You need a new website and one company quotes you thousands of dollars. Then you find a template that can get the job done for a fraction of that. Why wouldn’t you take the cheaper option?
Sometimes, it may be all you need. But the price you pay to get a website online isn’t always the full cost. Problems can show up later when the site is slow, doesn’t rank for local searches, or can’t do something your business now needs.
In this article, the team at our custom web design agency in Provo weighs in on why a budget website isn’t always the best website to support your company’s growth.
The Upfront Savings Aren’t the Full Picture
Cheap website templates look great at first. The low price catches your eye, and it makes sense to say yes. But most owners only look at the starting price and forget about the problems that can come later.
First, you can waste time forcing a generic template to do things it wasn’t built to do. For example, adding a booking form to a template that was only meant for basic pages can turn into hours of trial and error. A developer may be able to work around those limits, but that means paying for additions or changes you thought would be easy.
On top of that, your site can end up looking similar to other businesses using the same theme. That makes your business look average, not exceptional.
And finally, a rigid template may not support the easy, intuitive navigation your site needs. If people struggle to get around your website, they may leave without buying anything or picking up the phone. It’s worth paying more for a site that quickly leads people to a desired end, whether that’s filling out a contact form, placing a call, or buying a product.
When Your Site Can’t Keep up With Your Business
A website that worked when you first started out can get in your way a few years down the road.
Think back to the beginning. Maybe you only offered three basic services in Provo, and your website was just a simple “Contact Us” page. Back then, that was all you needed, and it did the job.
But then your business starts to grow. You add a new service, or you start taking on jobs up the road in Orem. Suddenly, you need a brand-new page. Then you realize your top menu is getting crowded, so you have to move things around just so customers don’t get confused trying to find what they need.
Your needs change in other ways, too. In the early days, handling everything by phone was fine. Now, you need customers to book their own appointments directly on your site. The trouble is, your basic template doesn’t have an easy way to plug that in.
You may be able to find a workaround, like downloading an extra add-on or paying a developer to patch things up. But you don’t want to have to work around the template every time your business takes a step forward. Eventually, trying to tweak and fix the old setup becomes more expensive than it would have been to start with something custom.
This doesn’t mean using a template at the start was a mistake. For the business you had back then, it was probably a good fit. But custom web design starts to make sense when you’re ready for a setup built around how your business runs today.
The Speed Problem Template Platforms Can’t Fix
Templates are built to work for all kinds of businesses at once. A single template might need to handle a restaurant menu, a clothing store catalog, and a gym schedule. Because it tries to do everything, it can come packed with extra code for features you will never touch. This hidden weight can make your pages load more slowly.
A custom website can leave some of that extra baggage behind. It is built with only the parts you need to run your business. With less code to process, your pages can open much faster.
If your site takes too long to open, some people won’t wait. They may hit the back button and click on a competitor instead. Customers don’t care why a site is slow; they just get tired of waiting. But Google cares, and your ratings start to reflect the exodus of customers.
You usually can’t tell the difference just by looking at the two sites. On a phone screen, a template site and a custom site might look identical. The true test happens when people actually try to use it and get stuck.
What Template Sites Do to Your Search Rankings
A template site can give you less control over some of the things that help your business show up on Google. That may not matter when your site is small, but it can become a problem when you want to make more specific search engine optimization (SEO) changes.
For example, Google uses information from your website to understand what your business does and where it operates. You may want to add extra information about your services, hours, or location behind the scenes. Some website builders let you change this easily, while others limit what you can add or how you can set it up.
A template may also force you into rigid heading structures. Headings and heading hierarchies are important parts of SEO, and search engines can get confused if they aren’t created right. Templates may also keep you from editing unique meta titles, descriptions, or schema markup, which should all be carefully orchestrated for optimal SEO.
That doesn’t mean a template website can’t rank well. In some cases, it can, but it can also keep you from making the small tweaks that could really move the needle on your SEO.
Get it Right from Day One
Getting it right at the start doesn’t mean spending more than you need to. It means building a site around how your business runs, instead of picking a template first and trying to make your business fit into it.
A good web design company will ask how customers find you and what you want them to do on your site. They will also want to know how your business might expand in the future. Your business won’t stay static, and neither should your web design. When you choose a customized design from the beginning, you can set yourself up for future growth without all the growing pains.