Almost 13 years ago, I registered a WordPress account for my then blog. I soon discovered that a pre-made template, whether it was premium or not, did not meet my needs. I was really only arguing with these templates because they could not offer what I was looking for – fully customizing a website. Cranky it made me!
I decided to take matters into my own hands and create my own templates that completely matched what I envisioned and where I could express my creativity.
Since then, I have never used a pre-made template for my own website óor for my own clients.
I decided from the beginning to offer customized websites. Every project I work on begins with a graphic representation of the design, also called a wireframe. In this way, I can guarantee that the design will fully match the client’s requirements. Something virtually impossible to achieve with a standard template.
But that’s just one of the reasons I don’t use a standard template. Curious about the other reasons?
Be different, be uniquely you
Even though this motto is still fairly recent, it is something I have wanted to pursue with Deliciae Design from the beginning. Everyone is unique and we are only too happy to propagate that, however, when we compare our websites you see almost nothing of that. Every day I see dozens of websites of which I remember only a few precisely because it has “something unique”. A dynamic structure, appropriate animations, no use of standard fonts or outside of the box elements.
Not so straightforward. Piece of personality in a design. I love it. But did you know that this is a bit trickier when you start using a pre-made template?
In fact, the pitfall of a pre-made template is that it is displayed on the template stores as if it were perfect, that’s how pretty it looks. But, of course, the template must be sold; after all, the creators want to make money. But there is a total failure to consider what your needs and goals are. The template is made to be sold hundreds or perhaps thousands of times so they make a profit on it. And so hundreds or thousands of people were “taken into account”.
And that makes the chances pretty slim that the design will meet your needs 100%.
“Oh but I’ll adjust that” and before you know it you’re spending hours shaping it to your taste, goals & desires. And soon you realize that when you adjust the colors, fonts and even the images, it doesn’t look as nice as you initially thought. In fact, it is really very difficult to modify an existing template and make it look just as wonderful.
A pre-made template is nothing more than a mold into which you pour your corporate identity.
You are not the only one using the template
There are several online shops offering templates and the most popular ones are sold thousands of times! This means that your website may look like the company across the street, or indeed, your competitor. I often see it happen that people pick a template simply because it targets a coach, photographer, online marketer….
Do you want a template that your competitor also uses?
Many templates are poorly coded
Of course, as a non-web designer or builder, it is quite difficult to know when a template is now poorly coded. But did you know that a template that is poorly coded causes many long-term problems?
Once you make a change to your website, install a new plugin or update WordPress, it happens frequently that the website stops working because the theme contains bad coding that causes these problems. The premium template includes additional features (often TOO FEW) so it can be used for a variety of websites. All these extra features, as useful as they may be, only increases the chances of a conflict with another feature (such as a plugin you install yourself, for example) or when the PHP programming language is renewed.
The template is not optimized
Optimization, a term you will hear frequently in the web design world. Optimization means that a website works well & optimally and mainly loads fast. So this coincides with item 3. If the coding is already incorrect, the website will not be optimized either. And you know who loves optimized websites? Google. A poorly coded & non-optimized site will not rank well in Google, even though you will work very well on your SEO.
You don’t know which template is right for your business
What do you want your website to look like? What are your needs and those of your target audience? What do you want to convey and what style fits that?
Tricky questions to answer. I am 100% sure that if you have all this on paper, you cannot find a perfect template for this. Chances are you will choose a nice template, but not a functional template where you have more freedom. Or for a particular style that you like, but that doesn’t connect with your target audience. Or that, on the contrary, you modify the website in terms of colors & fonts in such a way that it takes on a completely different (wrong) appearance and defeats its purpose.
When I get to create a website, a lot of preliminary work goes into it. I don’t just build a website and certainly not in a few hours. We look at your needs, branding, goals, target audience and a few more important things. We translate all these points into a strategy that works for your website. Only for you!
I don’t build a website the same way twice. Every client goes through this process so every result is also completely different. This is because strategy, which is different for everyone, is the basis for good design. Only in this way will you get the best results and you will soon notice that the website works for you such as: better leads, more subscriptions to your newsletter, increasing sales in your shop.
So no, I’m not a fan of premade templates. It takes customization to translate your unique personality into a strategic, beautiful & functional web design.
Be different, be uniquely you.
