Custom Website Design or Template Customization
Have you ever wondered if you should invest in a fully custom website or template customization?
Both of these services are great but the one you choose will be determined by what works best for your business. And of course, financial investment as well!
Let’s chat a little bit about the difference between the two!
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Custom Website Design
With this option your designer is building your website from a blank canvas. As designers, we always pull inspiration from other websites and pages. However, the design flow and every page will be unique to your content.
The way I like to describe this on a consultation call is that with a custom website we are designing around your content. We take your images, copy and branding and create a layout that flows and makes the most sense.
Website strategy is a huge part of a custom website. And because of this, I do recommend this option for anyone who has an existing business that’s already making sales. Maybe you are one or two years into business and are ready to use your website as a marketing tool.
Think about the reason you want to invest in a website. Is it because you want a place for people to get more information about you or to easily book online? Then we don’t have to put too much strategy into the design. However, if you truly want to use it as the powerful marketing tool that an SEO optimized website is, then strategy is key!
Website strategy
Now I did mention SEO here, I can’t imagine building a custom website without my clients investing in SEO. Custom sites are not cheap and they take a lot of work from both ends. As the designer I am creating a unique strategy for your business through research. And on the clients end you are gathering all of the content which includes images and copy. I do recommend investing in branding as well. I have designers on my team who can do this for you if you don’t already have branding for your business.
We take all of the content that you provide and have an in depth conversation about:
- why you want a website?
- What do you want it to do for you?
- What are your business goals?
- Revenue goals?
- What systems do you already have in place that the website can compliment?
- What is your current marketing strategy?
- And are you willing to spend time on content marketing?
If a client is serious about using their website to market their business then I have no doubt in my mind that they should be blogging. You don’t have to but it really does help increase your SEO. It’s a great long term marketing strategy that continues to perform for years to come. In the same breath, you have to know that you will not see immediate results. It can take anywhere from 6-12 months to start noticing traffic increase to your website through your blog. But once you get to that point it’s like a snowball effect.
Blogging might not be for everyone and that’s okay. Even if you choose not to blog for your business you should still invest in SEO. This way Google can start to index your website and serve your pages in search results.
I am very honest with potential clients on consult calls. I wouldn’t want to sell a custom Showit website to someone if their business isn’t ready for it. That takes us right to what a template customization would look like!
Template customization
This is exactly what it sounds like, you choose a website template and I customize it for you. I have templates in my shop or you can purchase templates from another shop and I can customize it for you.
With this service your website is still going to represent your brand. We would add all of your branding and content to this pre-designed website. Templates can be really beautiful! And I don’t want to say that the only way you can have a strategic website is with a fully custom website. We can still build a website strategy in your template customization if you choose to add on SEO services.
If you invest in SEO we would go through the strategy process and build a strategic website for you. However, the design of the website is already determined by the layout. So we would be using the template as an outline. Whereas with a custom website we have no barriers and are building from scratch.
Showit does make it super easy to move around sections on a web page. We can always move existing sections around if needed to make it make sense for your content.
And that’s exactly what the big difference is. With this service we are fitting your content into an existing website. This is a great option for anyone who is just starting out in business and wants a website up to provide information. We can still add all of the integrations we would with custom, like a scheduler, email sign up, etc.
You can have the same functionality as you would on custom, the big difference is the design process and layout.
SEO add on services
I do want to quickly touch on SEO here just because I have mentioned it a couple of times!
For starters, if you’re wondering what is SEO?
Image from Semrush
The longer I have been in this business of website design the more I have realized how important SEO is! Honestly, I don’t know if any business owner should invest in a website if they aren’t investing in SEO. But hey, that’s just my opinion.
I understand website design is a big investment and then you throw in another service like SEO. I have played with the idea of having SEO as a non-negotiable and just including it in both packages. But I do understand, everyone is at a different place in business and has different needs and purposes for their investment. For now, I am offering SEO as an add-on service so you don’t have to invest in it if it’s not a financial fit at this time. But I do highly recommend it and who knows, this might change in the future. As of right now, it is an additional service for both custom website and template customization.
To keep this short and sweet and to really get the point across, let’s chat about what it would look like if we DID NOT optimize your website for SEO.
If your website is not optimized for SEO it might not show up in search results. Let’s talk about Google since it has the majority market share in search engines. If your website is not optimized Google will not know your website exists. When a user makes a search query your website pages will not show up in SERP (search engine results page). Okay, maybe just maybe you get lucky and one of your pages starts to rank in SERP. You can either leave it to chance that somehow Google will know your website exists or you can take control and actively hand over your site to Google to crawl. Ensuring it knows your website not only exists but exactly what services you offer and what your business is about.
Google wants your website to be found. Its whole purpose is to match users with relevant and quality content. If your website is providing answers to the questions your ideal clients are asking, Google wants them to find your content. When someone makes a search query and they go to a website, the longer they stay on the website it shows Google they matched them with the right content. And they will then continue to show that same content to others who are searching for the same things!
All this to say, if you are not optimizing your website for SEO, you are leaving money on the table. You are not using your website as a marketing tool.
And you know what, if you don’t want to use it to market your business, that’s fine too. It all comes down to your business goals and marketing strategy.
I hope that was helpful! If you are curious about which option would be best for you, feel free to book in a free consultation!
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