These days, there are numerous companies out there offering free website templates to clients looking to get online as soon as possible.
These templates are very simple, allowing you to get your site online in just a few clicks. This method of web design can prove particularly useful for companies with limited resources, but does it provide the room for growth and personalisation?
Here are three good reasons to ‘just say no’.
Anyone can use website templates
The vast majority of website templates are incredibly simple and have been designed to be as accessible as possible – even to website owners with zero design experience.
The process is often as simple as choosing a template, changing the words and pictures and then going live. If you go with this method, you risk selecting a template that thousands have used before you and that thousands will use after you.
Standing out is so important in the crowded online world, and your visitors may lose interest if they are greeted by a website design that they have seen numerous times before.
You will not be able to get your branding across as effectively
A good brand is one of the most difficult things to create. It’s a complex mix of ideas, visions, content and graphics coming together to show your visitors what your business is all about.
Sometimes, the complexity of your ideas just cannot be catered to by a simple, pre-packaged web template, and you may need to secure the services of a professional web designer to turn your ideas into a site that does your business justice.
With a website template, you will essentially have to work within a pre-determined structure, and could therefore be incredibly limited in terms of the features you can include to get the key messages of your brand across to your customers.
Poor scalability
As most website templates are free, the resources that are provided by the host company are often incredibly limited.
Resources on offer usually include bandwidth and storage space, but are often capped unless you upgrade to a premium service. These limited resources could cause your website to run slower when faced with increased traffic. Sometimes, your site might even crash, which will severely impact on the quality of the user experience.
The template provider is unlikely to be able to offer greater free resources as your company expands, which could hamper your future growth.
All in all, while there’s no doubt that website templates offer a quick-fix solution, you may need to redesign the whole thing again when your company expands.
To save you this hassle, why not let the team here at Piranha Designs create an optimised, industry-specific and powerful website for you that provides an excellent user experience and gets across the key messages of your brand?
