Are Web Templates Worth It?

First off, I am a designer. Now you're thinking, here's this guy trying to convince me to hire a designer costing a few hundred to a few thousand dollars instead of buying a pre-made web template for about $60. Well, these days most companies don't have the money to invest in a costly web site and there are thousands of hungry web designers out there, plus now there are web template resources. These resources can equal great value and effectiveness for the customer as well as increased business for the web designer.

For the customer it is important to be prepared. They need to know what their website should look like, how it will perform, the ability to update and add to it easily, so as not to be held hostage by a design firm's technical code talk.

Now for the reality of web templates. There are hundreds of web templates and many web sites offering the same hundreds of templates. There are templates for a wide range of business types: from agriculture to wedding sites. Depending on the business category you may find 20 to 400 hundred different template packages to choose from. Most look quite good, but remember you may not be the only company that buys the template. There could be sites that look the same as yours unless you buy an exclusive on the design. The price for an exclusive design ranges from $800 to $3000, meaning you must be the first customer to purchase the template to be used only by you. On the other hand, prior to your purchase of a particular template, several customers may have bought that same template and can use it as well, and as a result will have made this template non-exclusive.

Ok, here is where I come in, as well as my fellow designers. The times for web site design are changing as competition grows daily, not just from low-cost template designs but from low-cost designers (will talk about that in more detail in another article). I am not going to list any particular template design company as there are only a few choice ones. Templates are an excellent resource to offer your customers as you are showing your willingness to work with them for reasonable costs. You can fine tune the design, whether it be graphic changes as well as text. As a rule, many companies do not have the software to perform modifications to the web site template or they have the software but not the time or expertise. The template is a good starting point and can save costs, but modifications are usually needed as one size does not fit all. This way the customer gets good value and you get new business.

Dennis Dadey (c) 2004

- About the Author -

Since 1997, Dennis Dadey, Chief Designer at IR Design, has been helping people with e-commerce applications. Find out more about IR Design at http://www.irdesign.com.

More Web Design Articles

Increase Your Credibility With Web Site Awards
Web Site Awards are given from other sites to reward your site for a specific reason. They will usually give you an award graphic or text link to include on your site if you win.

How To Attract People To Your Web Site and Leave Their Contact
If you have a website, you want your visitors to stay longer on your website and get more sales. Here are 10 ways you can do to improve it.

Nine Effective Tips For Improving Your Website?s Usability
Web usability is perhaps the most important factor in any web design. This is the driving factor that keeps your visitors coming back to your website.

Love at First Site: Giving Your Website Visitors the right Impression
Think of the people who visit your site as blind dates. When you open the door, your blind date usually knows whether they are attracted to you within the first minute.

Other Ways to Look at Things
Many people today are tired of the Microsoft software that came pre-packaged with their operating system. Some have switched over to Apple's Macintosh line, but for the most part we just put up with what we have.

Dont Make Your Website User-UNfriendly!
Web Design is a very subjective process. Your idea of what looks good may differ from the next person's.

When Good Computers Go Bad
Remember the day that you got your new computer (or the hand-me down from Uncle Larry) and you pulled that shiny case out of the box? Once you finally had all of the cables properly mangled into an unmanageable ball, you powered on, the screen lit up and off you went. The PC was fast, programs loaded in the blink of an eye, and Internet surfing was a breeze.

Moving Things Around
How often, men, have you come home to find the living room furniture in different places? Your wife said she was ready for something different, so she moved some things around. It may have been inconvenient at first, but deep inside it felt good to have things a little different at home.

So Much About META Tags!
I've written about META tags in the past, and I thought I'd help you expand your search engine optimization efforts and increase your web hits.Rule #1: META tags always go in between the HEAD tags on your website.

Turn Benefits Into Sales with Streaming Media
The "Wow" factor that accompanied the introduction of streaming media on the Web has long passed, and the technology now has to prove itself to marketers. Its' acceptance by advertisers, in conjunction with other rich media technologies, is on the upswing, but it's still not widely used to enhance commercial sites.