Within the framework of this article, I want to immediately define the terms. A modern website is usually a combination of an engine and a template. For some engines, templates are called themes. But if previously theme templates carried mainly a design load, today the development of both engines and templates makes it possible to achieve their deeper mutual integration. Currently, the template not only changes the appearance of the site, but can also significantly expand the functionality of the engine. For example, a template can use a regular WordPress blog engine to create a bulletin board, a portal for a recruitment agency, a booking system, an online learning system, and much more.

Is it worth making a website using a template?

First, let’s answer a question that interests many: Is it possible to create a website based on a template if you know nothing about web development and have no idea what lies behind the abbreviations PHP, JS, HTML, CSS, etc.? Just yesterday I would have given a negative answer to this question. Designers and templates solved many issues, but they were more of a work aid for professional developers than a tool that allowed them to create a complete website from A to Z. Let’s just say that the average requirements and imagination of the user for designing their site went beyond the average capabilities of the template, and To create the finished product, it was still impossible to do without a professional.

But time passed, and site building tools were constantly evolving. A modern template is a constructor with a huge number of switches, buttons, various options, blocks, etc. It not only allows you to implement almost everything that the site owner could wish for, but also offer something that he had not even thought about. On the one hand, this complex constructor requires study, many hours of trial and experimentation; It is not always clear even to a specialist what the developer had in mind when signing this or that control element. On the other hand, as a reward for diligence, an inquisitive user will have at his disposal a powerful site management tool that will help him, without the help of a web programmer or designer, solve 90% of the problems of structuring and designing content, and the remaining 10% can always be bypassed or solved using the means at his disposal, if you don’t get hung up on a specific vision.

Sometimes, when working with a template, an ordinary but inquisitive user even has a peculiar advantage over a web programmer, because… the latter, due to his way of thinking and habit, often immediately tries to change the code directly in program files, style files or a database to complete a task; it may simply not occur to him to look to see if this function has already been implemented in the template admin panel, or he he can simply view it during his cursory examination. As a result, some standard functions of the template or theme may be “overlaid” by home-written code, i.e. will become inaccessible from the admin panel, and this may later become a problem for the user – the site administrator. The user, having no other choice, strives to carefully study the capabilities of all controls, will try all the options before, perhaps, becoming convinced that the problem cannot be solved using the admin panel and needs to contact a specialist.

Therefore, if you are confident in your abilities and are not afraid to learn new knowledge, then you can easily control the design and content of your website within a wide range. You may need the help of a specialist only at the initial stage of deploying and setting up a website on a hosting and to teach you the basics of management. Thus, you can save significantly on web studio services and get an interesting and at the same time useful leisure activity, much more practical than reading the news and surfing social media. networks.

If you do not have the desire or time, or neither, and the budget allows you to hire a specialist for a full cycle of work, then even then the template is a good help for a quick and high-quality solution to the problem.

A modern template allows you not only to decide on the design of the future site, but also to a large extent to determine its functionality. Even if the template will not be used directly for some reason, it can be a kind of technical task for the developer.

Often, when developing small websites, the technical specification is just a page or two of general requirements and a couple of sketches. Novice developers can even get to work based on an oral description. All this can lead to problems when submitting work. The customer can always say that he saw the final product a little differently when he described it.

A website is a special type of product. Special in the sense that no material resources are spent on its production (we will not take depreciation of licenses, equipment and electricity into account). This is a product of intellectual labor and the cost of the site largely consists of payment for working hours. Without a comprehensive technical specification, it is not clear where to stop. The developer still wants the client to be satisfied, but the additional time that was not initially allocated for rework is regarded by the customer as a violation of the established deadlines, while for the contractor himself it is unpaid working hours. Growing tension between the parties usually has a bad effect on the outcome of the work.

However, a real full-fledged technical specification with examples of the design of the main pages made in Photoshop and a detailed description of every “little detail” is a lot of and expensive work, which also requires special training. When developing business card websites and small presentation business websites, drawing up such a task is often not justified in terms of time or cost. This is where a template can come to the rescue, because… It is much easier to describe the changes that need to be made to the template than to describe the entire functionality and design of the site from scratch.

Often people don’t want to order a website based on a template because… it is considered that this seems undignified. However, all modern life is built on templates: you probably have a serial car, a serial watch, a serial telephone, and not all couture clothes. And this doesn’t scare anyone. Moreover, is a production Porsche always worse than a custom-built car designed by a local craftsman in his own garage? Individuality, unfortunately, does not always mean quality. And when those two things are combined, it tends to be extremely expensive.

In general, a website based on a template is the key to a high-quality, tested and modern product, which is based on the work of professionals in their field.

Website templates today are created by teams of professional designers and developers with extensive experience, for whom this work is their main activity. And replicability makes such a high-quality product affordable. At the same time, only a professional can discern that two different sites are made on the same template, and even then only after careful study and not always.

I hope this information will help you in making the right decision.