While some web designers create custom designs by coding their websites from scratch, others use website templates. Templates offer affordability, speed, and ease of use. However, their limitations — like restricted customization and potential compatibility issues — can affect your brand identity and user experience, which directly impacts customer retention.
Which route should your team take? By breaking down the pros and cons of website templates, we’ll help you determine when they’re a practical choice and when custom solutions make more sense.
Website templates, or web design templates, are pre-designed website layouts that provide a starting point for building a professional-looking website without extensive coding or design expertise. They typically include ready-made pages — such as Home, About, and Contact — and design elements such as fonts, colors, buttons, and images.
Templates come in many formats, from basic HTML files to fully customizable drag-and-drop options on platforms like WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, and Shopify. These platforms offer both free and premium templates, catering to a variety of industries and website needs, like blogs, online stores, or service-based businesses.
For early-stage startups or marketing teams, templates are a convenient way to build a strong landing page quickly and affordably. While templates allow for some customization, they do have limitations, which makes it important to choose one that aligns with your team's goals and offers flexibility where you need it.
Building a website doesn’t have to involve expensive, time-consuming custom coding. Templates are a practical alternative, especially for startups or businesses working on a tight budget or deadline. Here are some of the advantages of using web design website templates.
If your team is working with a limited budget, templates provide an affordable way to establish and maintain a professional online presence. Many platforms offer free templates, and often, even premium versions come at a fraction of what a custom website design would cost.
The template approach eliminates the need to hire a dedicated developer or design company. Those funds can then be allocated elsewhere, like marketing or product development. Website templates provide value without compromising on essential features or design quality.
Launching a custom-designed website can take weeks or months. Using website templates, you can have your site live in just a few days, or possibly even mere hours. Templates come pre-built with ready-to-use layouts and design elements, saving you both coding and troubleshooting time. Instead of starting from zero and building your website from the ground up, you can focus on customizing your site with content and branding.
Experienced web designers create most of the website templates you'll find. For your team, this means your website gets a polished look without blowing your budget on custom development. Templates incorporate accepted web design principles to elevate your website’s aesthetic, such as:
With the essential elements in place, templates give your website a professional feel, even if your team has no design background.
Many business website templates include integrated tools and features like contact forms, e-commerce capabilities, and responsive designs. This functionality reduces the need for additional plugins or coding, which makes templates a turnkey solution for building a functional, user-friendly site.
While templates are a quick and cost-effective way to build a website, they also come with certain drawbacks that can affect your site's functionality, design, and performance.
Because some web design templates are quite popular, your site may look similar to countless others. This can make it difficult to stand out. Even with basic adjustments like changing colors or images, templates don’t always achieve the level of distinctiveness that helps establish a strong brand identity.
Templates provide some room for tweaks, but their flexibility only goes so far. Most offer options to change fonts, layouts, or colors, but integrating more complex features or matching a specific vision often requires a custom-designed website.
Limited customization options can leave your team unable to create a site that fully reflects its brand or goals.
Many templates come with excessive built-in code to support their features — even the ones you don’t need or use. This extra code can slow down your website and negatively impact the user experience. A sluggish site annoys visitors, which can reduce engagement and conversions.
Templates often lack the structure to support strong search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. Some of the issues that can hurt your search engine rankings include:
With a template, if fixing these problems is even possible, it may require additional effort, time, and cost.
Deciding between using a website template and having a custom website designed comes down to your team's specific needs and goals. When making this decision, consider the following factors:
By weighing these factors, you can make the best decision for your web design goals.
Adapting to current branding trends means building a web presence that really showcases what you have to offer. PixelPocket specializes in delivering flexible, on-demand design services tailored to your unique site goals. Our “no-code design” approach combines the flexibility of custom web design with the ease of a website template — which means you get a site that makes your brand stand out without the complexity of coding a custom website.
PixelPocket is like having a designer in your hip pocket. Get started today.
