Why a template website is bad for your business | FORTAYmedia

Why a template website is bad for your business

Your business is as unique as you want to make it.

So why are you using the same website template as everyone else in your industry?

More importantly, why are you using a template website?

It’s never been cheaper to build a website. With a Wix YouTube Ad being shown before every video you watch, the temptation to turn to a monthly subscription service has never been higher.

We get it. Custom built websites can be expensive, especially a good quality one,  however, using a template website could be doing more harm to your business than you think. Renown for having poor structure, messy code and lousy browser compatibility, template websites not only affect your user experience but also your SEO.

With more businesses turning their attention to digital, can you afford to do it wrong?

Restrictions

Website templates are built to be used in a certain way, meaning most of the time, you are unable to restyle the template to suit your branding. As the template is already styled, the options of building a website becomes less about customisation and more of a drag and drop task.

There is the option to work around these restrictions. Downloading specific software, compatible with your template, can help you to brand the build to your liking.

But now not only do you need to figure out how the template works, you also need to learn how to use this new software…

SEO

Most templates have messy code. Why is clean code important?

Clean code is important as code is what search engines crawl to read your website. If your search engine doesn’t understand your websites code, you can wave goodbye to Google.

For most template websites, you need coding knowledge or website plugins to customise your meta descriptions and alt tags. Again, Google and other search engines read this information to ensure you are a legit website and helps you to rank for specific key words.

NO-ONE LIKES A SLOW WEBSITE. Page Speed is vital, not only for SEO but for the person looking and trying to use your website. A fast site is good user experience, leading to higher conversion rates.

More Money

Whilst an initial template payment may fit your budget, you may find yourself spending more money than originally planned.

Keeping your theme up to date (to keep your website working) can be costly. Most template licenses need to be renewed every year, and it’s not guaranteed to be the same price you initially paid for. If the template you’re using becomes increasingly popular throughout the first year of use, you may find the owner has hiked up the price to profit from its popularity.

Then there’s the problem if the template breaks, or if you require custom modifications. Most template creators will happily modify the template… for an hourly fee.

More Work

Whilst you think a template website is the easier option, it might actually create more work for yourself.

Understanding how your template works before you begin to use it is a must for getting your website right. This includes, knowing how to change the colours yourself to match branding, finding plugins that are compatible with the theme you have chosen, and knowing the correct image sizes so your theme displays as intended.

Target Audience

Your target market is who you’re building a website for, and if they don’t like the functionality, they aren’t going to use it.

Choosing a template because you think it looks good is great. But does your target market like the way it looks, or the way it works?

Say you’ve found a template that your target audience love, it’s easy to use and a clean, simple design. How many of your competitors are using a template website compatible with their target market? How different is it to yours?

Browser Compatibility

You’ve finally built your template website, everything looks great, you think your target market will find it easy to use. Now switch to a different browser..

Some templates will behave different on certain web browsers, and whilst one person may have a great experience using FireFox, someone using Safari may experience something completely different.

 

Simply having an online presence is not enough. The purpose of your website should be to gain more customers for your business. It therefore needs to be a vital part of your marketing strategy, and for some businesses a ‘digital hub’ for your customers.

Template websites, no matter how good looking, cannot provide the strategic approach you need to build ROI online.

With the world of web design forever changing and evolving, let our web team work with you to design and develop a custom built, SEO friendly, responsive website.

http://192.248.167.43/website-design/

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