Sometimes a potential client will ask us : “Do you use templates to build your websites?”, or also “What do you [platform] use to build your websites”.

The answers are : Yes/No and Whatever works for your business!

First of all, we are a Duda Pro partner, they cater to design agencies, and we primarily use them for our website development. We can use Wordpress, but it will likely cost you 3x the price. We also recently starting using another design-agency-specific platform called Webflow.

Again, we use whatever it takes to build a performance based website that fits both your budget and your goal.

1. Budget constraints: While we offer custom designed websites, both the needs and the budget for a website will be different for every business. If you have a smaller budget to work with, customizing a templated website would be a better choice for you. Notice, I mentioned customizing a templated website. We offer customized, templated website design for under $700. Check out our full pricing.
   
2. Working with a pro: If you’re working with a pro designer, and they will be customizing the template you picked out – fine. If you’re working with a ‘pro’ designer, and they’re just taking the run of the mill SquareSpace template that has large pretty photos and big headlines – your final website will look nothing like that, and if it does, it will look like you bought a nice picture frame and never replaced out the stock photo that it came with. Tacky.
   
3. Efficiency: No, it doesn’t always take 6 months to a year to develop a website. Sure, there are cases where that’s the timeline, but again, not every business is looking for that level of detail. In reality, you’re probably just saying: “Hey, I just need to get some leads from my site.” A customized template website has a much shorter development time. In fact, we can get your complete site done in as little as two weeks.
   

Here’s how set your website up for failure, using a website template:

1. Straight Outta The Box: If you want your website to fail, don’t customize it – at all. In fact, keep all of the terrible stock imagery it comes with, which provides zero context to the stock headlines and paragraphs the site builders use. Not only is this bad for conveying your message, it’s also bad for SEO. Google likes unique content that is relevant to the keywords you’re targeting.
2. Because it looks cool: So you found a template that has a full screen image, with some catchy headline to it, and it’s using big images everywhere. Great. Does that speak to your target audience? Trust me, “cool” websites might win a pat on the back, but they typically are following a trend – not performance. Does your target client want to go straight to purchasing from you? Consuming content first? Filling out a form? All of these audiences have different browsing habits.
   
3. You just “need something”: True, having something is indeed better than having nothing. However, do you want to go through any process more than once? A lot of my website design clients came from once using a template - either on their own, or some other agency that used one. So that’s a lot of extra time, and money to do this again.
   
4. It’s cheap, real cheap: You might be shocked to learn that you can pay someone to build a website for you, as low as $300. There is a high cost to a cheap website. A cheap website is a falsified sense of hope. Hope that your website will attract new visitors. Hope that your website will convert your traffic into leads or customers. Templated websites that aren’t customized, really aren’t focused on conversion. So you’re left with a very basic website, that is effectively an online brochure – a bad one at that.

I really think it boils down to your business goals. Budgeting aside, how much can your business afford to not be competitive in your industry? Take a look at your competition and their website. Better yet, let us take a look at your competition. We can prepare an in-depth marketing analysis of you and your competition – compared side-by-side.

Does this mean we intend to copy what they are doing? Absolutely not. However, we can learn a lot from their failures and successes.

Let’s say you’re a restauranteur, take a look at three of your competitors within driving distance that serve the same type of food or offer the same features (entertainment, etc)

1. What’s your first impression of their website?
2. Can you find a link to their menu within seconds of arriving?
   
3. Can you find a link to their menu within seconds of arriving?
   
4. Is it mobile friendly?
   
5. Do they offer online reservations?
   
6. Can you order online?
   
7. Are there original photos of their food, or using obvious stock ones?

These are just a few of the questions we will research and answer for you, based on your business type of course. It stands to reason though: if your business is slow, but you see your competition seems to keep busy, and their website has a professional appearance – isn’t it about time you looked at your online presence seriously?