These days having a great looking site can be as simple as purchasing a graphical template and customizing it to meet your needs. Never has it been so easy to have a slick looking website… just like everyone else. Brings you back to the old days of MS Publisher templates, where everything from brochures to invitations to paper airplanes could be made just by clicking through a wizard.

Before I start on my rant I would like to say that the intent of this post isn’t to dismiss templates as always being a bad idea. At the time of this writing this blog is using the default WordPress theme, and in the future I intend to find a great WordPress theme and customize it to meet my needs. That’s right - I’m using templates. What I would like to address instead is why you should avoid using templates on your company site, and points to consider if you do go this route.

Your Website: Your 24/7 Storefront

Websites are increasingly a major extension of your company’s storefront, or in the case of online businesses they are the only storefront. It is now typical for a consumer to search for a company’s website when looking for more information before picking up the phone. It is often the first impression that a consumer receives, and it damn well better be a good one. Would you keep your physical storefront or client meeting area a mess? Would you save costs by not hanging up a sign or forego a logo? Would you leave your walls and windows bare, or take the time to display your latest promotions and offerings? How many sales opportunities would you lose by taking the lazy and cheap way out?

These same considerations apply to your website. Many modern marketing books make the point that your website is your 24/7 salesperson. Every visitor that comes to your website is a potential new client, and no brick-and-mortar storefront can ever approach the cost-effectiveness, flexibility, and ease of administration that an online front can. You want to make the best possible use of this tremendously powerful technology and to maximize the new business and ultimately the new revenue streams that your website opens up.

The Template Look and Feel

If you haven’t browsed through templates already, go ahead and do a Google search. After browsing through as little as 20 “typical” templates, you begin to notice a few things. The typical template recipe is as follows:

• Find a generic image tied to your template theme (computer hardware, coastlines, mobile phones, etc) to build template around.
• Add excessive gradients.
• Animations, Flash, and sounds are all a bonus.
• Create a flashy layout.
• Sell for $60.

As with everything in life there are exceptions. However this is the overwhelming majority and with good reason. People are buying these by the droves. After all, who wouldn’t want a “modern high tech” site with all the bells and whistles?

So What’s the Problem?

Designs that are made using a single recipe are ultimately all the same. Sure the layout is different, the images are different, but once you’ve seen a few templates it is very easy to tell who is using them. That generic flash animation, the soft gradients on absolutely every layout item, that “slick” omni-corporate look, the template is often easy easy to spot.

“Coincidentally” the industries with the least barriers to entry are the most susceptible to template sites. Take web hosting for example. There are now millions of me-too hosting companies out there slashing prices and offering insane resources in order to secure your business. How many of them are basement operations? It turns out web hosting also has an incredibly high proliferation of template websites. So many that template vendors have a separate “web hosting” category!

At the end of the day do you want to look different and be memorable or look like everyone else? How easily recognizable is your business if it uses the same stock photography and Flash sound effect as 20 other sites?

When Templates Are Great

If you browsed through website templates a few may have caught your eye. There is some fantastic graphical work out there, and once in a while it is possible to come across a design that speaks “this is for me!”. In that case if you don’t mind the possibility of your customers encountering a competitor with the same design, or if you are willing to buy exclusive rights at rates that could get you custom work, then it may be the answer for a tight budget or deadline.

The real areas where templates are great are when they act like templates. Take web forums for example. It’s hard to find the time or talent to come up with an entirely unique theme for a forum that actually looks good. It’s much more efficient to find a template with a user interface style that fits and then customize the major graphics to meet your needs. Blogs are great candidates too, especially since they are meant to be easy to use.

Leaving the Dark Side

Ultimately your website is a reflection of you and your business. Regardless of application, nothing will ever beat having that unique and recognizable look that comes from being your own design. It shows time and attention was put into your site and that you are serious about what you do.

You don’t need to listen to me and take my word for it though. Just have a look around and see how many successful sites have their own look and how many template sites are mediocre. Then decide which category you intend to fit into.

Got something to say? Leave a response to this post.

 Get the latest updates by subscribing to the feed.

Semi-Related Posts

• New Layout and High Traffic
• How I Get My Thinking and Planning Done
• About
• My Own Corporation Is Born

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 2nd, 2006 at 8:48 pm and is filed under Business, Websites. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.