The online commerce area is rapidly expanding. It catches an eye of aspiring entrepreneurs, as well as those who have had their own offline business for a long time. The World Wide Web often serves as an excellent addition to already working customer sources.
When planning to transfer your own business online, opening an online store, the first step is to develop the site. The very thing to decide is to develop a website from nothing or use a template? The advantage of a ready-to-go template is obvious – saving time and money on development. But there are some crucial drawbacks. This article is supposed to help you with the choice.
Template Design and its benefits
When a designer is working on a new site, he/she works through each page individually – the main, contacts, blog, product pages, if it is an online store. Everything is subject to the logic and desires of the client. Such work takes up to two months.
The template for the site is an HTML page for which designers have already developed and connected everything they need – CSS, Java scripts, PSD. You work only on content – change colors, load pictures and texts. Site templates can be downloaded for free or for a small amount of money.
You can find yourself on the Internet constructor and make a simple, neat website. Free of charge is generally a magic word, but it is important to understand one thing – such a solution does not always work.
Save time
It is also an important criterion, because we all sin with this — we want everything at once.
Getting a ready-made site in a few days, which in dreams will bring a lot of profit, sounds seductive. There is no need to design, approve, impose anything, because there is no time for this, but the business is worth it. One thing is not clear – why someone still believes in it.
Using a solution that has proven effectiveness.
Effectiveness
The template provides an opportunity to see (at least approximately) how visitors will react to your design. You can collect some statistics on the resources that are already using your favorite solution. This is an additional way to protect yourself, do not take risks, and choose what already brings money to another business.
Reasons to avoid using templates
1. A lack of uniqueness
When you download a template or buy it from public service, it, of course, is not deleted. The more accessible the template, the more clones of your site can be found on the vast network. Unless colors of buttons, graphic filling, logos, small completions, naturally, will differ. Anyway, such fact doesn’t give you benefits in the business area. By the way, there is such a thing as “template redemption”, but then it is cheaper to order an individual design.
2. Legal issues
When purchasing a responsive website template, be vigilant and check the following information to avoid problems:
who owns the rights to the template
is it possible to make changes or not
do you need to add links to the authors of the template
is it possible to translate the template into another language (it is important if you want a multilingual site)
3. SEO and Promotion
To get into the TOP with a non-unique layout is very close to the impossible, because search engines distinguish and compare not only the uniqueness of the content and video, but also the code. If the client’s goal is a selling site, there is no talk of a template.
A common problem with patterned designs is “dirty” code. Often, websites-banks that distribute templates “sew” invisible links to external sources into the code, thereby trying to promote their website at the expense of the customer’s resource. Naturally, no one will even suspect that the site may be a carrier of links to other resources, for example, adult-subjects.
5. Sophisticated integration with corporate brand
Many companies at the time of developing the site already have a certain corporate brand, logo, branding elements. All these elements should be partially or fully reflected on the web resource. It is quite difficult to choose a free design that is so suitable for corporate brand. As a result, the customer either approves a template that does not fit into the overall concept of it, or continues the endless search for the “ideal” option.
This problem is common to most free templates. Quite often we encounter the fact that in the template any functionality is simply truncated or available in the PRO version. Sometimes, when editing a template is prohibited, changing its functionality can result time and financial costs,which is equal to cost of developing a unique website design.
7. Weak usability
Ready-made templates for online stores are universal – they were designed for conditional visitors. Unique sites are made for customers who may be interested in certain goods or services. For this, the business and all possible requirements of potential customers are preliminarily studied. A lot of attention is paid to each item, navigation, catalogs, contacts, delivery rules, payment, feedback, etc. are being worked out. The resource will only attract visitors when it is comfortable to stay and it is convenient to use.
8. Functional limitations
A site with a template design has limited functionality; it is impossible to make it full-fledged from the point of view of modern business. So, in the catalogs there is still a huge number of templates that cannot be adapted for mobile traffic, although today this resource is doomed.
There will be no dynamics, a sufficiently branched resource, you will have to use the simplest sliders, limit yourself in the number of blocks and CTA elements, etc. Sometimes certain functions can be purchased from the owners of the catalog but it’s still not enough for an online store. Also remember – a template can have an expressive design, but when it is filled with content (photos, texts, other elements), the showiness can disappear.
9. Trends
Templates become obsolete, lose their own relevance and attractiveness in terms of design. Designed by a unique layout of the site attracts more audience. Over time, you can redesign the site in accordance with the fashion trends of web design. Also customized solution is easy to add a small feature to increase interest in your site.
10. Misunderstanding of the real price for the template
Beginners are not very familiar with the pricing policy of development, site building, so they can overpay for a template that may turn out to be of poor quality and perform the necessary functions.
Conclusion
Effective work of an online store involves the use of many tools and services. But with the site, based on the free template, it is impossible to integrate them. And this means that your business will remain without the help of ERP, CRM and other useful services. If it seems to you that in the catalog of free templates you have found the option that suits you, it is not a fact. Online store is a developing structure that requires constant minor updates and periodically full redesign. The template site with this great difficulty in view of the limitations of functional fullness. Multi-Programming Solutions will create your unique template for the E-Commerce site with branding and all possible features and options you want to have there.
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