This article is about why you should not use FREE website templates. We understand that you might have to, but overall, it is best to avoid website templates as they are not website good practices!
Mark that this goes for paid templates, equally. A good website design cannot cost less than $500. That is fishy and suspicious, but since most of entrepreneurs and small business owners actually don’t understand web development technology, they end up making many wrong decisions One such decision is using a pre-made website template.
#1 Poor Design
We often install Website templates as we don’t have the money and time to invest in a proper Website Development. Moreover, Wix, Squarespace and similar often confuse us with beautiful designs making us think that we are going to get the same design for ourselves too. This is only advertisement. It is not reality.
The fact is you’re getting a poor design. Here are a few questions you need to ask yourself when using templates:
- Is this template responsive to all devices?
- Does this template work on all browsers?
- Am I using the whole template or deleting pages that are unnecessary?
- How many sections were useful to me? and how many section I removed because I didn’t need?
- How much do I really know about web design? Did I wireframe my website? Did I use a blueprint for the navigation?
- Did I first define the marketing objective of the website and then built something to be able to measure conversions and marketing success?
As you see, many of these questions will have a negative response when you are using a Template. Free or paid, the result will be the same. One prominent issue that many entrepreneurs and small business owners completely miss is using templates that need to be modified further. In essence, if you are adding/removing pages to template, or editing sections of a page, then you’re really not using the template… You’re actually building the website design and failing at it.
The reality is that you cannot build a beautiful website without a designer. You still have to hire someone to figure out how to position your images, take photos, design illustrations, and icons, etc.
Web Design is a profession. You wouldn’t just try to fix you own cavity, would you? Then why do you avoid going to a professional Designer?
Branding
Finally, when it comes colors, fonts and other branding assets, you’d want a designer to take care of that! You should focus on your own business and leave design for designers.
You will never see Web Designers cleaning teeth cavities, and claiming that they are dentists… Nonsense…
Stop this illusion from growing on you, it will cost you the success of your business.
#2 Loading Speed Problems
This is a BIG BIG issue!!!
As you install the pre-made template, along with the design you are installing all the features, plugins, and every bit of content.
Now, whether you are actually using all of that doesn’t matter. The fact is: YOU CAN NOT REMOVE IT! All of the templates remains in the backend – putting pressure on your hosting, domain, and CMS technology.
As a result, your pages load slower. A much worse effect is the endless loading of your homepage on Mobile devices. Horrible user experience!
Why Do Pre-made templates affect loading speed?
Loading speed suffers because free/paid pre-made templates are large and contain long DOM. These make HTTPS requests last longer and finally, your website becomes seriously slow.
The problem is that you are adding automatic codes to your CMS. These codes are not optimized, they are bundles of repetitive operations that are too complex, too long, and are used just for the simplest of functions.
As a result, each time a user wants to open a simple page, they end up waiting for 8 seconds for the page to load. Yes. The page contains much more than it displays. That brings us to the next problem.
#3 Junk Code
I bet you’ve never heard of this. But ask ANY developer and they’ll tell you why you should not use free website templates. It would be for this reason that ALL developers steer away from templates.
In essence, when you add media, change the layout, or do any modification on your template; such as remove, add or modify, you will get JUNK CODE in the backend. That is, Code that was useful but then you have edited something and now it is just in your way.
You won’t ever notice this problem as you are not a Developer. However, Search Engines know you have technical problems and choose to give you lower ranking. Moz article reveals some of the Backend issues that will cause you problems too.
By using Search Console, you can find out more about development issues on your pages. You will see that you’re getting horrible scores. This is so because you have many unoptimized lines of code.
#4 SEO cannot be done properly
This is yet another reason why you should not use website templates. Everyone knows today that you need to optimize your content. At least do the basics properly so you set your website for better growth and more future traffic, hence leads, prospects and sales!
SEO optimization is crucial and must be done in the right manner, otherwise, all your work is in vain. No one is going to find you and your business won’t be visible.
With free website templates, you’re burying your website in rubble and hoping to get traffic.
Avoid using free website templates.
Contributions & References
Suggested Reads:
- How Conversion is trying to Disrupt Managed WordPress Hosting.
- What is WordPress and Why you Should Use it
- How to Build a WordPress Website in 3 STEPS
- Top 8 WordPress Websites that will make you change your mind!
- 5 Steps to Learn How To Make A Website!
- Where Can I find Free Website Templates?
- Why You Should Not Use Free Website Templates
