At first, the thought of an easy, inexpensive template website seems like a no-brainer.  Fast forward 6 months, you have an established company with a growing clientele, but you can’t keep up.  You toss and turn at night because you are thinking about all of the customers you are losing because your, at one point easy and inexpensive, website is generic and costing you potential revenue.

Although dramatized, this is the case for many businesses that don’t invest in a strong, custom website.  Not only do they lack functionality and design, they are not made to handle growth. Custom websites on the other hand can create a foundation that will follow your company at the same speed as your growth. It should also be a reflection of your creativity with endless opportunities for styling and graphics.

Why A DIY Wesite Might Not Save You Any Money

Forbes: Why You Should Invest in a Custom Website

Important Website Features for 2019 and Beyond

Consideration Stage

If you are familiar with HubSpot’s 3 stage buyer’s journey for inbound marketing, you would know that the second stage is the Consideration Stage.  For those that do not know, the consideration stage is when the consumer defines their problem and actively researches solutions.

A custom website can help in this effort to add things that add value to their consumers, which in return, brings them to your site.  With a custom site, it is easy to add videos, blogs, and pages consistent with the themes of the rest of your website.

The Cons of Template Websites

Template websites contain many limitations with styles, themes, and growth.  There are a finite amount of styles and themes that a template website can provide, which means your website will look like a lot of other websites on the web.  Again with there being only a finite amount of style options you will only be able to add certain pre-made graphics that will most likely not apply to your product or service.  The maintenance and security is also sub-par because template sites are in control of tens of thousands of websites at one time. 

Why Custom Websites Are Superior

  1. Tailored to your needs

    • Hence the name “custom”.  A custom site can be the ideal candidate if you want to go above and beyond what template websites such as WordPress or Wix can offer you.  This gives you all of the power to bring your creativity alive to showcase your company.  

  2. Can have more advanced features

    • In a custom you are not stuck with generic features and themes you can add new and innovative website designs.  It also makes it easier for your site to have the same custom style throughout your website.
          

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  3. No limitations

    • You will have a much greater palette to choose from for design, graphics, and themes.  You will also be able to create endless pages and blog posts easily. The website will be yours and you will not have to rely on an outside source to give you permission.  

  4. Can grow with your business

    • Custom websites are all about growth and having clean code to ensure that your website will be able to handle more traffic.  The last thing you want to do is outgrow your website.

  5. Built in SEO

    • Because the sites code is created from “ground-zero”, you can add SEO keywords and descriptions into the site more frequently and in better places.  This will give you a better overall SEO ranking.

  6. Easier to Update

    • Since it is your own code it will be easier to update new features instead of having to alter custom sections in a template website when it updates.

But Wait, There’s More…

Now that you know the difference, it is easy to see the apparent advantages there are to creating a custom website.

Freedom.  At the end of the day a custom website will give you more freedom to build what you want.  It will make it more secure, easier to modify, and more SEO power.