When it’s time for a new synagogue website, one of the first decisions a congregation may face is whether to use a ready-made website template or invest in a custom-designed site.
It’s easy to understand the appeal of a template.
Some synagogue management systems and movement affiliations provide website templates as part of their services. Other inexpensive website platforms offer designs that can be set up relatively quickly. For a synagogue with a limited budget, small staff or an immediate need for a new website, that can be an attractive option.
And sometimes, it may be the right one.
But there are tradeoffs.
The bigger question isn’t simply whether a template can produce a functioning website. It can. The question is whether it can produce the right website for your particular congregation.
Let’s look at both sides.
The Advantages of a Synagogue Website Template
It’s Less Expensive
This is usually the biggest advantage.
If a website template is included with a service your synagogue already pays for, the additional cost may be minimal or nonexistent. Even when there’s a separate fee, a do-it-yourself template will generally cost considerably less than working with a professional website designer.
For a small congregation with limited resources, that can be an important consideration.
A simpler website that a synagogue can realistically afford is better than continuing indefinitely with an outdated or unusable one.
It Can Get You Online Quickly
A template eliminates many of the decisions involved in creating a website from scratch.
The overall structure and design are already there. You choose from the available options, add your logo and colors, upload photographs and begin entering content.
If your synagogue needs a basic website relatively quickly, that simplicity can be useful.
You Can Work at Your Own Pace
For congregations that prefer a do-it-yourself approach, a template provides control over the process.
You don’t need to coordinate with a designer or go through a formal design and development process. A staff member or volunteer can work on the website when time permits.
For a synagogue fortunate enough to have someone with design, marketing or website experience on staff or within the congregation, this approach can sometimes work particularly well.
The Limitations of a Synagogue Website Template
The advantages are real. But so are the limitations.
You’re Starting With the Design Instead of the Synagogue
This is probably the biggest difference between a templated website and a custom-designed one.
With a template, the basic website already exists. Your job is to fit your congregation into it.
A custom website starts from the opposite direction.
Who is your congregation? What makes your community distinctive? Who uses the website? What information do current members need most often? What should a prospective member understand about you? What should receive the most emphasis on the homepage?
Only then do we determine what the website should look like and how it should be organized.
That difference matters.
Your content shouldn’t have to conform to a predetermined website. Ideally, the website should be designed around your content and your congregation.
Your Website May Look Like Everyone Else’s
Synagogues share many things in common, but no two congregations are exactly alike.
One may be a large Reform congregation with extensive programming, multiple clergy and a busy religious school. Another may be a smaller Conservative synagogue built around close personal relationships. An Orthodox congregation may place much greater emphasis on service times, the weekly schedule and other frequently changing information.
Those differences should influence the website.
Templates necessarily have to accommodate a broad range of organizations. As a result, they tend to rely on structures that work reasonably well for everyone rather than particularly well for anyone.
You can change colors, photographs and content, but the underlying website may still feel familiar to anyone who has seen another congregation using the same system.
Templates Don’t Always Survive Real-World Content
Website templates tend to look terrific in demonstrations.
There’s a reason for that.
The sample photographs are carefully selected. Headlines are exactly the right length. Every text block fits perfectly into its allotted space.
Then you add the real content.
Your rabbi’s welcome message is three paragraphs instead of two sentences. You have seven upcoming events instead of three. One program needs a long explanation. A committee wants another button. Someone needs to add an announcement that wasn’t part of the original layout.
Little by little, the carefully balanced template can begin to break down.
Good website design needs to accommodate the content a synagogue actually has—not just the content that looks best in a demonstration.
You Still Have to Figure Out What Goes Where
A template solves the problem of creating the design.
It doesn’t necessarily solve the harder problem of figuring out the website.
What belongs on the homepage? How should the navigation be organized? Which pages are necessary? What should be removed from the old website? How do you balance information for current members with content intended for prospective members? How much emphasis should be placed on services, programming, clergy, membership or giving?
Those aren’t primarily design questions.
They’re strategy and content questions.
And for many synagogue website projects, they’re where some of the most important work happens.
Customization May Be Limited
Sooner or later, you may want the website to do something the template wasn’t designed to do.
Perhaps you want to present your events differently. You need a more sophisticated navigation system. You want a particular homepage layout. You need to integrate an outside service. Or you simply want to change something that the template doesn’t allow you to change.
That’s when the convenience of a predetermined system can become a limitation.
Before choosing a template, it’s worth thinking not only about what your synagogue needs today, but also about how much flexibility you’ll have as those needs change.
What About ShulCloud?
For synagogues using ShulCloud, this question comes up frequently.
Using ShulCloud for synagogue management does not mean your public-facing website has to be built entirely within ShulCloud.
A custom WordPress website and ShulCloud can work together.
The WordPress site can serve as the public-facing website—providing greater flexibility over design, content and presentation—while ShulCloud continues doing what it does well behind the scenes, including member accounts, forms, payments, donations and other synagogue management functions.
Visitors don’t necessarily need to know where one system ends and the other begins.
For some congregations, that combination provides the best of both worlds.
So, Is a Template Right for Your Synagogue?
It depends on what your congregation needs.
If your primary goal is to get a straightforward website online inexpensively, and you have someone comfortable taking responsibility for building and maintaining it, a template may be a perfectly reasonable solution.
But if your website is an important part of how your congregation presents itself to prospective members, communicates its identity and organizes a substantial amount of information, the limitations of a template become more significant.
A custom website isn’t valuable simply because it looks different.
Its real advantage is that the process begins with your synagogue.
Your community. Your priorities. Your content. Your members. Your prospective members. And the things that make your congregation different from every other Jewish community.
The website is then built around those things—not the other way around.