145 - Should we use templates more?

Interview - Should we use templates more?

Back in the good old days of the internet, when CSS was hardly a thought and nobody used JavaScript, you pretty much had to build websites from the ground up each time.

What I mean by that is that I don't have a memory of being able to download templates for different websites that you could tweak to make your own; you just had to build them and when the next project came along you had to start all over again. Well, that's how I did it anyway.

Fast forward into the era of WordPress (and other CMS solutions) and themes came along. You could buy websites ready made, good to go.

The promise was so beguiling - download a website theme, click a button to upload it and bam, your website would be complete and ready for consumption by the public at large. They would come to your website in their millions and marvel at your website building skills!

Mmm... No really. Most WordPress users quickly figured out that although themes were great, there was usually a whole heap of work that needed to be done to bend the theme to your will. That portfolio that you saw on the website sales page, how did it even work. Aaarrrggghhh... now I have to spend hours unpicking the code because none of this theme is as simple as it appeared to be!

Hands up if you wasted hours of your time and lots of your cash buying theme after theme hoping that this time, this theme would be the perfect fit for the client that you had lined up. Cough, my hand is practically scraping the ceiling right now!

So themes were (and are) great if:

• the documentation is plentiful and readable
• the theme is developed in a standard way
• you have enough patience to work through the problems that you will encounter

Well, things move on and now we have entered an era of frameworks and minimal themes that just get you started, but don't try to do 'all the things'. Add into the mix the proliferation of the many Page Builders in the WordPress space and now we seem to be in an era where Page Builder modules do the job of styling the site more and more.

Now almost anyone can create a great looking site in a few days and save their templates to be reused another time. Or perhaps you could just used the page templates and modules that come with the Page Builder. Or (another or...) you could get hold of third-party templates and use those instead.

Times have changed!

My work is more and more focussing upon doing almost everything in the browser. WordPress, Page Builder, templates, theme, image creation, wireframes, information architecture can all be done with online tools.

So with all of this available, do we actually need any skills to build websites anymore? Could we hand the work to a child and say... "there you go, I want a site in a couple of days"? In short - NO!

You still need skills to be able to create websites and you need to offer value to the client in other ways too - funnels, integrations, SEO and all that jazz!

We also need to think about whether or not duplicating pre-made templates and just using those all over our website is doing the client a service. Are we in danger of falling into the trap of making life so easy for us as WordPress website developers that the clients all end up with cookie cutter websites with zero individuality.

Perhaps we should use templates for inspiration for our websites. Use the ideas that we see and then create our own template library that fits in with what we do and what our clients require. That sounds like a good compromise I think, Doesn't it?

So create your own templates, keep them updated and we'll come back to this topic again in a future when the landscape has completely changed again!

Mentioned in this episode:

Elementor
Beaver Builder / Beaver Themer
Brizy
Page Builder Cloud
Katka template pack
Hack the Buyer Brain