SEO and Templates !!!

[shaun adams]

I have been looking to find the right website designer and can't get my head around the fact that Thebannerpeople.com and digitalprintexpress.co.uk spent a lot of money on there website (£10000+) but F1graphics.com have a web template (£250).

If you search for banners they come 5th from the top, is there website well coded for a web template ??


Also if you spent £250 on a web template the same and made it to the same standards and spent money on SEO could you one established and gaining customer change the website to a bespoke one.

Should I spend a little on the website and get seen or spend a fortune on a website (Run out of money) and wait for them to come.

[JohnnyD]

There are bound to be a great many difference between the £10000 and £250 website.... you get what you pay for in this world...

If you need me to recommend good web developers send me a PM...

[shaun adams]

But I would be happy with anything as long as it is on page one of a good keyword and getting me work.

I would just like to understand why a template is in front of well SEO and bespoke £10000 + websites.

[fisicx]

What you don't know is all the technology that goes on in the background. There may be a massive application that accepts, processes and prints the banners. There may be a bespoke payment portal, customer datbase and so on.

Yes you can get a template site that promotes your company but will it allow the uploading of 10Mb files, have a secure payment portal, customer account area and manage your printing schedule?

[shaun adams]

Yes I do understand that a lot of features will be lost which I need, but that still does not stray from the fact that a company spending £10000 + on a website and £300 + a week on SEO is still behind a company with a £250 website.

[petera]

To be honest as long as you have control over the essential on-page SEo elements then it doesn't make any difference. I downloaded a free website template from the web, optimised it myself, got some free hosting and got it ranking pretty quickly - I hasten to add that I did this as part of a test project.

The huge difference in prices of websites is usally due to appearance, features and management tools.

A £10,000 website is likely to have a comprehensive content management system, bespoke designs, database driven elements etc. The development company may also employ some useability techniques to ascertain which layout will convert better.

You do pay for what your get but this doesn't necessarily mean that the more expensive option will be more likely to achieve prominent rankings. Free or cheap web templates are generally pretty simple but that simplicity can lead to a more search engine friendly platform.
Of course, there's no guarantee that yours will be the only website with that design and you'll have to make any changes to the site manually but if that doesn't concern you then it might be a good first step.