Custom Website Design vs. Website Templates on Showit: Crafting Your Dream Website
If you’re gearing up to revamp your website this year, get ready to explore a whole new world of possibilities.
The big question is: should you go for bespoke craftsmanship or the ease of templates?
In this post, I’ll not only share some valuable insights to help you make this decision, but I’ll also guide you through the next steps once you’ve made up your mind.
Now, if you had asked me a few years back which is better—a custom website or a template—I would have said the template wouldn’t even stand a chance.
But times have changed. Website templates have come a long way, and now there’s a vast selection tailored to different industries, aesthetics, and business models.
The most important thing to consider is whether your business model is unique. If it is—say, you’re a photographer with a team, who also teaches and sells products and courses—a custom website design is likely your best bet. It’ll be tough to find a template that fits all those needs perfectly. But if you’re a photographer offering a standard set of services with package options, a template might be just what you need, as your business model is more straightforward.
So, let’s dive in and explore the options, shall we?
Custom Showit Website Design
Custom ShowIt Website Design Pros:
- Design Uniqueness: Stand out from your competition with a website tailored to your brand’s personality, vision, and model. No more feeling like a carbon copy of another website.
- Wireframe built with YOU in mind: You can create your user’s experience from the ground up, and design your messaging and copywriting in a way that is tailored to you, and most importantly your ideal client. You do not have to work around the constraints of a template where you need to “fit” your content around.
- Pixel-Perfect Precision: Control every element, from font size to animation timing, ensuring your website reflects your desired aesthetic with impeccable accuracy.
- Future-Proof Flexibility: As your brand evolves, your website can seamlessly adapt thanks to the bespoke structure of a custom design. No limitations here!
Custom ShowIt Website Design Cons:
- The Price Tag: Custom design comes with a steeper investment. Be prepared to shell out a lot more to create something tailored to you.
- The Skill Barrier: Unless you’re a website designer yourself, you’ll need to hire a professional designer, adding another layer of planning and communication.
- The Timeline: Having a custom website design will inevitably take more time. Every section and every canvas is designed from scratch.
Showit Website Template Design:
Website Template Design Pros:
- Affordable Access: Get a professional website up and running without breaking the bank. Templates offer great value for budget-conscious creators.
- Instant Inspiration: Dive into a library of pre-designed options, sparking ideas and shortening the decision-making process.
- Time-Saving Tweaks: Customize pre-built templates with your brand colors, fonts, and imagery, achieving a personalized look without starting from scratch.
Website Template Design Cons:
- One-of-a-Kind Flair: While you can customize, your website might still share similarities with others using the same template. Stand out through clever content and branding, that is where we come in!
- A Custom User Experience: When using a template, you want to follow the flow and structure that is pre-determined by the layout. That said, your messaging or offers may not always align with the layout, which will cause more work to re-arrange.
Choosing between custom design and templates is a personal decision. Consider your budget, design vision, technical skills, and future plans to make the call. Remember, your website is your virtual home, evolving alongside your brand. Choose an approach that allows you to grow, adapt, and showcase your unique brand and business to the world.
Now that you have some details to make an informed decision, here are our suggestions on the next steps forward.
Key Considerations for an Attractive and SEO-Friendly Custom Showit Website Design:
1. Hiring a Professional Website Designer: It goes without saying, this is a task that must be done by a professional. We have had clients who thought they could take on such task and later regretted the amount of time that it took them only to be met with mediocre results.
2. Finding The Right Website Designer: To start, let’s point out the elephant in the room, we happen to rock at custom website design, it’s our specialty, and what we are known for. But in reality, it’s even more important to find someone you align with. Not only on a professional level but on a personal level. Always, and I mean ALWAYS read reviews!! Of course, everyone is going to brag about how good they are, but when other people brag for them, that is when you should really listen. Lastly, check out their portfolio. All too often, I have seen people get enthralled by a designer who is AMAZING at Instagram, and rocking the coolest graphics, but when it comes to their actual website design, they suck. Yep, you heard it. Don’t get caught up in their smoke and mirrors – ask to see their LIVE website designs!
3. Budgeting For a Custom Website Design: You get what you pay for. In our experience, a custom website design can range anywhere from 10-20k, so start saving. Most designers do offer payment plans, which make it a lot more reasonable. Shoot, we even allow our clients to LAUNCH their brand and website PRIOR to their final payment. This means you can start making money right away on your new website 
That is the goal after all, right?
4. Branding & Copywriting is a MUST: Listen, without these two having a custom website design is pointless. They are the foundation. They set the trajectory for how a website is to be designed in the first place. Branding comes first, then copywriting, then website design – IN. THAT. ORDER.
Key Considerations for Choosing a Showit Website Template Design:
1. Hiring a Professional Website Designer: Yes, you should still hire a professional even with a website template. Let’s face it, not only are they going to do a better job than you, but why take away your time doing what actually generates your business income? If you are not a website designer, don’t design websites. That is not what makes you money.
2. Finding The Right Website Template: Showit has the best website templates in the market. But many people make the mistake of buying a template based on the esthetic, not the wireframe. A wireframe is the layout of a website. You want to ensure that the layout of the website (for the most part) fits your content. This means your offers, your business model, the way you structure your user experience etc. When we approach our Popular BLUEPRINT Package we learn a lot about our client’s brand, business model, and ideal client before helping them select a website template, which we then customize. We look at it from a professional standpoint and help our clients with this decision-making process. As we currently do not sell templates, we have a large rolodex of our favorite Showit Website Template Designers, which we will blog about next! Stay tuned.
