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Follow UsAre Templates a Viable Solution?
As businesses keep being created, the Internet continues to become an ever increasing part of our life. As a result, an online web presence is becoming even more essential for these new businesses to succeed. A website, even for small restaurants and consultants, can be the backbone of a web presence. The question then becomes, does a business creating a new website, or simply doing a makeover on an old site, create a site with a template?
Template vs. Custom
Custom websites are great for any business that wants to make a truly unique experience for their users. The business owner can have full control with layout and functionality of a site if they choose to go the custom route. However, because of the time that is required for development, this can be an expensive route. If the business owner is creating the site themselves, it can mean a lot of time spent away from performing more crucial work. If the business owner is hiring a third party, it means more time for the build time by the developer. Templates on the major hosts can be free, $50 or even $100. This provides the freedom to control costs better depending on their budget and taste. Because a lot of work is already done in a template, the cost of development goes down significantly, and can often times more than offset the cost of a premium template.
What is a Responsive Website?
Responsive web design principles are imperative to a user experience, whether the site is custom or not. If a business owner decides to build a website and utilize templates, using responsive web templates will help create the best user experiences. By utilizing the principles of responsive web design, the business owner and developer make sure that potential customers can view the information from anywhere at any time. This is exactly what a business wants because it allows the creation of more brand awareness through reaching more people.
A responsive website is a website that is designed to adjust and react based on the device used to view the website accord to an article on Smashing Magazine on responsive web design. This means a site’s developer can write the website once and it will be able to be properly viewed on any device. This eliminates the need to code the same site multiple times depending on the device. Forty percent of Internet time is now used from mobile phones, according to an article on the Marketing Land website. That is a number that is impossible to ignore and has to be taken into account when developing websites. And it’s a perfect reason to build responsive.
Templates as a Viable Solution?
Templates are a viable solution for those who do not need a website to be extremely dynamic. If a business or person is in need of a basic website, a place to blog, or easy promotion/selling of a product or service, then templates are great. Templates can help reduce the cost of a website significantly, and often look professional. Utilizing templates can be a great way to start a web presence with limited hassle.
