In today’s business world, where more and more companies are undergoing digital transformation, building a digital store serves as an e-gateway for any brand. By digital store, we mean the official website of the business, as well as its social media accounts and other platforms.
Therefore, when you embark on the journey of creating or revamping your website, you are bound to be faced with a crucial crossroads: choosing between a standard and a custom design.
We’re talking, of course, about so-called Template Design and Custom Design, with the decision to choose one of the two requiring careful consideration, as it directly affects your brand identity, user experience (UX), as well as the long-term growth of your business.
Each approach has its own advantages and disadvantages, which we’ll outline in this article to help you come up with the most appropriate design for your business.
Template Design
Templates are standard websites with ready-made drafts of predefined structure and architecture. They are configured in such a way that all the owner will need to add is specific content (texts and photos), which can then be expanded.
It is considered an advantage that in today’s market the availability of templates is unlimited, which means that depending on the image of the website you want to “build”, you choose the theme that meets your needs and desires. Furthermore, precisely because in the case of templates, the construction of the website does not require planning from the beginning, the time and cost of its implementation are greatly reduced.
On the other hand, even though you very quickly have a website in your hands, its content often cannot be properly “implemented” on the ready-made template, which implies the need for your branding to be adapted to the website.
In addition, the low price of ready-made themes is justified by the industrialized way in which they are manufactured, aimed at the public. So, practically speaking, there is a chance that you will end up with a website that looks like another, losing the opportunity for an edge over your competitors.
Finally, some themes don’t display properly on every device due to improper design, resulting in them being search engine unfriendly.
Custom Design
Custom design refers to the construction of the website from scratch. First, the graphic designer designs each page of the website, focusing on User Experience (UX). Then, the Developer takes on the task of converting the design received from the graphic designer into code to build the website. As is reasonably obvious, the first advantage of the custom template is the uniqueness of the design, which enables you to build a strong brand name for your business. In fact, with this design, you can choose from the beginning and at any time, without restrictions, the structure that suits you best, from the size to the way the menu is displayed on the website.
So, unlike the template design, the custom design is set up on the needs of your brand, which at the same time means more time and higher costs for the website construction.
How to choose correctly
Having gathered all the necessary information about both different website design “paths”, you are invited to make a crucial decision about the digital presence of your business. On the one hand, the ready-made template is an easy and affordable solution, but if you are aiming to create a strong brand name, a custom design is the ideal choice for you.
SoftOne‘s B2B eCommerce platform, SHOPRANOS, offers both e-shop design options, providing both a ready-made template with a predefined structure and the ability to create a website from the start. Your decision is therefore made solely based on your brand vision, philosophy and objectives.