Why should I pay for a web design company to create a custom website design when I can just use a web design template?
I bet you all ask the same question whenever you want to launch a new website for your eCommerce business. We understand that using a template for your website design is easy and cheap. As appealing as it sounds, it still comes with its own shortcomings. Therefore let’s discuss in detail the differences between custom design and a template design for your website.
Why is website design Important?
As of 2021, the number of online shopping customers has reached up to 2.14 billion and will continue to grow even further. It clearly indicates that a large chunk of the population is using the internet to do shopping. Moreover, with the pandemic and the lockdown, it is safe to say that the future of businesses is online shopping. Having said that, it is not lost on us how hard it is to stand out in the cut-throat competition. This is where the design aspect of your website plays the role. Your website design is all about building a trustworthy relationship, better presentation, and an improved user experience. So, when it comes to features and usability, it’s critical to understand the difference between a custom web design and a template web design. Depending on your budget, requirements, business, and skill set you can decide what you want. Whether you want to build a website design on your own opt for a web design company is up to you. There are several pros and cons of both choices. So, let’s dive deep into the details so that you can make an informed decision.
Template Website Design
Template website design is becoming more popular with each passing day. Especially among entrepreneurs, bloggers, small business owners, and people who are in a hurry prefer to use template web design for their business. Among all the platforms WordPress is one the most widely used platforms to use template website designs. It allows you to just pick a web design off the shelf and get going. Which adds to the appeal of using template web designs.
Defining Template Website Design
Template website designs are pre-built web pages or sets of web pages that are practically clones of a website’s main structure and elements. You can partially customize the layout with your content.
These templates are often created by web developers. Based on elements such as CSS and HTML to keep the website working properly. It is the perfect choice for those who have a low budget, are short on time, and or people who need to build websites at a rapid speed. If you don’t need anything particularly unique in design, performance, and functionality, template web design is the ideal choice for you.
Pros of Using a Template Web Design
- Using a template can reduce the development time of your website significantly.
- Template web designs are useful for small-budget businesses to start with lower development costs.
- It also reduces the up-front payment as you don’t need to acquire web development services from any other agency.
- You can create a completely functional website through drag and drop even when you don’t have any knowledge of coding.
Cons of Using a Template Web Design
- With most of the businesses using template web designs for their business website, it is hard to stand out amongst your competitors.
- You have limited choices to customize your website design, limiting the creativity and functionalities of your website.
- Most templates are not fully responsive. Therefore, the design can change differently depending on the device you are using.
- Chances are that the template you use is not SEO-friendly. This can affect the ranking of your website.
- Templates often run on structured data, which limits the number of plugins that are compatible, resulting in limiting the functionality of your website.
- Although templates may seem like a convenience to use. A big issue is that, once you buy the template there is no support and maintenance for the template.
Using a template web design may be the best option in some cases. In some situations, you may not benefit much from using a template web design. It all depends on your goals and requirements.
Custom Website Designs
Custom website designs are created from scratch. Based on the unique needs of your business and your desired goals. It usually requires the web design services of a skilled expert to develop and customize the design.
You create a layout and then build a website design according to your strategy. A design that reflects your brand, values, and what you offer the customer. Creating a website that is designed to reach out to your audience, convey your message, and a powerful tool for conversion and engagement of the end-users.
Pros of Using Custom Website Design
- You create unique website designs that incorporate your brand’s vision.
- A tailored made website, designed to increase customer engagement and growth of your business.
- The website is designed to work perfectly on all platforms and devices with a completely responsive design.
- A custom-made website design is built with search engines in mind. They are usually SEO-friendly in design and structure.
- This will help to improve the credibility and authority of your business.
- You can easily create a fully functional ecosystem that allows you to integrate tools such as CRM and ERP into it.
Cons of Using Custom Website Design
- The first and most obvious disadvantage is the high price required to develop a custom web design.
- A custom-built website design will take much more time to build and optimize as compared to a template design.
- A complete web design and development team will be required to maintain and enhance the website with time to improve functionality.
- You need to have a coding background in order to create and maintain a custom-built website design. Or if that’s not possible you will have to employ a web design and development company to do the task.
With a custom website design, you have complete freedom of every aspect of your website design. You have the control and flexibility to create a website that speaks to the minds of your visitors/customers.
With complete know-how of all the pros and cons and differences between custom-built and template-built websites, you can make an informed decision regarding which one better suits your business needs.
Choosing Which one is right for you
Whether you should go with custom-built website designs or template-based website designs depends on your company’s demands.
Paying careful consideration to the advantages and disadvantages as outlined above is going to help you pick up the strategy that is best for your project. If you’re still stumped, take a peek at some of your most-visited websites and look for characteristics that seem alluring and attention-grabbing. Once you’ve found some you like, see if the website is custom-built or if it’s based on a template.
Another critical thing is to thoroughly analyze your overall strategy before making a decision. It’s critical that your website strategy supports the overall aims and outcomes you want to achieve with your company.
Unfortunately, we’ve seen far too many websites constructed and launched without these critical points being addressed prior to the start of the project. As a result, the website is never able to give the desired outcomes.
