What Are the Pros and Cons of Using a Template?
When building a website for your business, what do you do? Do you choose a company that can provide easy-to-navigate website templates that allow you to control much of the website creation yourself? Or do you trust a website design company to handle your design and create a custom website? Ultimately, the choice is yours to make! However, which is better for your business, and what is more likely to net you the most potential new clients and leads? WebDesign309 can explain the good and bad of using a template website:
The Good
Is your company on a tight timeline to produce a new website? Are you trying to save on web development costs? Do you prefer DIY solutions? A website template might be for you! Template websites can be built through popular providers like Wix, GoDaddy, WordPress, Squarespace, Shopify, etc. Thanks to the ease and simplicity of template websites, some of their advantages include:
- Affordable – Purchasing a template for your website can cut a ton of your budget. Because of using a template, you don’t have to rely on professional designers and web developers to create the basis of your website.
- Simple – Most DIY website builders with templates are easy to navigate. Templates provide pre-designed layouts, structures, plugins, and more to help get your website up and running with relative ease.
- Quick – Once again, not relying on designers and developers proves beneficial if you’re trying to produce a website in a limited time. Template websites significantly speed up the website development process.
- Control – DIY websites are precisely that: done yourself. While a custom website still has plenty of opportunities for you to provide input, you aren’t as directly involved in development as you are with a template website.
- Clean – There isn’t a bad-looking template among the ones offered by popular website builders. No matter what you select, you will indeed have a clean, beautiful-looking website.
The Bad
Of course, with all the good templates websites can bring, they aren’t perfect. In fact, there are some significant disadvantages to using website templates rather than developing a custom site. Custom sites can only be developed with the assistance of professional web designers like WebDesign309 and don’t run into some of the issues of template sites, such as:
- Unoriginal – While a template website might look “nice,” its design is nothing overly original or unique. Worse yet, because it’s a template, there’s a good chance your site looks incredibly similar, if not the same, to hundreds of other sites using the same template.
- Limited Function – Although there are plugins that enable many of the features you wish your website to have, you might not be able to achieve the exact functionality or customization you desire. Templates are limited in what can be done with them and don’t always match your ideas for a website.
- No Guidance – If you have questions or issues setting up your template site, there aren’t many places to turn. Website builder support is limited (unless you want to pay more), and help articles aren’t always the most “helpful.”
- Less Potential for Optimization – Although many website builders boast “impressive SEO tools” with their programs, template websites aren’t easy to optimize. Google and other search engines recognize template websites for what they are and will sometimes rank them lower than similar or equivalent custom sites.
- Lack of Knowledge – No matter the aptitude or the determination of the person building a template website, a lack of basic web development knowledge can make the process more challenging. Ultimately, not being an experienced web designer can lead to unintended errors, costing your business lost revenue.
Should You Choose a Template Website?
The final decision is yours to make. If you find yourself struggling against time and budget constraints to produce a website, templates are a viable option. However, if you have the time and money to spare, custom websites are vastly better than templates. And we’re not just saying that because we make custom websites! WebDesign309 has seen more success with digital marketing campaigns and additional advertising efforts when directing users to custom sites versus templates. Even with custom sites we don’t create, they are better optimized, more efficiently managed, and rank higher than almost any template site of similar quality.
So, why waste time and effort with template sites when custom websites are more likely to produce the results you desire? Call WebDesign309 today at 309-213-9398 to discuss our website design and development options. Our main office is located at 311 SW Water St, Ste 202, Peoria, IL 61602.
