Custom Website Design vs Readymade Template: Best option for a company with limited budget?

Every brand, product, company or service provider needs a website. Website has become a basic necessity over the years. A zero online presence portrays yourself and your business as not being serious or credible. Not just that, a website is a great source for the following:

1. Showcase your products & services
2. Provide support and contact information
3. Provide support like documentation, how-to, brochures, downloadable software etc
4. Case studies and testimonials to show your credibility

Ways to start looking to create a website

1. One would typically start with a search on the internet to find how to get a website done.
2. Many would also write to nearby website design companies and request for a quote.
3. Some would ask their friends for suggestions or recommendations
4. If you have a friend who is into web design or web development, you would ask them too.

After these initial research, you end up with various suggestions, costs, timelines and yes, confusions!!

1. Cost from as low as $100 – $10,000
2. Timelines from as low as 1 day to 30 or more days depending on the size
3. Some suggesting for a template and some for a custom website

Readymade Template Advantages:

1. Cost Effective.  A professionally designed, attractive website suitable for your business can be purchased for as little as $25. You download the entire website and all you need to do is add the images, customize the content. You need to however note that, most of the template sellers will charge a premium cost for this service.
2. Exact Design: When you purchase a readymade template, they provide you an exact copy of the demo or template image you saw before purchase. You don’t have to be worried if a different design or not-so-close template is delivered after you pay for it
3. Delivered same day.    Most web design companies take a week or even a month to deliver the first set of designs. Some, get the money and don’t deliver. While purchasing a ready-made website template, the entire website is delivered immediately as soon as you pay.
4. Variety of Designs and Customizations. Website designs are available in abundance and you can filter designs according to:
   1. Color
   2. Technology
   3. Business Industry
   4. Layouts
      This helps you choose from hundreds of designs yourself and pick the very specific design you like. When you search ready-made templates, you are also searching from among many designers so you see different kinds of designs which is a great advantage. These designs are mostly designed by professionals who are topnotch designers.Most of these designs also allow you to further customize colors, layouts, images and content as you please. However, you will certainly require assistance from a developer or you will end up messing up what was given. Going back to the template seller and asking to fix will prove to be a costly effort.

5. Innerpages and Funtionality.  If you are looking for a travel website, you can find websites with travel search options, if you are into mortgages you can find designs with mortgage calculators and so on. Whether Real Estate, Technology, Servicing, Medicine, Travel, Hospitality or any sector, you can find tools, functions and pages specifically designd for your purpose. This is great and can help you quickly get your website up and running with the support of a developer or even better if you yourself are a coder

Disadvantages of using Website Templates

Advantages definitely look great. But there is a catch. And its an important one. You definitely will require support of a developer. If not, you will have to spend hours researching how you need to setup on your hosting and how to further customize and change the photos, content, navigation and other vital information. Hosting company will not assist you in that. The template seller would usually charge much higher rates than a developer would. There are few more you need to consider before choosing this option.

1. Not Unique
   The same design you purchase would have already been purchased by many. If its a really popular template and looks great, there is a certain chance atleast 100s would have downloaded and used it. So, if you want your website to be unique, this is definitely not the option. Some website template companies do allow you to purchase it completely so no one else is able to download it again. Howver, its only for future downloads. The person who downloaded before you will already have it. Also, for complete purchase, the cost will usually be 20 times higher. After which you will have to find a developer to further customize it and it might even exceed the cost for a custom design website.
2. Software
   To customize a website further you will require image editing tools and coding tools. Which you will have to further purchase if you wish to do it yourself. You will also require knowledge on HTML, CSS and even PHP or .NET based on the technology the template has been created. You will also require expertise on banners and image designs. This, if you are a novice and plan to do it yourself, will cost precious money and time.
3. Customization
   Though templates do provide good options to customize, they don’t provide all customization needs a user will end up needing.
   Some of them that we have seen our clients have faced include:
   1. Increase banner height or layout size changes
   2. Use a different page editor or slider than the one provided
   3. Change how a menu looks
   4. Improve the website performance
4. Internet Marketing

Building a website is not just about great designs. Its also about:

1. Reach
2. Search engine Ranking
3. Enquiries
4. User Experience

Website templates give you great design. However, they usually are not optimized for search engines. They are heavy as they are loaded with features to support all requirements. They also tend to be sluggish with unwanted plugins and coding. So, you will have to clean it up and optimize it so that it ends up performing on search engines. This will require you to hire a digital marketing company who can help you technically and provide a detailed report or plan on how to make your websites successful.

Custom Webdesign Advantages & Disadvantages

Custom web design is a better option if you are planning to build a solid website which will be reliable and have continuous technical support.However, there should be careful steps taken when you choose a firm to get your website built. Many who have approached us in the past did not have a smooth sailing. They ended up getting bad designs, no replies after getting an advance or difficult to work with team.

Please ensure you follow these steps before you choose a good web design company:

1. Check their credibility through customer feedbacks, years in industry etc
2. Check if they have a proper physical office in place and are not freelancers who cannot be traced once you make a payment.
3. Ask for pervious work
4. Ask for references to some of their previous clients
5. Setup a face-to-face meeting or if they are in another country a remote video conferencing
6. Ask them to write to you clearly what they will deliver
7. Even better, go for a agency through one of your friends references who has directly worked with them.

These steps should help you find a decent web design agency and get your website built successfully.