Whether you are building your online presence to promote your CV or start your own business, your website acts as the window into your skills, portfolio, and personal brand. Therefore, you need to make sure your web presence is ready to tackle the challenge.
Are you thinking of building your website using pre-existing templates on one of the most popular web building platforms? Nowadays, WordPress, Wix, and Squarespace are some of the favourite options for a DIY site, and they are intuitive and affordable. However, we strongly recommend reaching out to a professional web design agency rather than building it yourself. Here is why you don’t want to use a DIY template.
It lacks branding options
Your website establishes your online identity. Your brand must be recognisable and identifiable as a unique entity. Personal branding is instrumental in adding credibility to your professional presence. Not only does it set you apart from your competitors, but it also helps establish yourself as an expert in your field.
A pre-existing template makes your website look and feel like any other, affecting your identity and success.
It doesn’t provide sufficient SEO support
Most websites built using templates fulfil crucial ranking criteria such as responsiveness and cross-browser compatibility. However, DIY web builders do not always provide direct access to your HTML code. The use of Schema markups, which are a game-changer for SEO, is often impossible. Some platforms do not even let you adjust meta tags or URLs. While it isn’t to say that web templates are bad for your SEO, they provide limited options.
It makes unique UX impossible
User experience, or UX design, plays a significant role in creating a strong presence. Web templates do not necessarily have a bad UX design. However, options for personalisation are limited. Additionally, designs are not systematically updated. Therefore, a UX-friendly template launched a few years ago may not be as effective today.
A web template is a good starting point. But templates are typically best suited for landing pages, as they often lack the research and time investment to offer a valuable alternative for a full website.
It breaks easily
As soon as you try to personalise your design or manually add new elements to the page, you may find that the template fails to adjust. Templates are built using a strict structure. Changing its components could affect the functionality inherent to the template. Many amateur web builders struggle with adding elements that break the responsive design or fall out of alignment with the rest of the layout.
It has limited options for lead interactions
Your web template comes with an integrated newsletter sign-up button. However, you are not ready to create a newsletter. Instead, you would prefer a chat option to tackle all queries your visitors may have. Unfortunately, the template doesn’t have a chat feature.
Other common issues include: The template contact page displays a map of your office address, but you work from home and do not wish to publish your address. Also, the social media toggles on the template will not let you add different social media icons, so you are stuck with an incomplete list of icons.
Working with a professional web agency comes at a cost when you’re just launching your web presence. However, it is an investment worth making to preserve your personal brand, your interaction with your online visitors, and your growth potential.
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