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6 Reasons You Should Not Choose a Website Template
Custom Web Design vs Commercial Web TemplatesSo, you think you can build it yourself. Maybe you don't have the time or maybe you've talked with a few designers to handle it for you. What you should beware of is a "web designer" selling you a $50 commercial template and charging you a crazy premium for putting it together when you could have done the same."If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.”
Shameless plug: We've developed our own commercial themes, and we've had great success doing it. We're an Elite Author on the world's top selling digital marketplace. All this should really mean to you is that we have the skills to build a professional website from scratch. These are skills that most designers in North Alabama don't possess.
Here's Why You Should Think Outside the Box
1. Templates Aren't Flexible.
Commercial templates have a very rigid layout. They often force you to fit their mold and populate your content around their design. Sure, you can be creative if you have time to write and develop the content, but how well do you think that "designer" is going to do when they know little to nothing about your organization? A tailor-made, custom website will allow you the flexibility to convey your message with all thoughtfully placed call-to-actions and considerations best suited to engage your visitors.
2. A Dime a Dozen.
Millions of websites use commercial templates, so consider how many websites may have your very same design and layout, with the exception of a few choice words and your logo. Would you want your website to look the same or almost identical as your competitor or company across the street? It could happen. The risk is a poor impression from a visitor, potential customer or client. You don't want to look cheap.
3. Obviously, Hard to Customize.
Customization of these templates can only go so far, and you may find yourself backed into a creative corner. Chances are, the template designer won't quite know what to do when you ask for an additional section or content area on a specific page. If they are capable of this, then they too should build custom websites, and because they use commercial templates, they're just lazy or hoping to pull one over on you for a quick dollar.
4. Poor Code.
You might not think you care about the quality of code of your commercial template, but many pre-packaged themes are notorious for causing issues and security vulnerbilities. What's worse, designers that use templates rarely have the skills to diagnose and fix your problem. At best, they'll try to get in touch with the developer who probably has hundreds of emails in their queue, meanwhile all you can do is hurry up and wait. Remember, SEO is just as tech related as it is content driven. Which leads us to...
5. Bad SEO.
Many commercial templates aren’t designed with SEO in mind, so getting the search engine spiders to crawl your site could be difficult. You're at the mercy of your template designer. Most other local designers will default to a WordPress theme (a CMS originally designed for blogging), and these are notoriously difficult to optimize if not developed properly. Your designer didn't build from the ground up, so they're only giving you the best plug-and-play option possible. SEO starts with a plan, not a boxed model. How important is it that you outrank your competitors?
6. Price vs Hassle
Using a custom design agency might cost a bit more than using a commercial template, but it will spare you the hassle of dealing with a template that doesn't quite fit your needs, ultimately saving you time and money. Custom web design doesn't necessarily mean expensive, it just means tailored to your brand.
The truth is, we prefer to provide value and be an asset to our local clients over developing commercial templates. We enjoy the partnerships and love seeing the results of each and every client. Not to mention, we've seen too many of these designers butcher our work. All they had to do was follow the outline, but some can't even do that. Give your website a professional touch and let us build you something from the ground up. It could more affordable than you might think. Just reach out ⟶
Don't be fooled.
Seriously, you could show us portfolios from other North Alabama designers, and we'd show you multiple $50 commercial templates. Some other local firms even use commercial templates for their own website.
Yikes
.If that's doesn't say something, we're not sure what will. If that's what they're selling, and you're aware of it, then there's nothing wrong with that. Just make sure that you know what you're getting when you hire a design firm. Ask them directly if they'll be building a custom design or using a commercial template. It may be the one question that saves you lots of money and hassle down the road.
Webunderdog Web Design is a professional web design company in Huntsville, Alabama, offering "custom" web design, development & SEO services for businesses and organizations of all sizes througout the U.S. We've been in business since 2008, and we're an Elite Author on the world's top selling digital marketplace for commercial web themes and templates. We know our stuff. Have questions? Get in touch ⟶
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15 Signs That You Need a Website Redesign
Why You Should Choose a Local Website Design Company
7 Reasons You Shouldn't Choose a Do-It-Yourself Website
7 Reasons You Shouldn't Choose a DIY Website for Business
"A website is not an expense. It's an investment in your business and your hardest working employee."
A solid percentage of our clients once had an existing website they built themselves on a do-it-yourself (DIY) website builder. These come in many forms and just about every major hosting company offers their own easy website builder -- Wix, Weebly, Squarespace, Godaddy, and the list goes on. There's a time and place for such a website, but if you're serious about the face of your business, your 24/7 digital billboard that does not stop working for you at any hour, then a DIY website isn't your permanent solution. So, why do most people choose to use a DIY website?
Budget. To save money, of course. These DIY services would have you believe that there's a designer in us all. What we can tell you is that we've sold many commercial templates to other designers, and even they can't follow the outline of an out-of-the-box solution. The odds are you'll want something customized and you'll run into trouble, if not during the production, then most likely during the deployment of the not-so-easy for everyone solution. A website is never complete. It should be constantly evolving to accommodate your visitors and/or products or services. There are several factors you should consider when deciding between a professional web designer and building a website yourself.
Don't try this at home.
1. Professionalism
It looks easy enough to put together you own website, and while the process itself may come easy to you, there's a ton of research backed into what a true professional might do.
"The definition of an expert is someone who knows what not to do."
Your website layout, ease-of-navigation, overall content, and functionality are just a few of the things that give your website a professional touch. These design-by-numbers websites don’t often have the curb appeal that your competitor has provided for their customers, and it will show. Aside from the results of something you may not be fully proud of, a DIY website will not compete with your competitors and most certainly won't outrank them in search engines.
2. Not SEO-friendly.
DIY website builders are not 100% search engine friendly. The code used to build DIY websites isn't read well by Google. SEO is just as tech related as it is content driven. Your DIY website can be the best-looking site in the world, but if Google can't make sense of the code, there's little you can do to make your rankings climb.
These websites try their best to keep up with the all too often algorithm changes in the SEO world, but implementing these changes across an entire system isn't so easy and it takes time. Time lost in SEO can be ground or rankings lost. A professional web design and/or SEO specialist will plan for SEO during the development of the website vs your site's SEO being an afterthought of the design.
3. Not so mobile-friendly.
Mobile usage will account for over 60% of all website visitors. What you can't control is the browser or device a visitor may be using to visit your website - Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and the dreaded Internet Explorer in combination with the various sizes of an Android or Apple or any other phone or tablet in between. The drag-and-drop DIY website builders are not often optimized for every major browser, device, or screen resolution. What if you were to lose that one customer because he or she couldn't view your website properly? A professional designer or developer will thoroughly test your website to ensure everything is working as it should on every possibility. DIY websites are often slow to load on mobile devices, which is also a consideration in SEO. One additional second of page load speed can cause a loss of up to 10% of traffic.
4. Site management / speed
When you build your website with a DIY website builder, you're often at the mercy of their hosting server or code to load in a browser. Heavy JavaScript functions and http requests can be detrimental to your website speed. So, not only will search engines not favor you, a visitor isn’t likely to have patience if they do find you. Google is all about the user experience. If they find that your website doesn’t provide a good user experience because they’re turned away by your speed, it will be reflected in your rankings.
"If it’s fast, it must be professional!"
Speed facts:
• 47% of people expect your site to load in less than 2 seconds.
• 40% will abandon it entirely if it takes longer than 3 seconds.
5. Security & support
Designing and publishing your DIY website is far less complicated that securing it. You’ll have little to nothing to do with the security of your DIY website, which may sound great, but think again. If your DIY website company is hosting your website and you’re on a shared server, it only takes one hacker to get into one website on the same server for your site to be vulnerable. Your website could be shut down for a time until it can be moved or secured. What’s the downtime worth to you?
Things DIY builders don't want you to know...
6. Ownership
Did you know that websites like Wix or Squarespace own the rights to your website? If one of these companies decides to fold or go out of business, you’ll lose everything. You have no rights to any of it or any of the customer information that may be saved within your admin area. If your domain and emails are tied to these companies, you’re starting from scratch. Chances are that you’ll choose a professional the next time.
7. Limited number of pages
Not all website builders are created equal, and many of them offer fixed, limited packages of features that encourage you to upgrade to expensive (and often overpriced) subscription accounts. Want more pages, upgrade here. Less content means less keywords, less keywords means less indexed content in Google and other search engines.
Cost is the only real advantage of building your own website on one of these DIY website builders, but can you really afford not to use a professional web designer? How much is your time worth to develop a not so mobile-friendly, poorly search engine optimized, unprofessional or basic website that looks like everyone else's website? The results will be lackluster, and you'll wish you had gone the other direction in the beginning.
Webunderdog Web Design is a professional web design company in Huntsville, Alabama, offering "custom" web design, development & SEO services for businesses and organizations of all sizes througout the U.S. We've been in business since 2008, and we're an Elite Author on the world's top selling digital marketplace for commercial web themes and templates. We know our stuff. Have questions? Get in touch ⟶
You may also like:
15 Signs That You Need a Website Redesign
Why You Should Choose a Local Website Design Company
6 Reasons You Should Not Choose a Website Template for Your Business
Why You Should Choose a Local Website Designer
"Quality in a service or product is not what you put into it. It is what the customer gets out of it."
Hiring a web design firm is an important task. There are many reasons why staying local has advantages over outsourcing to a team hundreds or thousands of miles away. We've worked with clients and other web designers from all over the world through our commercial sales. Here's what we've learned.
1. Less Communication or Timezone Issues
Communication is essential between you and your website team. When you hire a local web designer, you can limit any communication or timezone issues because they're on the same work day schedule as you. If you have a problem at 9am in Huntsville, when do you think a team several or more timezones away will get back to you? It's a real concern if your website is down, needing a quick edit, or want to promote something quickly.
2. You Can Meet in Person
While plenty of business is conducted remotely these days, for some people, face-to-face meetings are how they prefer to do business. You can arrange to sit down and discuss everything you want, bring along any ideas and documents and really get a good feel for your local website team. This becomes a little more difficult if your web team is 500 miles away. Without the ability to sit down face-to-face, it can make a web team less accountable and could impact their ability to provide you with the best service.
3. More Accountability
When a local web agency's reputation is at stake within their own community, they're more likely to provide you with the best possible service to uphold their reputation. Local web designers often work with small businesses and your business is essential to their company. A company hundreds or thousands of miles away won't have much invested in your company, community or economy.
4. Their Reputations is on the Line
Online reviews are always important, but word-of-mouth and a solid portfolio often drive new clients to a local web design agency. This means you'll often receive the best work and continuing service from a local agency. You can also ask your local web designer for professional references which you can use to check on the quality of service with past clients.
5. They Understand Your Local Area
A local web design agency knows the market and the people that make that market. A local team can advise you on the best approach to take when creating content for your website that will increase your visibility by understanding the local market and target demographics.
In addition, local web designers will be able to visit to your business and see how your company works and get a feel for who you are as a business or organization.
6. Personalized Training & Support
As a client, you will require technical support at some point. A local web team can personally train your team (in-person) to manage your own website and provide on-going support. Websites shouldn't stay the same for the lifetime of the website. Your website should grow and evolve as your business does. This may mean structural changes to your website or updates that are outside of your team's level of skill.
7. Local Web Designers Won't Vanish
It's happened before and we've dealt with this issue many times over the years. When dealing with an outsourced web team, you may reach out one day and find that your team is no longer available or even in the industry. They might never call you back, respond to your emails, and there's no office that you can easily drop in on, and there's nothing you can do. When you're working with a well-established local company, you're much less likely to encounter this issue and will have lifetime access to their support for your website because they are right there in your community.
Webunderdog Web Design is a professional web design company in Huntsville, Alabama, offering "custom" web design, development & SEO services for businesses and organizations of all sizes througout the U.S. We've been in business since 2008, and we're an Elite Author on the world's top selling digital marketplace for commercial web themes and templates. We know our stuff. Have questions? Get in touch ⟶
You may also like:
15 Signs That You Need a Website Redesign
7 Reasons You Shouldn't Choose a Do-It-Yourself Website
6 Reasons You Should Not Choose a Website Template for Your Business