As a business owner you are always looking how to save money and make your business more profitable. When the time comes to create an online presence for your business, just like your marketing campaign and office’s appearance, your website needs to project a professional image. The more professional looking your business appears, the more creditable it looks. Many business owners don’t really understand the difference between having a custom web design done and using website templates. In this article we’ll look at two ways of having your website built and the costs involved.

Custom Web Design

The positives of a Custom Website Design

• With a custom web design it is created just for your business. Your website will be different from anyone else’s
• The ability and opportunity to tweak specific features that you would like to change, as the design or development is carried through
• Banner/Logo creation with the same designer, or design company, from where the custom website will carry the same theme or be in sync with your website feel and aesthetics
• By hiring the right designer/developer, it will be constructed so that it is search engine friendly
• The website will be designed to your company needs, and adaptable to future needs, as designers will consider future business plans, if they currently don't fit the budget

The negatives of a Custom Website Design

• They can cost significantly more. Designers can charge anywhere from $50 to $150 per hour (on average). Even a simple website, to suit small business needs, will generally cost well over a thousand dollars.
• You're not able to easily change or modify it, without going back to the original designer, or unless you learn HTML and other web languages yourself
• With a website that doesn't change, this makes it hard to adapt to your market and you wont be as well ranked in the search engines.
• Its can be risky, because you are hiring someone for their time, not for a specific product which you can see before hand.
• Most design companies have a contract which specifies that they only do a set number of alterations once they have made hte website, even if you dont like it, you may get stuck with a low quality website.

Template Web Design

The positives of Template Web Design

• Suit low budgets, where you would like to get it up and running asap.
• They are about the same quality, sometimes better, quality than custom website design solutions
• They are easy to expand. It can be a large and expensive task to add a page on a Custom Website Design. However, adding pages, products, categories, etc., is very easy with Website Templates.
• They are great for getting inspiritation on colours, layouts, and features, your web designer cannot copy these, however, they are great way to show your web designer an idea of the look you would like.
• Shorter development time.

The negatives of Template Web Design

• Unless you pay the "Exclusive" price for your design, it is not custom and focused directly on your business market, especially if it is niche and unique in colour, or design appearance, it would be hard to find a template that would reflect this niche topic.
• Other people may have the same template. It may be attractive and effective, but its not as unique. Other people will have the same borders, backgrounds and navigation that you do as a result of what a template is. Of course, most people visiting your site wont notice this, and most wont have seen the other sites with the same design. But for the small minority, this is a negative.
• If it is a really appealing template, there may be lots of other people who have already bought that very template.
• You will be limited on the customisation of the template, although you, or your web developer, designer, may be able to tweak, extend the design, it will not be as effective or efficient as having a designer design your website from scratch.
• Your logo or specific graphics may not be suitable to the theme appearance, and or may break the layout of the template as you edit it.

So which one then!

So what do I recommend. Both are just as fine as each other. The both have even negatives and positives. It mostly will come down to the preference of the person, and more importantly, the business objectives and budget allowance. Sometimes its good to outline what you business plan website requirements are. And contact a web designer/developer requesting a custom price solution and a template price solution. The template solution might be feasible with available resources. Otherwise if the request is relatively specific, it might have to be custom built from scratch.