Custom Websites Versus Templates

As a business owner, it is your responsibility to ensure your enterprise is profitable. When it comes to your storefront, your signage, your marketing materials, you've probably put time, effort, and money into making sure your image is professional and attractive.

But what about your website?

Certainly, it can be attractive to use website template services to save time and money, but they come with their own pitfalls.

You still have to have a tech person in your employ who can update and utilize the template to its full advantage. And most designs are unoriginal, not reflective of your own materials and brand. Or, worse even, could remind potential customers of a competitor's website that looks similar (because, guess what, they've used a template, too).

Custom website design allows you to build a unique, original website tailor-made to project your message and your image to your clients.

As always, and any sound marketing plan will confirm, any and all communication your company does builds on each other, which means each piece that reinforces the same message, the same image, and the same positive branding, will serve to impact your customer toward action. And action = sales!

Custom website design also allows you to build in search engine optimization, tagging each page with keywords that ensure you are ranked more highly when customers are searching for your product. More 'findability' = more traffic = more sales!

Here's another thing to consider: privacy and online security. Custom website design gives you an online site that no one else has, which means its coding is unique. Your designer can also ensure that different functions on the site are secure, an extremely important aspect of any online sales feature or inventory system. Templates, because they are copies, are not unique and are more easily sabotaged.

It may seem pretty obvious what the 'better' choice is for your company's website, but let's talk about numbers for a second. A template might save you money in the short term, but what about when that template doesn't serve your company's needs anymore? You will be starting from scratch.

Commissioning a starter package from a reputable custom web designer will help you get your unique website started at a price within your budget; and then you can work with your designer to plan out the features that you will eventually want to add, ensuring that your website is customizable and will be viable for your company's needs long-term. When you need to add new features and take your website to the next level, your custom web design agency will be there to help you grow. And well, growth = sales, too.