6 Advantages of Custom Web Design Over Template-Based Website Design
When designing a website for your small business, there are numerous options and factors to consider. One aspect is that of deciding between custom web design or buying a pre-packaged website template.
Many people mistakenly think that website templates with complete content customization qualify as custom web design. However, customizing web pages using website templates can only be done within the established parameters of the template. True custom website design, on the other hand, gives full control over the creation process. Keep reading to discover the advantages of custom web design.
Custom Web Design vs. Template-Based Design
Custom web design involves designing a website from the ground up, tailoring it to the business’ needs and preferences. In contrast, a template-based designed website is formed from a pre-designed layout that enables you to arrange content such as videos, blogs, and images onto the webpage within the existing design.
Advantages of Custom Web Design
Just a few of the advantages of custom web design include the following:
1. Uniqueness and Individuality
Since custom web design holds no limitations for the development of your website, you can create a unique, personalized website to help your business stand out and give you a competitive advantage over your competitors. For example, this client wanted a partially transparent menu bar that is located at the bottom of the page to show their highly visual work. However, when you scroll down past the menu bar, they wanted the menu bar to then become “sticky” to the top of the page. Additionally, as a company that’s been around over a 100 years, they wanted their images to be monochrome and then fade to color on hover to tip their hat to their heritage.
With custom design, this unique flair is possible.
2. Improved Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Due to the full control of the creation process that custom web design allows, and the guidance you receive from both professional web developers and SEO specialists, a custom web design can help your small business achieve higher search engine rankings. Many templates pre-program certain elements from a visual standpoint. As a result, a call-to-action section within a template may be coded for as a heading 2 and not allow that section to be reformatted properly for your unique application. Additionally, customization of structured data (schema) lacks customization ability.
3. Access to a Team of Professional Web Developers
With custom web design, you can rest easy with the knowledge that a professional web development team will be there to troubleshoot any issues and keep your website up and running. Additionally, a website design team can help guide you on today’s best practices for website design and user experience. On the other hand, templates can quickly become outdated, and the template maker has little motivation to pull/remove an outdated template from their associated template purchasing platforms.
4. Easily Incorporate New Features
A custom web design allows you or your design team to make any changes or improvements as needed in order to keep your website up-to-date and ahead of the curve. This allows you to fully adapt your website to your company’s evolving needs as you add more products/services or incorporate custom interactive elements like online forms, scheduling tools, e-commerce functionalities, and more.
5. Flexibility for Future Changes Requiring New Layouts
Additionally, a custom design gives you greater flexibility to adapt your website design in the future. For example, if you pick a template that has the logo centered and navigation wrapped around the outside, but later discover this layout doesn’t work well for new navigation items you want to add, you’re stuck. On the other hand, if you have a custom design, the navigation layout can be easily reformatted for a different menu structure.
6. Improved User Experience
Create customer profiles (or personas) to help understand your users and their goals when visiting your website. By developing a fully customizable website with your target market in mind, you can achieve the ideal user experience for your target audience.
Contact Igniting Business for Custom Website Design
At Igniting Business, our team of professional web developers can help create a custom website designed to fit your small business’ specific needs and budget. To learn more about our custom website design services, or to schedule a complimentary consultation with our web design experts, contact us today!
