About Template Websites
I’ve often had clients come to me after using Wix, GoDaddy, or Weebly to build a website and ask for help making their sites more visible on search engines like Google. And there lies the rub so to speak. Template websites make it easy to build a website, and very easy to build a very badly performing website!
So if website templates make it easy to build a website, why is that a negative? If you approach building a website as an ‘easy’ task, then you’ve started off on the wrong foot.
I like to think I know what looks good but if I tried to design a wedding dress, it would look shocking – I’m not a brain surgeon and would never pretend to be one, so why would you pretend to be a website developer when your business depends on your website?
If it was easy to build a website that looks good and gets top Google placement, then there wouldn’t be hundreds of thousands of blog articles about search engine optimization (SEO), content structures, on and off site reputation management, and conversion optimization.
Personally, I think most companies, particularly small to medium ones, do not spend enough time on their website. Quite often it’s because they don’t know what to ask about or the web agencies don’t take the time to ask the right questions. Business owners shouldn’t necessarily know what questions to ask. Your business is your specialty, you should be able to trust your web developer to ask the right questions.
You need to consider how your content is going to be structured, what image sizes you upload, what page titles you will use, the header text for each page, the calls to action that appear in search engine results (SERPs), as well as conversion optimization. You also need to ensure you have implemented some online tracking so you know how it’s performing, and set up essential Google tools to get insights from your website that may drive your marketing decisions.
Template Website Disadvantages
1. Lack of Flexibility
Template websites provide some opportunities for customization, but there are notable limitations to its flexibility like the inability to change your template once you build your site. These problematic restrictions can affect your ability to scale your business over the long term.
2. Websites Aren’t Transferrable
Sometimes the inevitable happens and you realize that your business has outgrown a platform. When this does occur, you’ll find that this disincentivizes subscribers from leaving because websites aren’t transferrable. Once you decide to part ways with the brand’s platform, you need to completely rebuild your website, or find a coding wiz who knows how to backup, and reconstruct your site elsewhere.
3. No External Third Party Apps or Plugins
This might not be a big deal if you run a content-focused website. But for ecommerce store owners, this can be a HUGE problem. Depending on your overall growth goals, you may eventually decide to engage in retail distribution options such as drop shipping, or need plug-in integrations to quickly create storefronts on companion emerging social channels. If those distribution channels don’t have a relationship with most template websites, you won’t be able to take advantage of those opportunities.
4. Limited Monetization Options
While templates can support multi-currency sales, and selling on marketplaces, those features are not available for the most plans, which is the lowest tier option for ecommerce stores. Features like subscriptions, advanced shipping, drop shipping support and even built-in product review functionality require costly upgrading.
5. Basic Store Navigation
Similarly, the store navigation system through these sites is fairly simple, which can make it difficult for businesses to organize their inventory in a way that makes sense to customers. If you have many products spread across a wide range of categories, you may not be able to develop an intuitive navigation.
6. Very Slow Loading Times
Businesses that use a lot of videos or images on their sites may also encounter problems with load times. While template websites are generally ok, they can quickly become weighed down by large media files.
There are many reasons not to use Wix, GoDaddy, or Weebly for business websites. One of these reasons is that it’s definitely not a complete package, and your site looks cheap! Website development entails taking care of specifics like optimizing pages, (SEO), niche targeting, etc. These things aren’t given the near the attention they need with template websites.
