If your business is on the small side and still growing, you may be tempted to take the cheapest way out when it comes to building and designing the website for it. Hold that thought! There are a lot of things you can get cheap, but a website for your growing company is not one of them.
It's best to choose custom web design from an agency for a lot of reasons, all of which we're going to go over in today's article.
- A website you OWN
This point is a big one since technically website templates were designed by other companies. Along with these templates comes the harsh but true fact: you don't actually have any creative control of your new website. There may be a feature included that you don't like and you want to get rid of it, but sadly it's a feature ingrained in the template so removing it isn't actually possible.
If this sounds like a headache you'd rather avoid, then it's worthwhile to save up for a custom site built by an agency instead. That way, you have all of the creative control of how you want your website to look, what you do and don't want to include on it, and still be able to add to it if needed post-launch.
- Built and personalized for your custom needs
Bad news: if there's something you don't like about the website template you’ve chosen, you may not be able to remove it or edit it easily so that it reflects your business exactly. You also don't get nearly as many options to add your own personal touches or unique designs.
In contrast, by investing in a custom website, you can add as much or as little creativity you need to give your company a competitive edge over the others online. Your custom website will define exactly who you are, what you have to offer, and how your customers or clients can receive the service you excel at providing.
- Putting the SEO into Friendliness
We can't state it enough: your business's website needs SEO in order to see some measure of online success. A website template won't nearly be as SEO-friendly as a custom one because it doesn't provide any further opportunity for improvements that give business websites an edge over their competition, such as user-friendliness and even mobile-friendliness.
With a custom website, you can apply as much white-hat SEO as needed to help you stand out over the crowd and ensure the search engines take notice and thus rank your website highly on search engine result pages (SERPs).
- Saving You and Your Business Money
Unlike a template website that another company owns, your custom website and its design is a one-time investment that will belong to you and you alone. There comes with custom websites a sense of security that if something goes amiss, it's because of an external force that's easily preventable and not an internal one that's beyond your control to fix. Several bugs from a template website are also avoided when you pay for a custom one.
The biggest con of a custom website is cost, but in lieu of all the other cons that come with a website template, if that's the only thing holding you back, then consider this choice: would you rather invest in something that ends up making you more money in the long run, or settle on the cheap route in attempt to save money only to come across several hiccups that end up costing you even more money?
When it comes to the choice, it's a no-brainer: custom websites' pros outweigh the cons every time.
We're Here for You
Our web development agency has been building websites for business owners, charity groups, and non-profit companies for nearly 30 years. No matter how big or small your business may be, we can handle the hard stuff for you. Yes, it may be an expensive choice, but the return on investment and the costs you save going forward outweigh the pros of a site template bar none.
If you need a new website and want to start investing in one that will help your company prosper, give us a call today.