Spoiler alert! Pros of using a website template: faster than doing it yourself, cheaper and less hassle. Cons: it may be similar to another website. In the meantime, we’ll figure it out in detail.
What is a website on a ready-made template?
Actually, a ready-made design for your website just needs to be installed, and it will be ready to work. But what is the difference between creating a website from a template and ordering an individual design – we will describe it later.
See what happens if you order a website design from a studio or a freelancer:
- You, as a client, create a statement of work (SoW), according to which the development of the site will take place.
- Next, you are looking for a suitable studio or freelancer who will be ready to implement your SoW.
- Sign a contract and wait for the first layouts of your future website. At this stage, most likely, a lot of edits will be made, because not everything can be foreseen initially. The project will drag on.
- The design is ready. Great, now you need to look for a layout designer who will transfer everything into the code on the website.
- Now your website is ready.
You read these 5 steps in 1-2 minutes, but in reality, it will take a couple of weeks, or even months to go through the entire path of creating an individual design for the website.
What if you want to create a website on a template:
- Find a template you adore and try it.
- Install it on the website.
It will take the same amount of time to install the template on the site as it does to read this article. Read more about the advantages and disadvantages of such a choice.
Disadvantages of websites on a ready-made template
The word “default” means that many people are able to use it and alter it for themselves. Therefore, the main disadvantage is that your site may be similar to a competitor’s one. But there is nothing wrong with that, any template can be fully customized.
For instance, on the Weblium business website builder, users also use templates. They install a ready-made design and already can make money on the site. But the fact is that any design element can be easily customized manually: change the color, font, text, or block locations. In an hour, you can make a fully unique project from a template website that no one else has.
Weblium has a whole section of templates on the site where you have an opportunity to view and immediately create a website using one of them.
Other cons, which may arise, can be easily corrected. Some people write that template sites are less indexed, but this is not true. The reason is not in the template, but in how the code is written, how quickly the pages load, how the tags are specified, etc. Therefore, if you are satisfied with the design of the template website, feel free to install it, everything else can be modified.
Advantages of a website based on template design
Moving on to why you are reading this article – in an attempt to choose how to create a website. Let’s describe some advantages of the website builders.
Quick start of the project
As was mentioned, the development of a unique design can take about a month. You can launch a website on a template in an hour. Speed is important if you are starting your online business, and going to test a new niche. The faster you run it, the faster you will understand whether your idea will work or not. In fact, using template design is like making an MVP for a product – fast and cheap, so you can immediately test an idea.
Cheaper than other variants
Personal design development cost will start at $500, if it’s a one-page site without super-awesome graphics. Nevertheless, you can buy a template for $10-$20. Some of them also can be downloaded for free, but even with them, you can safely run a decent project.
Hundreds of ready-made templates have already been created for the users of the on-site builders – choose and install, it’s all free.
The ability to adjust
You chose a template, launched a website, and realized that you wanted to change something on the website. If the website was created using an individual design – you may need to hire web-developers again, in the case of a template – a new one can be installed for a couple of bucks and the project continues to work.
Let’s sum it up
What disadvantages you will face:
- Huge selection of templates. On the one hand, this is good, but on the other, the torment of choice: “Maybe this one, or maybe that one?” Think in advance what functionality and design you want to see on your website. Then just compare the templates with the checklist and discard the unsuitable ones.
- Uniformity. You don’t want to create a website with the same design as a competitor. Therefore, customize your website as you want and make it unique.
Positive aspects:
- A template-based website is cheaper, if not free, in case you use a website builder.
- It will be several times faster to launch a project with a ready-made template. This is especially important if you need to quickly test a hypothesis.
- Everything can be changed in a couple of minutes and there is no need to involve developers. Often, templates are automatically installed on many platforms.
Choosing how to create your website is everyone’s business, but with templates, it will be much easier and faster to start your project on the Internet.
