The article– How Using a Templated Website Hurts your Business. I think this is completely wrong! Wrong, wrong, wrong! Why? All my businesses use template web sites and I have had great success!
Now, there are some templates that just suck- there really is no other way to say it. They are terrible and they look terrible, BUT there are some template based web sites out there that are really great!
- www.GoDaddy.com offers Website Tonight- a template-based web sites that allow you to completely customize them. For example, look at these 3 web sites- Hamptons NBC and Pacific Rim Restaurant and Indiana Bankruptcy Help. All of these sites were built with the same template, but were customized. The don’t look the same. You can choose the colors, the logos, the headers- everything. In addition, WebSite Tonight templates are in CSS and have a built in XML sitemap. Are these the most beautiful web sites in the world? No. Do they do their job? Yes! They are extremely easy for businesses to update and very affordable ($100-200 a year). All of these web sites have had no problem in the SERPs. Pacific Rim gets about 20,000 hits a month and about 900 sushi menu downloads per month. Their take out menu is downloaded about 700 times a month.
- Designersi– I have discussed Designersi before! They offer more services than GoDaddy can. The templates are designed for eCommerce businesses, but they are really great for any kind of business that wants interative options on their web site. As with Godaddy, their templates are completely customizable and you can have FTP access if you need it. Additionally, Google loves their code. Businesses are doing great in the SERPs with their template-based system.
So, I disagree with the above article. Sites can do very well with templates, but you need to choose one with good coding and you need to customize and optimize it. If you are small business that needs a web site, but don’t have a lot of money to invest templates are fine- I HIGHLY recommend the two above.
Oh, and here is my business site. It needs to be updated, but it doesn’t look anything like other web sites I have seen.
Melissa-SEOAware.com