4 top reasons to choose website design templates for your business

Templates get a bad rep. Whether it’s website design templates, social media caption templates or any other kind of template you can think of.

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We’re taught, by online business gurus, that there aren’t any cookie cutter solutions for the problems we have in our businesses. And most of the time, that’s right.

You’re probably not going to achieve world domination by using templates in the different parts of your business.

BUT that doesn’t mean that they can’t help you right now, whether you’re just starting out or growing.

In this post I’m going to dive into what web design templates even are, when to use them and the benefits of using them for your business website.

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

What are website design templates?

In a nutshell, a website template is a template version of a website’s design and layout that you can apply to your own website.

In technical terms, it’s a file, or series of files that you download from the place you’ve sourced it from, that you then upload to your website.

Web design templates will let you add your brand logos, images, colours and fonts and let you add your text content too.

Usually they will have been designed by an experienced web designer with experience in creating high converting websites.

Make sure you check out the person or business you’re buying them from. It’s really easy to create and sell templates, so you might come across templates that look pretty but have no real substance behind them.

When might you use web design templates for your business website?

New businesses

Web design templates are a really great option for businesses starting out. If you don’t yet have the budget to pay for a custom web build a template could really help you create your first online home.

I firmly believe that you need to have an online presence for your business outside of social media. Social media is a great, low barrier to entry marketing tool for your business.

But since the pandemic when businesses HAD to move online, websites have now become a must have asset for your businesses.

Consumers expect the businesses they want to work with to have a website. And most of the time they don’t care too much what it looks like as long as:

they can recognise your brand from it
they can use it easily
they can find the information they need from it OR can easily get in touch with you from it

So if you can’t afford an expert to build one, a template is a really handy alternative.

Businesses without an established brand / niche yet

If you don’t yet have an established brand aesthetic then investing in a custom website could be a waste of money. Because you could end up re-branding in the next 12 or 18 months.

It would be a better idea to hold off temporarily and use a template costing £200 ish now. And then making a bigger investment later on, rather than outlaying £2000+ twice in a short space of time.

It can be tempting to want to do everything ‘properly’ from the outset but this is a scenario where I think a bespoke website early on can be a mistake.

Growing businesses

Web design templates aren’t just for start ups. They’re a great option for businesses a little bit further along in their journeys too.

Even as we grow and scale we still have to make difficult decisions on where to spend our money.

I still use templates and outlines in the areas of my business I know need a shake up, but I don’t have the money to outsource yet.

Maybe you threw a website up when your first started your business. And if this is you, I want to say well done! A website is better than no website. So congrats on taking the messy action you needed to take your business one step further forward.

But you’ve now outgrown that website and know you need something that maybe looks a bit tidier or has been created by an expert with conversion in mind. A template can be a great option for you too.

The main benefits of using website design templates for your business

Cost

I’ve spoken about it already but you’ll find that web design templates are much cheaper than a bespoke website.

Templates give you an expertly created design for a fraction of the cost of working with a developer / designer directly.

If your cashflow isn’t great right now, or you’ve decided that you have other priorities for investment in your business, like a virtual assistant or business coach, a template could be a great stop-gap until you’re in a position to invest in a web designer.

Expert Design

It’s really easy to build a good looking website yourself. But the real expertise comes with the strategy behind it.

How many calls to action should there be?

Where should the testimonials go?

With a template it’s already baked in to the design. All you have to do is plug it in and add your content. Simple.

Less indecision

When you’re creating your own website, it’s very easy to get caught up in the detail.

This is true, even for me. When I work with my clients, they sign off designs at various stages and I build based on those designs. But when it comes to my own site, the tweaks could go on forever unless I’m very strict with myself.

With a template, you don’t have that same indecision. Or endless change making.

You’ve bought the design, now you just have to add your content and maybe remove the bits you don’t need.

There’s no:

what if I just put this text block here?
maybe I should move the testimonial there…
I’ll just see how it looks if I move this picture somewhere else

Templates mean that you can get in, do the job and move on.

Quick and easy to install

Often when you choose to DIY your website, there’s a lot of Googling, YouTube watching and trial and error.

Templates take all that away.

They will (or they definitely should) come with instructions on how to install and then customise using your branding. If they don’t then I would definitely avoid.

As long as you’ve prepped your content beforehand, it should be a smooth and relatively quick process. No matter how bad you think you are with tech.

Writing your website content on the fly as you build it will slow you down. Believe me, for a long time I wondered why it always took me so long to redesign my own sites compared to client sites and this was why. I never start designing or building a website these days without my content written and ready to go.

Templates + pre-written content help you get the job done as quickly as possible.

Cons of using web design templates

Installing them yourself

Using a template will mean you need to get your hands dirtier than you would if you hired a web designer to design and build it for you.

You’ll need to install your template and add all your personalisation. And while templates will be quicker than designing the site yourself from scratch, you will need to commit some time to doing it.

How long will depend on how many pages you want to have on your site.

Inadvertent changes

When the template comes to you in all it’s original glory it will be exactly as the designer intended it to be. They will have designed with you wanting to make changes to it in mind.

For example, all of my templates will come with a section to add an email sign up form and a template for an email sign up page. But if you don’t yet have an email list, you will be able to remove, and add back in when you do create one.

BUT by making changes you may remove important parts or sections of the site.

Accessibility is another example of this. Before my own website templates are added to my shop, they’re tested with accessibility checking tools. One of the tests is on contrast, it checks whether there is enough contrast between the text and it’s background to make sure it’s easy for visually impaired users to read.

In my demo content I can make sure that proper contrast is used. But once it’s being used by another business owner, I lose control over that. I add information on accessibility, but whether or not my template customer chooses to take any notice of it is beyond my control.