Should You Build Your Site With A Template Or Straight HTML?
Website design is not an exact science. It is part art and part science, which might come as a surprise to some people. Those people might consider it 100% art.
I consider it partly a science because there are some technical aspects to website design that require a scientific-like approach to thinking. Artistic endeavors are typically right brain activity. Science hails from the logical part of the brain, which is on the left hemisphere of the big grey lobe.
But whether you approach web design from a scientific or artistic perspective is largely how you see your role as web designer. If you are strictly artistic in your approach then you might look for a template and move things around as you see fit. If you are more scientific, or at least a mixture, then you may prefer to build your site with straight HTML.
A template can be good and save you some time. But there are things to look out for. Is your template optimized for search engines? If not, you’d better be prepared to modify it or ditch it. With HTML, you can influence that fight right from the beginning.
Website design really is not so cut and dry. There are a lot of variables and you have to remain flexible. Whether you built with a template or straight HTML isn’t as important as making sure that your site ranks well for its keywords and that it is capable of converting traffic to sales. If you can do it with a template then you should; if you prefer HTML then you should go that route. Either way, a great site is a great site.