Hi Angela
You do have a few options for your SBI website design...
The SBI templates are rather limiting. But what I think is worse - when people customize them with all the wrong colors and fonts... this is what makes it clash so badly! SBI does provide some guidance but people seem to go crazy with their own styles and it can all so easily go wrong. They are ignoring the primary rule: KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid). You don't need to be a creative genius to have a nice-looking SBI site. That's the point!
I used a basic SBI template for the first six months and it looked fine (the logo with the clouds). Once I had the content established, I allowed myself to take it up a notch and spend some time on the design. I nagged my partner (who is a website designer) into making an SBI-compatible template for me... You can see the result in the web links in my signature.
He's now selling this template to other SBI users (as it's 100% compatible, unlike many free online templates which will require a lot of work to integrate). The template alone is $49 or we recommend the template PLUS a professional logo design for $249. It's not dirt cheap but then most graphic designers charge hundreds or thousands for this kind of design work. As a result, you'll have a unique, professional website design that's easy to upload to SBI.
Another alternative is the new 3-column template by SBI. These have been hotly anticipated for a long time now, but I hear it's due VERY soon, ie within weeks. It's unclear if these will be just like the traditional SBI templates (but with a 3rd column) or something fresh and new altogether. We will see!
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