Custom Web Design VS Template Websites

Being a business owner means always looking for ways to increase cash flow and make your business more successful. And creating an online presence for your company is just like any other marketing material you develop. Your site needs to be congruent, project a professional image and help connect the dots of your other marketing efforts i.e. you business cards, flyers, brochures, signage...etc. The more professional your business appears, the more creditable potential clients will perceive you as being.

Most business owners don’t understand the difference between having a custom web design and using a website template. I will break down both methods of building a website and the costs associated.

CUSTOM WEB DESIGN
Some clients often feel that custom web design is too expensive for their business. However, let’s look at the benefits of hiring a web designer vs using a free website template or purchasing a template.

Benefits of Custom Web Design:
• A totally original design. With a custom web design your business will be distinguished in your industry.
• It make you appear bigger than you really are. Being a small business owner I know how important this is. It is about showing clients how you see yourself.
• When you hire the right web designer, will ensure that it is constructed to be search engine friendly and properly indexed.
• Having valid code and being cross browser compatible will also influence your success in the search engines.
• More adaptable to your company’s needs.
• Properly planned for. When you have done this you will have a list of features and functionality you would like to have built in to your site. And if your budget wont allow you to build in all the functionality you want at the start, prioritize your list of website capabilities that way you will know what to accommodate for down the road. This will save you money by not having to build it all over again.
• You web site will be scalable. Just like adaptability, when you plan what you want your web site to be able to do in the future, a good web designer can take this into consideration as they decide the best technologies to use for building the website.

Additional points worth thinking about when deciding if custom web design is for you:

• Do you plan on maintaining the website yourself?
• If you do want to maintain the website on your own but, do not intend on learning how to write code (or have someone on staff that can do this properly) then you are going to need a content management system (CMS) be built into the web design.
• Your website's design should incorporate your company’s identity / branding strategy. If you have already established your company's identity / brand, then that should be incorporated into the website.
• If your Business hasn't established your identity / brand or you're revamping your existing strategy, you are going to want to know if you can use the graphics from the new website elsewhere, like on your business card, letterhead, brochures, flyers, signage to name a few. If you do want to have these or other marketing pieces designed this will increase the price of the project, but you will have a congruent identity.

There are definitely some misconceptions on how beneficial / affordable using free website templates or even purchased website templates are. Now let's consider website templates:

Benefits of Website Templates:
• Great for businesses with very low budgets.
• Because they are already made so the Website can be live as soon as you plug in content.

It would appear that using a website template would allow for a shorter development time required for your website. Not really, read on, I'll explain why.

Using website templates do have some downfalls:
• There will be many other people using the exact same template as you.
*Only when you pay the “Exclusive” price for the template, which is often just as expensive as a custom web design, do you won it.
• You will be limited by the degree to which you can customize the website template.
• Often website templates are not built / designed to be search engine friendly. Mentioned above, the back end coding of your website is very crucial. And if not done correctly, it could hurt your marketing efforts and the way your site is indexed on the internet.

CUSTOM WEB DESIGN vs. WEB SITE TEMPLATES
When deciding if a custom web design is the way to go or if a website template is a better choice remember to keep in mind that you want your business to stand out and be memorable.

Either route you choose to take, you are going to have some serious work ahead of you to get up there in the search engine rankings. A website that pops is only part of the marketing package. You will have to research and understand your target audience so you can know how they search for your service in search engines.

To maintain or build the website yourself you are going to have to invest some time (and money possibly) into learning all there is to building a web page. When thinking about the time value of money also consider that custom web design companies have years and years of experience and knowledge that they have been accruing which give them a cutting or even a bleeding edge.

Now, that we have gone through the options figure out exactly how much each method of building your website is actually going to cost. Be sure to include:
• The time it is going to take you to learn everything you need to know in order to use the website template.
• Valid coding. See W3C Validator So that your web pages display properly.
• Being cross browser compatible - The way code interacts with every browser out there.
• Graphic design skills. Knowing how to make appropriate image sizes. The software alone ranges $700 - $3,500.
• The time it will take you to research what exactly SEO means then figuring out all the criteria by which a search engine determines your sites ranking.

Now that we have looked at each side in depth you can make a better informed decision. Just remember there is a big difference between price and cost. If price is your only concern go with a template. However, if the the long term cost is the concern go with a custom site you will save more in the long run.