When talking about “template websites”, I'm referring to websites which are pre-made, using a template. A lot of people, particularly ones involved in direct selling, MLMs, or similar businesses, will be surprised to realize their websites have little value for ranking purposes.
I'm also going to cover a few other forms of template websites, such as the ones we make here at Human Proof Designs, which are of great value for SEO purposes. First off, the bad ones.
I've come across a lot of websites that are essentially clones of one another, just with a few details changed. Let's say you are selling a product on behalf of a company as their sales rep. A lot of these companies will create template websites for their sales reps to use to help them sell the products. Usually these sites are all the same, and have a line or two of code in them to identify which sales rep they belong to. Sometimes there will be one or two differences in the website, in order to make them more personalized.
Why Use A Template Website?
They're pretty popular with those who use them. You can get a great sales too and lead generator without doing a lot of work. Because it's a template, all you need to do is spend a couple of hours filling in the blanks. Equally, you don't have to bother learning web design or anything like that. You get to utilize the power of the Internet, without having to learn anything.
The major problem with these sites is, Google doesn't index duplicate content. In other words, they are worthless for ranking purposes. By all means use one if you plan to pay for adverts or use social media to link to them (although some sites like Facebook tend to remove links from these sorts of sites), but don't expect to get any free search engine traffic. Your site just won't appear.
Many other websites where you just get something built in an instant and tweak it here and there to make it your own are similar. If a site has just one or two duplicate pages on it, Google will not be interested in showing users your content. This is something to bear in mind if you hope to do SEO and get free traffic from search engines.
Other Sites To Beware Of
Flippa is another place where you have to be careful with ready-made websites. I've seen plenty of sites that are ready made, with a rehashed design and duplicate content, and they claim people can earn money on autopilot.
It's ironic, because those sites will only get traffic if you pay for it, so in one sense, it IS autopilot, but in another sense, it's expensive and no way guaranteed success.
Any beginner should start out with free traffic, until they know what they're doing, which is what makes these duplicate templates so worthless.
I've written another article about Flippa and things to consider, so check that out, if you're looking at buying a site from Flippa.
Can Any Template Sites Rank Well?
Yes absolutely, but you need to do some research and check that they are unique. Copyscape is a good place to do this.
Another option is to check out the sites we build. We do use templates, but the content isn't duplicate. We leave the content creation up to you. We build the site, put some default “lorem ipsum” content on them, and hand them over to you. We even research the niche and provide you with article topics.
Learn all about our sites here.
There are definitely a lot of benefits with buying a pre-made site. For one, you get to see how it looks and know what you're getting into. You also don't have to learn all the ins and outs of web design, and you don't have to spend weeks building the site.
However, if you are planning to use search engine visitors as part of your site's monetization methods, then make sure you don't buy a clone site.