There are a couple of different ways to go about building your business website. For the busy, modern business owner, templates are certainly appealing. They offer a convenient and cost-effective alternative to hiring a professional web designer.
Unfortunately, templates don’t necessarily provide you with the best opportunity to showcase your business and build your brand in the online arena. Templates are inescapably limiting and they may not deliver the unique, professional appearance you need to impress, inspire, and engage consumers, not to mention make conversions.
You cannot rely on templates if you want to promote yourself as an authority and leader in your field. The same is true if you want your website to extend your brand image and message into the virtual world. Instead, you need to explore custom website design.
It may cost you more up front, but you stand to gain a lot of benefits in the process. Here are just a few advantages you’ll enjoy with a custom website for your business.
Branded Design
A lot goes into building a brand, starting with a mission statement and logo.However, your brand ideals and image will also shape how the consumer public feels about your business.
What do you think when you see a Nike swoosh, McDonald’s golden arches, or the Apple icon? How do you feel? There’s more to it than the products they create.There is a relentless push through marketing and branding to make you associate concepts like strength, honesty, and prestige with a company.
These companies do not use templates for their websites and neither should you. With custom web design, proper marketing, and premium SEO services you can position your company to compete in the virtual world.In addition, your efforts will carry over to real-world views of your brand as well.
Unlimited Options
Templates are a generic simplification of a complicated process. They allow amateurs to walk through activities that small business owners would normally have to hire a professional to complete.
Using templates to create your website will naturally restrict your options for everything from architecture, to layout, to the overall design of your pages. In addition, you may end up stuck with coding you don’t want.
Custom web design allows for a ground-up approach to building your website, a process by which you build exactly what you want, devoid of unnecessary items. This also gives you the opportunity to make changes over time, a prospect that is made much more difficult with restrictive templates.
If your needs are simple and your budget simply won’t allow for custom web design, SEO, and marketing services, DIY templates may be your only choice, at least initially. However, you need to seriously consider what you stand to lose by limiting yourself in this manner.
Responsive Design
More and more consumers are using smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices to browse the internet and view websites. If your site isn’t designed with responsive architecture, it may not display properly on mobile devices.
The last thing you want is for users to have to scroll, swipe, and resize incessantly just to view your content. This frustrating scenario doesn’t make for a very good customer experience. Custom web design will not only appeal to mobile users, but if lead generation and other conversions are at the top of your list of goals for your website, responsive design is a must.
Adaptability and Scalability
Your business may grow over time. In fact, this is an ideal scenario. Unfortunately, there may also be times when you have to scale back. What does this have to do with custom web design?
When you hire a professional web designer to build your site, you have the opportunity to express both your goals and any concerns you may have about future growth. This information allows your designer to develop your site with adaptability and scalability in mind, preparing for potential outcomes by implementing necessary architecture that can adapt to suit your needs and grow with your company.
Whether you hire or fire, increase or decrease product lines, or expand into other territories by offering new goods or services, you need your website to afford you the flexibility to adapt with new features, new pages, new employee and customer accounts, and more. With a custom website the sky is virtually the limit.