To Use or Not to Use a Template for Your Website

When you think of building your website, you know that you want it to stand apart from the competition. But when you get a quote from one of those “big box” website design companies, the price tag may scare you into trying to do it on your own. You may be tempted to utilize companies such as Squarespace, Google, or other “build it yourself” website services. And if you are adventurous or brave you may even look into utilizing a ready-made WordPress template.

In our experience, while these solutions may seem great at first, there are some drawbacks in the long-run you should consider.

Ownership

When you use a popular template website platform, it is like paying rent instead of mortgage. You are renting the digital space and if you choose to go a different direction, you do not have any equity, so to speak. If you build a website using a digital marketing company such as Webster Digital Marketing, Inc., you have complete ownership of it. If for any reason you choose to switch web hosts – you can simply transfer the site to another provider. You can’t do this with most template sites, as you only rent the website, rather than own it. If the website loads slowly, or looks bad on mobile devices, or crashes each time you get too many visitors, your options for fixes can be limited.

Design Limitations

There are frustrating technical limitations to how far you can customize a website template, even with good services and some coding knowledge. You will eventually hit a roadblock when you cannot make a vision or idea come to life. So, you either make do without, or try to fit your design ideas to the capacity of the website.

You are Responsible for Writing Your Content

If you are choosing to build your website on your own, you will find yourself staring at content pages filled with generic ‘Lorem ipsum’ text that you will have to populate with content yourself. Many business owners simply don’t have the time to write all the content necessary for a website. Not to mention that online content should be optimized correctly in order to boost conversions and search engine visibility. While it might take you days to write copy to fill the template’s pre-ordained boxes – without guaranteeing it will be suitable for web use – a professional copywriter could write engaging website content on a regular basis, and make it look easy in the process.

SEO Tracking Limitations

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, which helps your page rank higher on Google and other search engines to drive more traffic to your site. Many template websites do not include SEO tracking and maintenance SEO options. You will want to ensure that you have the ability to adjust Meta Tags, page URLs, CSS images and other technical details on your website to manage your SEO. At Webster Digital Marketing we build all of our websites with technical SEO in mind. We’re also happy to maintain and manage your SEO each month to ensure you are staying on top of online search rankings. You won’t usually be able to do much with the underlying code on a template website, so your SEO options will be limited.

Ability to Add Functions

Not all templates will work with certain functions like an online store, online booking, or forms needed in your business offerings. When you build your own site, you have the ability to add plug-ins to help facilitate your business needs on your website. There are so many more options available to you than if you were to utilize a template website service.

Are You Ready to Build a Professional Website?

Webster Digital Marketing designs professional, mobile-friendly websites that won’t break the bank. We create websites with the best practices for the user experience in mind.

Check out our portfolio or contact Webster today for a quote.