of free and premium templates that you may end up spending valuable time searching and deciding which one to use.

So here I list some of the things that you should consider before buying an admin template.

Design

While searching for a template design, it is highly likely that you search for some time and get a template that is one among the top results. There is nothing wrong with that as long as it meets your needs. However try to spend a little time exploring all the options out there and you never know you may end up with The One! Make sure that you are not overwhelmed by the abundance of choices and waste a lot of time on selecting the template. There is such thing as too many options. Just have a clarity of your needs and then you are good to go.

There are a lot of factors that you can consider before selecting a design. First, get a good clarity on what you want to achieve from the template, and choose a design that supports your goal. We choose what pleases the eye – by the color combinations, typography, and layout of different components of the pages. There are templates, mostly premium, that offers a number of color combinations for that particular design.

Also, make a mind between which type of design you want to choose – material or flat. You can have many choices in both of them and be having an idea about this type of style preferences can help you save time.

Before selecting a design it is always a good idea to get a live demo of the template that you are choosing. In the demo make sure that you go through all the pages and components. Having a demo also helps you get an idea of how the template works and whether it is easy to use or works well with your style.

Code

The code structure of the admin template is a very important factor. The code structure will determine the ease with which you can work with the template. Since the templates are primarily intended for other developers, the code must follow best practices. The code of the template must be simple and easy to understand by being well commented and modular.

Cost

Decide on your budget before choosing an admin template. Depending on your budget you can get free and premium admin templates. Premium templates also come at a range of prices. The prices may be indicative of their quality. Usually, you get what you pay. you can download and use free templates, but chances are that they might be limited in design and functionalities. There are free templates that are of very good quality design but may not necessarily provide good support, documentation or proper updates.

A premium Bootstrap templates can cost you anywhere between $5 to $80. While looking at cost make sure what license you are getting. If you need an extended license this would cost you way more around $200 to $1000 or more. You might also want to know if the payment is a one-time payment or is there any annual renewal fees. Also, community website or a common marketplace for admin templates would help you to compare prices of different admin templates.

Responsiveness

You would not want an admin template that does not work well with devices of all screen size. Now that it’s not necessarily the desktops and PCs that we use to be on the web, mobile devices are the best choice to stay connected, especially on the go. So before you buy any admin template, make sure that it’s responsive. Most often than not, the providers tell you that whether the admin template is responsive or not, But you can check it on Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test Tool.

Customization

Admin templates come with a lot of components that you can use, but sometimes you may not need all of them. Also, you might want to make some changes to the design the template currently has. So get a template that is easy to customize. The creators should be giving clear documentation about how to work with the template. Customization should not take up much of the valuable time, and it should not create any issues in the admin template.

Security

Security is a primary concern when it comes to purchasing an admin template. You would not want to use an admin template that could potentially be compromised. Admin templates have plugins and widgets that need to be kept updated. If not may pose a security threat to your website.

Also, check your dashboard for HTML and CSS validity. This is just to ensure that the HTML and CSS of your page are error-free and complies with standards. You can use this tool for HTML validation and you can validate your CSS here. Other than checking for errors, HTML and CSS validation can be helpful in checking cross browser, cross-platform compatibility and improved search engine rankings because search engines rank sites with valid coding, So it would be better if you present them with error-free code, because lets face it most of us don’t go the second pages in a search results.

Support

After you buy an admin template you may sometimes stumble upon some issues. You can not always avoid issues with a template that you did not create. So it would be wise to get an admin template whose providers offer good support if you face any issues. Frequently updated admin templates would be a good indicator to narrow down on the selection process because it means there are still people who are working behind the scenes. So you are likely to get good support.

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This is one drawback when it comes to free admin template. They do not provide good support. Even if they do it might not come free or it may be on a public platform. So one thing that you can do when getting a free template is that you can go to the public forum and read through all the issues that other people have raised, check whether they have been resolved, how long it took for the support team to address the issue. This can help you get an idea of the kind of support they provide.

Premium template often comes with good support. Some providers also give you pre-sales support which you can take advantage of before buying. it would be wise to also know what type of the support they provide, what all things are given support to – for example, do they provide support to any third party plugin that they use, and what are the means of support – email, live chat or calls etc, and how long is the support provided – sometimes you need to pay extra for extended support

You can get a better understanding of the support by going through the support document. So spare a little time to read all the documents.

Documentation

Each admin template should be provided with documentation which clearly describes the functionalities of the template. You should be able to understand what all components do the template have or how you can work with it. The documentation should include details like compatibility, technologies used, their versions, full details about its features and updates etc. So go for a template that has a good documentation. If you can’t find a documentation you should be able to contact the support team and get it from them.

Ratings and Reviews

Checking the ratings and reviews can be one way to understand the quality of the product by looking at what people are saying about the product. If you are buying a template from the template website, and it doesn’t show you any ratings and reviews, go to a community website that can provide you with that.

Number of Downloads

The number of downloads of a particular admin template indicates the popularity of the template or maybe the popularity of the provider. This also increases the trustworthiness of the provider. Also if there are many users of the template, most of the bugs must have been reported and fixed.

But it has a downside that your admin dashboard is not a unique one, so you are going to have to put in a little effort in the customization, only if you need to be unique.

Wrapping it up, while choosing an admin template don’t overlook all the other factors besides design and cost. Try and have a clear goal, go through all the features, weigh the pros and cons. This will also help you narrow down the one that suits your needs the best, from the abundance of choices available on the internet. This will take up some time for making a decision but will be helpful in the long run. Prevent yourself from choices that you will only realize is not working the way you want only half way through the project. And you might want to start all over again with a different template ending up wasting more time than you gained.

BootstrapDash believes in providing the best, efficient and quality bootstrap admin templates to get your web application up and running easily and quickly. Visit our website to get to know more about our products. Want to create a stunning website of your own? Start learning