What is an Elementor Template Kit?

An Elementor template kit (also known as website kit or WordPress kit) is a unique collection of pre-designed templates that share a similar design and visual style and used for designing & developing WordPress websites.

Template kits can include a range of templates for all kinds of layouts including home pages, contact pages, shop pages, headers, footers, forms, staff profiles, pop-ups, sections, products and much more.

What’s the difference between an Elementor Template Kit and a WordPress Theme.

It is important to note that a template kit is not a WordPress theme and therefore can only be installed with a plugin. Kits contain flexible templates designs allowing a website creator to mix and match different layouts and visual designs for their project. A WordPress theme, however, can contain lots of features and complex functionality – like booking systems, bespoke page builders, rigid page layouts as well as one or more complete website demos.

What are the benefits of using Template Kits instead of themes?

• Templates kits are very flexible.

The biggest advantage template kits have over themes is the sheer amount of flexibility. Since template kits are based on Elementor Plugin as the page builder, it’s very easy to mix and match different layouts and visual designs from different template kits until you achieve your desired look. You can play around with as many designs layouts as possible until get the right look for you or your client.

• Template kits are lighter than themes

Most WordPress themes come loaded with lots of plugins & add-ons to make them work properly. This means anytime someone visits your website, most if not all those files & functions have to be loaded to make the site work and this causes the website to be slow. On the other hand, if you are using Elementor’s default Hello theme combined with any template kit, your website is likely to be blazing fast.

• Beginner-friendly

Most of the modern sleek designs for WordPress are very costly and sometimes require some technical skills to customize to your needs. And even if you buy a theme, you may still need to hire a developer to customize it for you or fix bugs. Templates kits solve that problem for you and now you can create any kind of a website all by yourself without coding.

• Template kits work with most themes.

You can use template kits on top of your current WordPress theme. If you already have a theme on your current website that is compatible with Elementor, then you can use template kits to spruce up your design and make all pages look neat and modern.

How to Install/Import an Elementor Template Kit

Most template kits are built & tested with Hello Theme, a free lightweight starter theme that’s built by the creators of Elementor to give you total design control & flexibility. Therefore it makes sense to start by installing and activating the theme & the plugin.

1. From the WordPress Admin dashboard, go to Appearance > themes and install & activate the Hello theme. And then you’ll get a prompt to install the Elementor Plugin.

2. From the WordPress Admin dashboard, install & activate the Template Kit Import plugin.

3. Once the plugin is activated, go to Tools > Template Kit

4. Click on Upload Template Kit ZIP file to browse your computer and import.

5. Your Template Kit preview will appear as shown below.

6. When you click “view the installed kit“, you’ll see all the available pages & components. An orange banner will also appear if your kit requires additional plugins. Click Install Requirements for details.

7. A popup will appear listing the plugins your kit needs installed or activated. Begin by clicking Import on the Global Kit Styles first to import the font and colors. Skip this if you want to use your existing style or your theme’s styles.

8. Now you may begin importing your templates by clicking the Import Template button on the desired template. You can do this here or go to the page you want to install the template and import the template there.

That’s it. Good luck building WordPress websites in record time.

Troubleshooting Common Import Problems

a) Theme is missing the style.css stylesheet
If you try to import a Template Kit, using the WordPress theme installer under Appearance > Themes > Add New, you will get this error.

b) API error on template import, sorry there was an unexpected error from API call……{error message}
These errors will often include the error message being sent by your server. Import errors are almost always a problem with your hosting configuration, either WordPress does not have the correct permissions or resources, or a plugin conflict is limiting resources needed by Elementor for import. Make sure you’re on a live WordPress install with a publicly reachable domain name. Temp urls, localhost, direct IPs, password protected or maintenance mode sites may not work as intended.

When to use template kits instead of themes

If you are building a website for any kind of business, corporate, news, shop, or any kind of personal portfolio, template kits will serve you much better. However, it is very important to note that template kits may not be the best option for you all the time. For example, if you are building a website with very complex functionality like directory listings, travel bookings, online classes, or anything that requires login & sign-ups, your best bet is to use themes or find a plugin that has that functionality.