Should you use a website template or you should get a professional to build a website for you?

OPTION 1: THE DIY TEMPLATE WEBSITE

What is it?

A template is a pre-designed, pre-coded website into which you place your own text and images. Templates allow anyone to build their own website without having to hire a web designer or developer. These templates are created for mass market use by companies such as WIX, SquareSpace, WordPress and Shopify. They’re designed to serve as many businesses as possible, while being simple enough for a novice to manage. The templates are created for categories like blogging, a portfolio, a simple shop, a restaurant etc., each of which has common functional needs.

By necessity, template sites have default settings for appearance, format and functionality. If you have a very simple model for your business and don’t have particularly lofty expectations for your website, then it’s possible you might find a template to suit.

Who is it for?

A basic DIY template website is perfect for a simple shop, gallery or blog. Simple businesses can be well-served by this set up, as long as your content matches the template exactly. It’s also a quick, cheap way for a start-up to have an online presence in the early phase of business building. If you don’t have any investment or value in your brand, but just want to have a presence online quickly for little cost, a template site could be the answer. But, and here’s the catch, they still take time to create. While you don’t need to be a tech whizz kid, you still need to be tech savvy.

Pros

• Quick and cheap way to have an online presence
• Doesn’t require a lot of technical know-how to achieve
• Easy to use and update

Cons

• Not unique
• Functionality and design is restricted to only what is offered by the template
• Templates need to be well-supported by their creators or they can be unreliable
• Some templates are a popular target for hackers, who add thousands of fake pages to your site and totally ruin your credibility with Google
• They are less likely to generate new business or rank well with search engines
• Little or no support
• They can take many hours of your time to create

Our insights

• When choosing the template, remember they are usually designed by web companies to look fabulous. You will need to access wonderful imagery and persuasive copywriting to get the same outcome for your own website.
• Not all templates are responsive (resizes automatically to all devices). These days a responsive template is mandatory, so make sure to test the template on a range of devices before choosing one.
• Hosting companies often offer a domain name, hosting and template as a temptingly inexpensive package to get you online. This sort of deal has no regard for the time you might take to create your website or the whether the result will suit your business goals.
• We usually find that once a client has higher expectations about the performance of their website, they get frustrated by the tail wagging the dog and want something that properly fits or represents their individual business.
• If you don’t have the time or tech knowledge to build the template website yourself, you can pay someone to do it for you. It will be cheaper than a customised template or bespoke website

OPTION 2: THE CUSTOMISED TEMPLATE

What is it?

The customised template is the next step up in website building. It has the appearance of a bespoke site, because it is created from template elements rather than fixed pages, making it customisable and flexible. This greater range of options requires more time and a greater level of skill to create, but you end up with something that looks a lot more professional and is unique to your business. Walt Disney Company uses WordPress, as does more than  30% of the entire internet. Joomla and Drupal are other examples of powerful and flexible content management systems.

Usually the website company will also provide the deep thinking strategy, site structure and navigation, design, imagery and copywriting. So the actual website build is the end of a longer process that takes into account business goals, marketing and user expectations, as well as search engine optimisation. This will cost you more than a DIY template, but you’ll get a better return on your investment if you have a business that has more complex needs.

Who is it for?

The customised template is for anyone wanting a more professional and unique look and/or functionality for their business. It could be a small business that needs an online presence to build their brand, right through to a large global organisation.

Unless you are something of a tech whizz with good design and marketing skills, most people find it far easier to assign the customisation task  to someone who knows what they’re doing or employ a web design company. It will still be possible to update the content yourself through the content management system without going back to the web company every time you make a change.

Pros

• Professional
• Unique
• Versatile
• Scalable
• Search engine friendly
• Well-supported

Cons

• Longer process
• More expensive
• Still restricted by the functionality of the template elements
• Can be slower because of excess code in the template
• Templates and plugins need to be updated

Our insights

• Anything special on a customised template can be solved with a ‘plugin’, which is a little bit of code designed to do a specific task. However, there is a limit to the number of plugins you can add before you start to have problems with speed.

OPTION 3: THE BESPOKE WEBSITE

What is it?

At the top of the heap is the bespoke website. This is the best solution when you need specific functionality that doesn’t match any available template. While templates can be customised, the vast amount of time required in some cases makes a bespoke site more economical.

A bespoke website is written with languages like Phython, PHP, Ruby or Javascript to meet the exact needs of your business. It has unlimited design and functionality potential, but is more costly because of the expertise required create it.

Usually there are two sides – the frontend and the backend; the front end is the website the user sees and the backend is the engine that manages all the functions and data. The more complex the performance required from the engine, the more expensive it is. Like the customised template there will be deep thinking about the design, content and business goals, but also the logic of the technical requirements, so that the website offers a positive experience for both the user and the client.

A bespoke site always costs more than a template site, but its potential for greater revenue return is higher too. The advantage over a customised template is that the underlying code isn’t loaded down with functionality you don’t require, i.e.  the site loads quickly and cleanly. It is also more secure. And it is usually built with consideration of expansion or future business plans. What’s more, the IT support is ongoing.

Who is it for?

The bespoke website is for a company that needs complex functionality from their website. For example, an ecommerce business with many products and variants; a travel business with a booking system interacting with a database that the user can manage; or a manufacturer with a complex ordering system.

Pros

• It is yours and belongs uniquely to you
• Can look and perform however you want
• Can integrate with your business systems
• Ongoing support
• Can grow with your business

Cons

• Costs more
• Takes time to build

Insights

• The best bespoke websites bring together a team of writers, designers, frontend and backend developers to come up with the most effective and efficient solution to meet the client needs. The not-so-great bespoke websites are built by companies who try it do it all in-house. It’s important to recognise that a well-engineered backend will still not necessarily be appealing to use without good content and design. So, as with the template website, you need to be wary of a technical promise alone.
• Sometimes IT companies have their own propriety software for web building, which means your website is locked into that one company. If your website doesn’t perform as well as you would like, it will be difficult to move to another company and get them to fix it.

WHICH IS RIGHT?

To decide which option is right for you, you first need to determine the outcome you want from your website. You need to be honest about your own capability, the level of support you require and your budget. Your budget needs to factor in all the costs, including your time, developing content and any ongoing costs. And you need to find someone who is compatible with you. If they do their job well, then it’s likely you’ll be in a business relationship for years to come.

Remember, if the quality of your website doesn’t match the quality of your product or service, then that disconnect could be more damaging to your business than not having a website at all.

Want to talk to an expert about getting a Word Press website that’s just right for your business? We can help by customising templates to your needs or building a bespoke Word Press site from scratch. Contact us today.