One of the most common questions that we are asked as a digital design agency is, “should I have a Custom Website Design or a Template Theme Design”. While there are differences for both, and there is always a situation where each one is a viable option.

Depending on your type of business, and how integral your website is to your business success, this may reflect on what option you may choose. Here are some key differences between Custom Website Design & Themed Template Websites:

Target Audience

This is a huge factor within any business. Your website needs to be suited to the audience that it will be shown. Let me give you an example.

Let’s say that you are a company who are in the financial investments industry. More often than not, the bulk of your target audience is going to be middle aged males aged 40-65, right?

Having a custom based design means that you’re able to explicitly alter the look and feel of the website through design, based on who you are targeting.

Doing this through the style and aesthetics, colour palette, and even how the content is laid out – in a clear and concise manner. So in this example, you may have the content laid out in a clear, corporate-like style. You’re able to design around your target market.

Company Branding

I’m sure you know that a brand is much more than just a logo.

Ensuring that all of your brand assets, collateral, tone, personality and visual style is expressed through the website design may be something that will help ensure your online business is successful.

A custom build website design will ensure that the website is built around your existing brand to reflect this, and not just the logo being added to a pre-existing template with the addition of colours being changed to suit.

Website Speed & Performance

One of the downfalls of using a templated website is that because they catered to so many people, and have so many features and elements built into them, they can become slow and sluggish.

When you have a custom website build, you will generally only build into the website what you need. So all of the unused elements that may be potentially installed with the theme of a template website will be avoided.

One of the downfalls of using a templated website is that because they catered to so many people, and have so many features and elements built into them, they can become slow and sluggish.

When you have a custom website build, you will generally only build into the website what you need. So all of the unused elements that may be potentially installed with the theme of a template website will be avoided.

One of the downfalls of using a templated website is that because they catered to so many people, and have so many features and elements built into them, they can become slow and sluggish. When you have a custom website build, you will generally only build into the website what you need.

So all of the unused elements that may be potentially installed with the theme of a template website will be avoided.

Why is the load speed of your website important? Well, a quick example would be to say what website are you most likely to bounce from: one that takes 1 second to load, or one that takes 6 seconds to load? Need I say more?

Our custom built websites are built to be lightweight and maintained that way.

Costs of Custom Website Design vs Theme Templates

This one ultimately tends to be what a lot of the decision making between choosing a template website, or custom website design is decided on. Templates are a bit like Ron Seal’s slogan “Does what is says on the tin”.

They are a pre-designed template, so, therefore, a lot of the bulk work has been cut out, therefore costs are a lot lower than a custom build.

But you have to weigh that up against some of the points that I have mentioned previously, such as how important is the website to your businesses success. Whilst you are going to be paying a lot more for a custom built website, the idea is that if you are targeting the right market, and have a brand compliant design, it will last you years.

In addition, your custom website would be much easier to implement new features and updates going forward. So the short term you will be spending more, but getting better value over time.

Whatever your decision may be in choosing what type of website design is best for you, whether that be a custom build website design or a themed pre-built template website, ultimately it will be different for each project.

At isev, we offer an unbiased opinion to all of our clients on what we think our best recommendation would be reflecting your business and budget.

If you would like to know more, drop us a link anytime and one of the team would be more than happy to help.