I used to design all of my company's layouts myself, but I've used a Template Monster design for the past year. I've seen comments made about webhosts relating to their type of design, and I am wondering ...

- Do Templates create an adverse effect/look on a webhosting business?

- If so, why?

- What advantages do custom designs have over templates, besides uniqueness, if any?

I'm about ready to get a new design for my company, and I'm wondering if a custom design will be better in the long run for my business. Thank you in advance for your comments/suggestions/help!

You'll hear from hosts that using a TemplateMonster design makes you appear unprofessional because it looks like another hosts site.

I strongly disagree.

Unless your target audience is hosts that look at other hosts' designs; I can't find a reason to not use a good template.

Originally posted by SoftWareRevue
You'll hear from hosts that using a TemplateMonster design makes you appear unprofessional because it looks like another hosts site.

I strongly disagree.

Unless your target audience is hosts that look at other hosts' designs; I can't find a reason to not use a good template.

Completely agree.

It seems like a smart business move if you are on a somewhat limited budget. It is an extremely high quality, effective, already developed/ready to roll site for a very cost efficient price.

Yes, other hosts may also have it... Yes, I'd prefer a custom designed site... but it works fine depending on your needs/budget.

I thinks templates are nice for a site, but a custom design can be better.

Originally posted by Taylor
Completely agree.

It seems like a smart business move if you are on a somewhat limited budget. It is an extremely high quality, effective, already developed/ready to roll site for a very cost efficient price.

Yes, other hosts may also have it... Yes, I'd prefer a custom designed site... but it works fine depending on your needs/budget.

Yes, but when you are looking for hosts, and company A and company B have the same website, it doesn't go well together. :gone:

Originally posted by Zion
Yes, but when you are looking for hosts, and company A and company B have the same website, it doesn't go well together. :gone:

Yeah Zion is right. You should pick a template that isn't all over the web already.

I personally will not give my $7 for a company which can't afford custom design. If you can't afford American design company, go outsource to Ukraine or India, but heck - be truly unique! I personally am really sick of those cheap (how much? USD 15? USD 30? - search wht design forums!) same-looking imitations.

Yes, but when you are looking for hosts, and company A and company B have the same website, it doesn't go well together.

Yes, but his point is that if you're not targetting these customers who frequent host after host looking for the best deal (i.e. if you target loca businesses), then there's no worry encountering this problem.

Thanks for your suggestions everyone. Just to clear all of these up - the general consensus is that a custom design looks better for a company?

I don't think that's the general concensus.

Seems to be fairly split.

However, a large part of it depends upon your target audience.

Custom design affords much more than just unique look, feel and UI.
A custom site allows for the development of a much more effective sales layer, signup process, content flow and navigation. You’d rather some unknown person dictate the flow of your site? As most if not all of the template users don’t have a clue about marketing, branding and differentiation, in the end it matters little what they chose and thankfully serves only to draw greater contrast between templated sites and custom branded sites.
While on the Subject of target market, the demand side of shared and dedicated hosting most defiantly sees brand as a selection criteria and does intrinsically understand the value and perceived value differentiation of a custom site over a cheap flash template site with a logo thrown into a header. And finally, as for the notion that time or resource constraints should dictate the decision to not effectively brand a business with a custom
website from the onset, it’s a recipe for failure right out of the gate.

Thank you for your comments. I think I'll start designing my own layouts again, or I'll go with another designer. Just to clarify a few things, I didn't go the Template Monster route because I was lazy, didn't have the time, or didn't want success for my business - I did so because I ran across a layout that I really liked and thought would work well with my business. Yes, some may do that, but I never even hinted to that fact - I'm definitely not lazy or incompetent, and I definitely DO want success for my business. Thanks to everyone who left comments on the issue, I appreciate them, and I have decided to come up with a unique design for my company. :)

when you have a cutom design you look more unigue, but also when you pay make sure that it ends up to be professional and well done. I know designers who really slacked off on their designs because they were either cocky or just too damn lazy to do a professional design. Find someone with a lot of compasssion in what they do. And always make sure you budget yourself wisely. $50 more for a design can make a huge dffference. I myself as a designer and a webhoster know how it is

TM sites are great but you should never consider it permanent. When just starting out being able to get a ceonex style for 100 bucks or less is great. If you have a small budget already I do not see why you would either
a)get a crappy custom design or do it yourself
b)spend most of your budget on a design.

A website is like an offfice. If it looks like crap it gives a bad image of your company. Luckily you can get a nice site for cheap, office space on the other hand:(

TM templates are really fantastic, i've used b4 (bought 2), but you really need to know how to deal with html and flash at least, there will be a lot of customization work to do with each template.

In my opinion, a host is not worth my money if they are willing to settle for a site layout a thousand other hosts have (slight exaggeration ;))

To me, it shows undedication (?), lack of professionalism and makes them look cheap.

My opinion though...

Many people who are not familiar with the term templates and things of that nature are not going to pay much attention if one site has the same design as another. In most cases, they might forget what the design looked liked after viewing many other sites.

Originally posted by RS Michael
In most cases, they might forget what the design looked liked after viewing many other sites.

Most probably they will never even try to remember. When I see template design, the all I'm thinking is 'next, please'. If you'll ask me the name of that company after 2 minutes, I'll probably not recall it... ;P

Originally posted by SerenityHosting
Most probably they will never even try to remember. When I see template design, the all I'm thinking is 'next, please'. If you'll ask me the name of that company after 2 minutes, I'll probably not recall it... ;P

Yes, and even if they remember the design, they might think that they are back onto the site that they were on before. This can be both good and bad in some aspects.

I also think those templates are great. You can always buy one and modify it so it is unique to you!

I've been in web development for over six years now, and have been in the hosting business for over four. I realize that I cannot get a quality custom design for $50 - That's not what I asked for, and never specified a budget. I've told several designers that my budget is expandable, I'll pay more if I have to, but I want to get what I pay for, nothing less. My business has grown greatly since I started using Template Monster designs - I can't attribute it to the design, as my service has grown better over the years. I have identified the need for corporate identity and uniqueness, and I appreciate the comments of your all. If there is one thing I don't lack, it's common sense - I could never ask a professional designer to do a custom job for $50.00 ... being a web developer myself, I would be stunned at a request such as that. Thanks again!

if you have to ask which is better, maybe you are not in the right business

id say chances are, more people are going to be screwed by fly by nite templated hosts than any other type of company soooo when they go to look for that new host, they aint gonna choose some schmuck who decided his business/office is only worth between 15-100.00

i dont know why people think they can just start up a business for 20 bucks

ya im harsh, but im also a web designer

incidentally im in the process of building a template company but it wont be geared toward hosting companies.

ps please lose that brady bunch font, not good

I think all the point mentioned here are quite valid. You have two sides:

Go with Templates, and you'll have a site that not really unique, but at the same time, most visitors probably won't notice that site X is similar to site Y.

Option 2 is to have a custom design (from a designer). This option is too expensive for a lot of hosts to start off with, but maybe after they are in business for a while, this option may be better.

I personally hate it when I see a website that has used templates. Although my website is somewhat based on a template :) (may not be noticable though).

Originally posted by SerenityHosting
I personally will not give my $7 for a company which can't afford custom design. If you can't afford American design company, go outsource to Ukraine or India, but heck - be truly unique! I personally am really sick of those cheap (how much? USD 15? USD 30? - search wht design forums!) same-looking imitations.

And who wants to spend $$$ on developing a unique design for your $7.

:beer:

Originally posted by will7
In my opinion, a host is not worth my money if they are willing to settle for a site layout a thousand other hosts have (slight exaggeration ;))

To me, it shows undedication (?), lack of professionalism and makes them look cheap.

My opinion though...

Judging a book by the cover it would seem. ;)

Yes, but at the end of the day, people DO judge "books by their cover" so to speak. Maybe they are good, maybe not, I will never know because I would not spend my money on them.

So yes, I wouldn't disagree that I would be judging a book by its cover, but a hosting company's website is the first thing the customer sees - it needs to create a lasting impression, not look like the one they say two minutes ago...

Originally posted by LaurenStephens.com
if you have to ask which is better, maybe you are not in the right business

id say chances are, more people are going to be screwed by fly by nite templated hosts than any other type of company soooo when they go to look for that new host, they aint gonna choose some schmuck who decided his business/office is only worth between 15-100.00

i dont know why people think they can just start up a business for 20 bucks

ya im harsh, but im also a web designer

incidentally im in the process of building a template company but it wont be geared toward hosting companies.

ps please lose that brady bunch font, not good

Although I appreciate all of your comments, many of them are unfounded and unreasonable. For one, I asked which would put a better image on my company, or if it even mattered. Secondly I asked the effect a template would have on my company. Believe me, I am not a 'Fly by night' hosting company - I've been in the business for four years, many of my clients from then are still with me today. I never implied, nor stated that I started my company for $200.00, in fact, I invested thousands of dollars into the company at the start.

I'll know not to start up one of these threads again asking for advice - way too many people have made assumptions on my company, which I don't quite understand. Thanks again to everyone for their comments though.

the difference is weather or not gonna do heavy marketing, its almost like a franchise after you buy a cpanel reseller account

but there arent any standards you will ever be help up to

WarpFactor, don't be discouraged because people questioned your business. That is the way NOT to go. Take the comments the right way, and see if they can be interpreted into such a way that it makes your business even better.

Always ask for advice, yes people may give negatives, but these can also be turned into positives by using them effectively and working them into your business - a lot of people here have been in business longer than you.

I can always recognize a Template Monster templates - they're quite the same actually.Same layout .. same buttons .. same graphics .. same people (hosting staff let say) pictures, and it's still makes me think whether the host using a template is stable, flexible and experienced enough to host my site.
And what if the template is really good .. do you think you are the only one who have noticed it.. no, there are 1000s of other who use it .. both real hosting companies and scams.
Some months ago I ran a search in google for hosting company and in the google adwords section there were 2 sites with identical templates one after another.The first was clearly a joke.. no contact information , no customer support section .. just a plain form to collect your credit card information .. on the other hand the second site with the same template was just okay, I even call them and post a sales/trouble ticket to check if they're going to reply me.The ticket was replied in an hour and the call was answered. So the second company was good one or at least they were trying to make real hosting business, and if you were the owner of it (the 2nd company) how would you like some scam host to ruin your business ? I bet you don't want it.Why use templates when you can do it without it.I know what you are thinking : Designing a web page is expensive,it's cheaper to buy a template, but you are not right !!! A good template costs around $50-$100, you can hire a designer from another country for $200 or such, just go around and search for someone to design your pages - there are 100s way to min. your costs.

I think if you select the right template for your company, you're good. We had a custom site designed for us (paid a poop load) and we "outgrew" it eventually. So then I started looking for a new design, but didn't want to spend a lot. What I did was found a template on TM that not many people had used and didn't look like a hosting site at all... non of that gradient stuff, bubbly, etc. etc. It wasn't like the other sites in the "hosting" catagory or whatever. I'm quite pleased with it though. After some customization, its worked quite nicely.

www.intrahost.com
Not done with it yet... but you get the idea. I've had many many people say how professional the website looks (and how much bigger of a company we are percieved to be because of it).

You have to make the site your OWN too though. Can't just replace the logo graphic. Take some time to add your own touches to the layout they give you and what not. Your website is your MESSAGE to the customer. Don't let the generic template be your message, make it your own.

Originally posted by valmark
I can always recognize a Template Monster templates - they're quite the same actually.Same layout .. same buttons .. same graphics .. same people (hosting staff let say) pictures
Kinda sounds like most so-called designers around here.