I have a question.

Its more of a perception, nevertheless I'm curious. What do you think about a company who has a template site? If it was a hosting company would you not host with them? Does it not matter? Does it tell you they watch their money and might offer better services?

There are so many template sites out right now, I just want to know what people think about sites who use them.

In my opinion, one has to go with service provider that do a certain job in the best possible manner as opposed to someone who does millions of things.

So the design of a site has nothign to do with your decision?

Are you not a believer in first impression? I think it could work either way, there are different reasons for people using template sites, some reasons are better than other, but in the end you visit a site for the first time and the first thing you see is the design, not the content.

Sure when a visit a site and it looks pretty, I appreciate their design, but that doesn't influence me any degree into becoming their customer. I do a lot of research (reading forums, googling etc., talking to ppl) before I purchase a product/service in real world/internet.

Nothing wrong if a site uses a template made by others as long as it serves the purpose.

Great, thanks for your view.

As it was pointed above it is not necessary bad, a certain company uses templates, however it does tell you a few things, a template is not very hard to make, especially if you are in the trade. Plus, to sell big and important services (I consider web hosting to be a responsible and important business) you ought to be somewhat tech-oriented. If a comp can not provide it self with a website, could you trust them that they are capable of taking care of your hosting? Just thinking out loud…

Nevertheless, you should inquire a little bit more into the matter, just to be on the safe side…

Good luck

Airnine

Very valid points from everyone, but your forgetting that a lot of people (clients) will not know to look for things like reviews in forums, and would generally take most of their decisions on first impressions (looks) and prices. Very poor sites would more likley deter people as they would think that "it is a cheap company who cant even afford a site, so whats their hosting going to be like?"

I would suggest you use a decent design and try to get one that is unique if at all possible. That would help with the all important first impression. Try the templates topic of this forum for example.