5 Dangers of Website Design Templates

If you are in the market for a new or refreshed website design, you may have considered using a design template because they are cheap and seem like they save you time. However, there’s a lot to consider before spending ANY time on a template. Honestly, is can be downright frustrating. Here are 5 dangers of website templates to think about before purchasing anything. 

1. It immediately boxes you in. Your logo has to be a certain size image file. Your “About us” page has a limit on the number of words. You’ll feel the limits from the beginning, and it will frustrate you. 

2. You lose your individuality. As soon as you make a templated site live, you are basically a clone of thousands of other websites. Being a unique site with relevant content is important for SEO, so you may be tanking your SEO results from the beginning.  

3. No Support. It’s common, especially right after “go live” (when all your friends and family are on the site), to find something that needs to be fixed immediately. The code could break. You could have a question about an image not showing up properly, and you have no one to ask. When you call the company that sold you the template, if they are in your time zone you may get a response. However, they will probably tell you to purchase a support package which is heads and tails more than a template. 

4. Security is an issue. When you buy a template, you may miss critical security steps, like setting up an SSL certificate for your site. This is where the “s” comes from in “https” in the browser website address. If your site checkout page has “http” without the “s”, it’s totally unsecured. People know this, and they won’t check out. Beyond having an SSL, there are other security precautions, like reviewing code on occasion to make sure malicious code isn’t being uploaded, setting up alerts for the site being down or the admin log-in being used on a new device. You also may want to set up alerts and limitations within your payment gateway to prevent fraud. All of these considerations are missed when working with a template. 

5. Loading time. Templates don’t guide you through site optimization to reduce loading time, as a human being setting up a custom site would do. A professional site designer and website support technician will optimize images to reduce loading times. If your site takes more than 8 seconds to load you have lost your customer. 

Remember, templates were not made for your particular business, like a custom designed website is. They are made to work for thousands of businesses. It’s basic, small and it’s simple. The danger is, your results could also be small and simple, at best. At worst, you are frustrated and realize you’ve wasted your time. Let us help! You will NOT regret contacting a company like Lowcountry Media Solutions, LLC, who’s worked with dozens of super successful sites to maximize results. Oh, and we’re also pretty fun people to get to know. Contact us today to get the ball rolling towards a better website experience.