In which cases is a template or website builder justified?
In the world of web development, the choice of the right tool for creating a website often depends on the tasks and goals of the project. Sometimes the question arises: when should one use a template or website builder? In which cases is this justified, and when is it better to consider alternatives? Let’s explore when template solutions can indeed be a useful tool, and in which situations they might limit your business development.
Testing hypotheses. If you are unsure whether a particular product/service will be in demand, you can create a simple website using a builder or template, launch advertising, and test the results. If the hypothesis proves correct, while the test site is operational, you can create a full-fledged project. This will help increase conversion and save time.
One-day website. For example, if you have a one-time event planned in a week that needs to be advertised, or you need to sell off a batch of goods. Once the event is over, the site will no longer be needed.
Desire to try your hand at web mastering. If you have some free time and want to experiment with creating a website.
Business card site. If the purpose of the website is simply to have a presence on the card, and the expected traffic is 3-5 people per month (with 3 of them visiting to see contacts or working hours), then a builder or template can solve this task quickly and cheaply. However, even in this case, we recommend creating a landing page—it will be more reliable and productive. Moreover, a landing page can eventually evolve into a full-fledged corporate website or online store, while redesigning a builder site requires completely rewriting the code.
While we have combined builders and templates, they are different tools.
We have a separate article about website builders. To summarize: getting a builder website to yield good results is economically unviable.
Disadvantages of templates:
- Fonts typically only support Latin characters.
- Icons designed for the purchased template will need to be changed, requiring a designer. Alternatively, you can choose icons from libraries, but they will look primitive.
- The layout, composition, and color schemes of the blocks are tailored to demo content. If you remove or swap blocks, the design may break.
- Support or implementation through WP Bakery Page Builder, Elementor, Visual Composer, or lesser-known frameworks.
- PSD templates included in the package complicate the designer’s work. Primarily, we work with Figma.
However, some templates are of acceptable quality. For example, one such template purchased back in 2012 for Joomla worked until 2020, remaining stable, productive, and relevant. But this is more of an exception. At that time, development studios released templates every few months, and they were genuinely of high quality. However, with the increase in popularity, templates began to be released en masse, dozens each month. Subsequent experiences with third-party templates have generally been negative. If you think you’ll get lucky—it’s better to try your luck at the casino; business is built on calculations.
Inspired by the example of that studio from the early 2010s, we have developed several universal templates that we are ready to offer for sale and for which we vouch for their quality.