Bespoke vs Templated Websites: Pros and cons

19 May 2022 . minute read

There are several approaches to creating a website design for your business. You can build a website from scratch using online tools like Wix and Squarespace, pre-made themes for content management systems like WordPress and Drupal, or engage a freelance web developer or web design firm.

Bespoke vs Templated

There are several approaches to creating a website design for your business. You can build a website from scratch using online tools like Wix and Squarespace, pre-made themes for content management systems like WordPress and Drupal, or engage a freelance web developer or web design firm. Each of the methods outlined above has benefits, but today we'd want to focus on why bespoke website designs are superior to templates.

A bespoke website design gives you complete control over every part of your site, from the design to ensuring that the user journey is optimised for conversions and that it is completely secure. Every aspect can be personalised to your liking. The benefits of bespoke website designs are as follows:

Unique to you and your company

The most obvious benefit of hiring a web designer to create a customised website design is that you may modify the look and feel of your site. While using a template or online tool allows you to use your own content and branding, the layout and overall design of the theme is usually limited, which means your website may appear like hundreds of others that use the same theme. Your business will stand out with a custom-built website design since it will be unique to you. You would be able to directly serve your customers.

Pages that go by quickly

When you choose a pre-made template, it usually comes with a number of plugins that allow you to customise various features of your website. The problem is that a big number of plugins can cause your website to slow down dramatically. You may discover that you don't need any plugins at all if you build a custom website from the bottom up. Your web design agency can create all functions just for you.

This allows you to concentrate solely on the speed with which your website loads, which is crucial for excellent Google rankings. You may enable page caching, optimise your pictures, and remove the need for many scripts to be loaded, which is a common problem with pre-made themes. Naturally, all of this is predicated on you hiring a fantastic web design firm or freelancer to build your website!

Secure

Security is crucial while building a custom website. It allows you and your web design company to ensure that all of your website's files and folders are secure and password-protected from possible hackers. To keep your site safe, you must ensure that plugins are updated on a regular basis when using a pre-made design. It's also worth noting that most skilled site developers will provide secure web hosting. Google has recently started penalising websites that lack a valid SSL certificate, but this should be a standard feature when building a new website from the ground up.

SEO-ready

With a bespoke website design, you can ensure that the site is built from the ground up with search engine optimization in mind. While the website templates are frequently extremely good for basic SEO, you'll need to install additional plugins to get the most out of them. Your custom-built website design will be significantly more optimal, especially if it is discussed before the job begins. This means you can actually tweak all of your materials to ensure you're immediately competitive.

Seamless user experience

One of the most popular reasons for developing and building a website from the ground up is that you can fully comprehend what you're doing and what you want from it. You may design your website around your users and give them the best path with some research and user journeys. This is where User Experience (UX) and wireframing each page come into play to ensure a smooth user experience from the point of entry to the CTA and conclusion point. You may quickly adjust your user journeys with a custom-designed website design, which is not possible with a pre-made theme.

Scalable

This leads to the topic of scalability. One of the main reasons your website will finally flourish is that you will be constantly modifying and improving it. Keeping track of what visitors do allows you to remove inefficient features while adding new parts and sections to enrich your website and, as a result, increase sales and conversions. After your site is up and running, working with a web design company allows you to maintain control and increase its features.

Why should you avoid using templates on your website?

No originality or creativity

The template will not be unique, even if the data you give is. Because other firms and enterprises may use the same one, you'll have to work twice as hard to distinguish unique.

You can, for example, include personalised icons, images, and your brand, which must be prominently shown in order for you to stand out. Visitors will be able to see whether the website is unique or based on a template.

User experience is poor.

While templates are appealing, the issue is that they do not address the user experience and all of its implications. Your buyer persona should feel as if the website was created only for him or her, and he or she should be represented in it.

When you use a template, your website is built in a generic way. It lacks the pleasure, efficiency, and excitement that a site tailored to the intended audience provides. This could be problematic since your buyer personas may not take the steps you want them to follow, which could lead to a purchase decision.

Poor SEO

Google's ranking algorithms can be harmed by sites using outdated code. Speed and user experience are two aspects of web vitals that templates might suffer with.

Conclusions.

Small businesses with little resources to invest in their digital image might consider templated websites. There are also many attractive template possibilities available on the market! If you lack the necessary experience, there are cost-effective agencies that may assist with the setup. Furthermore, some plug-ins that you may require may be incompatible with the website template version you have chosen.

If you manage a large corporation or a fast-growing startup, though, bespoke web design is a viable option.As you can see, website templates have a number of drawbacks, demonstrating that bespoke website design is superior to templates. Finally, the most important factor is to develop a user-friendly website that potential customers would enjoy visiting.


Interested in working with Diginow? Drop us a line at hello@diginow.co.uk.

We are a Creative Web Design Agency based in London & Leicester, specialising in Bespoke Website Design, Web Development, Branding and Digital Marketing.

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