Using Free Website Templates

The deal with website templates

Serious individuals will want to have their websites designed by a professional website designer, but for students on a budget, a web designer will cost hundreds to thousands of dollars and that is not including the coding and hosting costs. I will tell you how to own websites which wil lcost you nothing in development and design fees yet have something that looks nice to look at.

The cheapest way to own a website outside free blog services such as bloggers, would be to get a cheap web hosting service and download one of the many free website templates available. freewebsitetemplates.com has a good set of designs to choose from and they have a fairly nonrestrictive terms of use. All you have to do is basically get these website templates and edit them to include your content and logo. If you have some photo shop skills or if you are HTML savvy, you can change the look a bit to fit your project.

Should you or should you not?

Using pre-made website templates is not such a bad thing. Most of the designs are designed by professional website designers themselves and some can look pretty amazing. However, these free to use templates, while pretty to use, is not ideal for more serious websites. Like everything, there are advantages and disadvantages in using website templates and here they are:

Advantages of a using template sites:

• No design cost needed
• No coding costs needed
• Virtually no development time
• Usually designed by real designers
• Lots of designs to pick
• Easy to edit
• Perfect for smaller project or personal sites
• Its Free!

Disadvantages of using template sites

• You site is not unique in the web
• Look and feel may be a bit off with your product
• You take the bad design elements with the good
• Branding may be an issue
• You dont own the copyrights
• You have no control over detailed elements
• May not fit your niche (These sites are targeted for broaded audiences)

Conclusions

Now that you have a list of of advantages and disadvantages, it is up to you to decide if you want to own a website based on free templates or have one professionally made by a website designer. If you are planning to have a website for your school project, you are in a very tight budget, or just need a personal web page to post your resume or for a hobby for instance,  then there is nothing wrong with using ready-made templates. But if you are planning to set up a business, need branding, or want something unique for yourself or your organization then there is nothing that replaces a professionally designed website.