19 Essential Benefits of Custom Website Design for Your Business
Updated February 2023
Custom Website Design is An Investment in Your Business
Has the lack of profit you are making on your online business left you scratching your head? Stop wasting your valuable time and limited resources! Instead, get a custom website design to help grow and support your business.
Look, I get it. But, it can seem intimidating to invest in a custom website design. That makes it tempting to purchase an out-of-the-box website template. DIY websites are often inexpensive and can be set up in only a few days. But a custom website will always provide more value to your business in the long run than a template site.
That’s why it’s crucial to view your website as an investment, not an expense. In the same way that a great employee or a fantastic store location will eventually pay dividends, the same goes for your website.
Why is that?
Growing your online presence is a top priority to maximize your profit. In today’s world, people spend more time peering into their phones and computers than on the outside world. So if you’re going to make more profit, you need a solid foundation for your business online.
Sometimes, even after having an attractive landing page or a social media presence, a business might fail to generate the profit they expect. Or you might have a business website, but you can find a thousand other similar sites online.
A Custom Website Is Not Your Only Option
Custom website design is one way to get a website or online store that matches your expectations and supports your business objectives. But it is not your only available option. The web design marketplace is full of choices for consumers.
Business owners have options ranging from established web design agencies and freelance designers to DIY services that promise the moon (all for one low monthly cost). And that can be a big problem.
Most business owners have little or no understanding of custom website design or website design in general. What matters most to them is the bottom line. Web design costs are scary for them, and they often opt for the cheapest option, such as a template website or DIY web design.
Thus, convincing a business owner to invest in a custom website can be difficult. They may see the low-cost options as being just as good. Or they may not understand the difference.
Often these differences are not apparent to the untrained eye. I want to explain the primary differences between custom website design and other options. And I will outline a few reasons you may want to consider hiring a professional and getting a custom-designed website.
Custom website design differs from free or DIY website builder or template. So the results you achieve may vary depending on your tool or template. But it will help you to consider these key benefits.
19 Key Benefits of Custom Website Design
Creating a Better First Impression
First impressions mean everything, no matter how unique your products are or how good the quality of the service you provide is. If the traffic on your page finds your website messy and challenging to maneuver, they will leave and not return — because first impressions mean everything.
A client once scared off by your website will not return, and you will lose the chance of a successful conversion. A custom web design catering to your business is “dressed to impress.” Your website designer is getting paid to make your website look impressive, catering to your business needs.
Impress and hold your clients from your first visit with your custom web design and keep them returning as repeat customers.
Providing a Better Customer Experience
Just as you should strive to give every customer a tailored, personal experience in your day-to-day business dealings, you should aim to do the same with your website.
A one-size-fits-all website solution is unlikely to give your particular customers the unique experience they deserve. With custom web design, you can tailor your website to your customer—because you know them best.
Whether it’s a unique landing page layout, a clear navigation architecture, a highly responsive design, or an intuitive user funnel, your website must provide a great experience at every step because every interaction with your website is an interaction with your business.
Standing Out from the Digital Noise
How is your business website different from the twenty other similar businesses available on the market? If your website is just the same as every other business website, what reasons are you giving your consumers to choose yours over the others?
A custom website makes you stand out. If your website has a unique design that gives you the “x-factor,” you will attract more customers to your website.
Standing out is vital if you want to grow your business, and you can hire a custom web designer to give you the unique website you desire. If you opt for an experienced website design company like PixoLabo Web Design, your vision for your great website can become a reality.
Adaptable Design
Technology changes fast. It’s no different when it comes to web design. Likewise, the way people use the web is constantly changing, whether it’s newer phones, switching browsers, or other unexpected contenders entering the scene.
In 2023 your clients will access your website on various devices. People use their computers, phones, and tablets and may also use their smart televisions or home devices to make purchases.
A custom website can cater to these different devices and screen sizes, making it a more adaptable design.
If your business website or online store fails to provide the best possible user experience, regardless of the device, your visitors will abandon your site in favor of your competitors. Therefore, you want to keep the competitive advantage of giving clients what they want.
With a custom website design, you can stay on top of that change to ensure that your site visitors—and potential customers—are always getting the most modern possible browsing experience.
Built Around Your Product
Are you starting a new business or launching a new product and want your website to aid the launching? Building your online presence at the start of a business or product launch is essential.
Good custom web designers don’t just give you an attractive website; they often come with a team to help you reach your success goals.
If you are launching a product, they can help build your website in such a way that it will aid the product launch. Your new product gets highlighted correctly, helping your business meet its product launch goals.
Improved User Experience
Imagine a prospective client appearing on your landing page looking for something they need. They need the proper guidance to nudge them to their desired destination.
However, they come in and get “lost.” They roam about the website fruitlessly, and getting frustrated, they leave.
This scenario is the website usability failure that keeps an entrepreneur up all night. As mentioned before, clients hate websites that are difficult to navigate. But, on the other hand, you want to make the consumer experience worth their time. Therefore, your website needs to be easy to navigate.
Customers who find their desired product quickly on your website are more likely to stay and browse, looking for other products they might like.
Custom Functionality
DIY web design options may offer specific functionality that a business owner is looking for…or not. Wix and Squarespace are good at adding features that many users have come to expect. But they don’t offer everything. If what they have on hand doesn’t match your needs, you’re out of luck.
On the other hand, a custom website does not have these limitations. Our web design team can create just about any layout you require using modular frameworks. If the exact functionality you need is not available, we can build it for you. Of course, you will pay more for custom website design. But you are getting what you want or need in return.
Nowhere is this more evident than in e-commerce design. “I only need a straightforward online store with a few items or products.” That is how many of our e-commerce projects start.
But no matter how simple or basic an online store is supposed to be, there are always quirks. These challenges often require writing custom code or adding a niche plugin. That is what puts the “custom” in a custom website.
Built Around Your Business
A custom website is built around your business and the message you want to convey. Custom web design differs from squeezing your logo into a ready-made theme. The ability to have something unique that matches your specifications is also essential.
Using an online site-building platform to build your website means that there will be a particular format. Most come with some features that you do not need.
Not only are you paying for these unnecessary features, but they are making your website heavy. In addition, they might increase your loading time, resulting in dissatisfied people leaving the site before they make a purchase.
You get the results you need with a custom web design and the right e-commerce solutions. The web designer will make you a site that caters to what you want to provide to your clients. Instead of getting an ordinary website with features you don’t need, you will get one that meets your needs precisely.
Promotes Your Brand
What will your target audience remember you by? Unfortunately, so many businesses worldwide selling the same products make it more challenging for your business or product brand to stand out.
Branding will always be a great marketing strategy, especially when building an image and identity for your business. So how do you develop and uphold that image?
While your business offering may be better than your competition’s, the strength of your brand is what gets people in the door.
With a templated website, your ability to stand out from the pack will be limited. When potential customers see a cookie-cutter website, they see a cookie-cutter business.
With a custom website design, you are far more able to showcase the true power of your brand and what makes you unique. In addition, a beautiful website design with a strong and focused brand promotes your business as more reliable, professional, and compelling.
A great web designer will work with you to ensure that all the best aspects of your branding are reflected in your website to provide your visitors genuinely understand of who you are and what you do.
Your brand image from your office and packaging to your website and social media accounts should burn brightly.
The logo, the color, and the theme should remain the same everywhere for consumers to associate with and remember.
Your custom website will contribute to your brand reputation. Every visitor stumbling on your website will leave impressed, knowing, and remembering your brand.
A Community for Your Business
If you check the websites for big successful businesses such as The Body Shop, Lush, etc., you will find that they effectively use their custom websites to communicate with clients and promote their business.
Your business can be that too. Big companies know the business website should look as exciting, inviting, alluring, and comforting as an actual shop. So, just as shops are designed to attract passersby, your website should do the same.
Your custom website can become an inviting place that effectively communicates your business style and customer service to the clients. Build a consumer community with your website, where there is space for clients to communicate, which will make clients feel more involved with your business.
Competitive Advantage
To stay relevant in the market, you must keep an eye on the competitors. If you do some research on the market, you will see that more and more businesses rely on custom web design. As a result, companies looking for a competitive advantage know this initial investment is worth it.
If all your competitors have custom websites and you opt for an easy solution website, you won’t attract many clients. Your website becomes the face of the quality of your product and customer service.
If your website looks ordinary and lacks effort, it creates a negative impression, and your brand will appear less trustworthy.
There is another reason a custom website gives you an advantage.
When you enter a market, you make yourself vulnerable to copying. A lot of existing or new competitors in the market will try to copy what you do. They will copy everything from a similar brand logo and advertisement to packaging and the product itself.
A ready-made web template will make your web design very easy to copy. Sometimes competitors use similar names and websites to lure your clients to their business.
A competitive advantage over them will make you even more of a target. However, a custom website design is difficult to copy. Even if they try to imitate everything, they won’t be able to do it with every component that sets them apart.
Adaptable and Scalable Design
When you are buying into a DIY service, you are stuck. The service provider will not just let you take your website since everything is most likely proprietary. Closed systems like this have some advantages but are also one-way streets.
A template website is confining. Even if you found a template that worked for you before, you may find yourself permanently cemented in that solution, unable to change.
A custom website design using an open-source CMS does not limit you if your needs or vision change down the road. You are free to host your site just about anywhere. If you ever want to switch to a different platform, someone has most likely crafted a tool to help you migrate content (if not the design) from the old one.
And consider this: what matters most to you today may change tomorrow. Any business owner understands that a business is constantly evolving. Whether it’s a new product, brand, or core focus, the most substantial companies can pivot when the market calls for it.
A key benefit of custom website design is the ability to highlight what matters most to your business. Whichever features matter most to you and your customers, you can display them front and center.
Therefore, a modern business or product brand needs an adaptable website to keep up with your demanding business needs and customers.
With a custom website design, you have complete control and true business independence to make any custom changes required—no matter how small—to ensure that your technology never holds back your business.
Grows with Your Business
Custom web designers understand that a business is a growing entity. A company will grow and expand, and the future development of both business and the surrounding technology will require adaptation to change.
With a custom web design, you will find plenty of space for change. Most businesses offer the space for changing as needed if you ask for it. Also, they build your website, hoping for a profitable future, ensuring that your website can handle a higher traffic inflow.
With a custom design, you get the flexibility to change and the space to cater to a broader audience if needed. Some web designers may even offer you free or discounted site maintenance for some time.
Improved Security and Page Speed
The problem with a ready-made platform to build your website is that the entire platform might be compromised if one page attracts a security threat. Hence, while using an open-source CMS platform, you are exposing your website to unnecessary hazards.
Security is a crucial reason why custom web design and hosted eCommerce platforms are better than open-source CMS websites. With your website’s design and software managed by experts, you get a more secure online presence.
Speed is another problem with some CMS platforms. Millions of users use their platforms to make pages — making the platform content-heavy and slow. Traffic will not linger on a slow website, leaving before your business can convert them to paying consumers.
Improved Search Visibility
Search Engine Optimization is crucial if you want to get more traffic and conversions on your website. Without SEO, clients will not find you when browsing their search engines for your business’s products and services.
Professional and experienced custom website designers can provide you with an online presence that is search engine optimized. A custom website design can positively influence the most essential search engine ranking factors.
The most important ranking factor has always been the number of high-quality links pointing to your website. Nothing earns more links than a beautiful, compelling website design.
More recently, Google’s search ranking algorithm has placed more value on websites that provide an incredible user experience thanks to unique, engaging content.
Factors like the time users spend on your site and how many pages they interact with are now considered when ranking your site in search results.
So the more you can “wow” your site visitors, the more likely you are to positively affect the signals that Google cares most about—boosting the number of visitors to your site and boosting your business.
Experienced Web Designers
A website is more than just a few pages of content slapped onto a server. There needs to be a strategy for how a website looks, functions, and the reasoning behind its content. Without an effective web design strategy, it’s easy for a site to become inconsistent and aimless.
Not having a strategy is often the case for small businesses that may not have a team of in-house experts. It is also an area where hiring an experienced web designer or agency can be an asset. There is excellent value for clients in hiring someone who knows what they’re doing when building a website. In addition, a designer can pick up on the details that business owners would otherwise miss.
The point is that a company’s website or e-commerce store is too crucial to entrust to anyone less than an expert in their field. This simple fact makes custom website design an attractive and cost-effective option, especially in the long run.
This fact is especially true for small businesses. They may not have a team of experts on hand. It’s also an area where an experienced web designer can be an asset. There is excellent value for clients in hiring someone who knows what they’re doing. A designer can pick up on small details that business owners would otherwise miss.
An organization’s website is too essential to be trusted by anyone less than an expert.
Professional Relationships
A dependable partner is worth their weight in gold. It’s one less thing for a business owner to worry about. Web designers often build long-term relationships with clients. And we are there to provide expertise, support, and advice. Those things can’t be easily replicated or replaced.
It’s an important distinction and a key selling point. The ability to communicate easily with a designer is vital. It’s also an advantage over large conglomerates. It sure beats waiting on hold for a support representative (who may or may not be able to answer your question).
Being a custom website design team is more than merely building websites and online stores. Here at PixoLabo, we often build relationships with clients that last for the long term. Some of our clients have become personal friends over the years. And we are there to provide expertise, support, and advice. Those are things that can’t be easily replicated or replaced.
Our personal relationship with clients means we are interested in their success. Our clients are not just another number. They are people who can rely on us to help them achieve their online objectives. And that is one less thing for you, the business owner, to worry about or do on your own.
An Investment in Your Business
When speaking with a potential client, we always point out that building a custom website is a long-term investment. A website is something that evolves and grows along with your business. While budget is certainly an understandable constraint, it’s also worth mentioning that you get what you pay for.
These days, many low-cost site builders provide decent products and have a legitimate place in the web design market. But generally, they are for those with either meager budgets or a real DIY spirit. I am not saying that you can’t build a website yourself. I am merely pointing out that building a website for their business is not the best use of a business owner’s time.
Most businesses don’t have the time to put things together by themselves. Nor do they have the web design expertise necessary to create something that lives up to its full potential or supports their business objectives. So, depending on the tool they use, some end up frustrated by the process and decide to hire a professional.
Many low-cost site builders provide a decent product and legitimate market position. But generally, they’re for those with either meager budgets or a real DIY spirit.
Business owners doing it all on a limited platform are taking time away from their fundamental strength – running their business. That can stall growth and end up negating any initial cost savings. And that’s a big deal.
A Better Return on Investment
Ultimately, you’re in business to make money. So with every business decision you make, you should ask yourself if that decision contributes to your bottom line.
Therefore, you should treat your website the same way. For example, is your site simply an online business card, or is it powering your business?
When it comes to web design, a custom website design will generate better ROI.
Every previous benefit on this list has been building to this point. A custom website will draw more potential customers to your site, provide a better customer experience once they’re there, and ultimately convert more visitors into business.
That’s why it’s wise to view your website as an investment rather than an expense. A powerful website will pay itself off many times over by working for you to generate new business.
Custom Websites Are Usually the Best Option
Business owners and other professionals who need a website or online store hear mixed messages about which option they should choose. While some website tools and builders do a decent job, job users sooner or later face limitations they can not overcome.
Please take my advice. Choose a custom website design from the beginning. Yes, it will cost you more money. But you will save a lot of time and frustration, not to mention wasted effort and money, in the long run.
Your business will become less profitable if you base your online presence on an ordinary, ready-made solution website. Conversely, investing in a custom website can help you grow your business.
Your unique, custom-built website will help your brand image and offer a more stable base for your online business. It is an investment that will help you provide a secure and beautiful ecommerce experience for your clients, who will keep coming back as repeat customers. We are here to help!
We Can Help You with Custom Website Design
Do you need a better website or online store to meet consumer expectations and support your business growth? Our team of WordPress experts has helped business owners like you get the most from their online presence. But first, look at our portfolio and read our case studies.
Then, if you believe we are a good fit for your business web design needs, let’s talk! We offer a full range of consulting and design solutions for businesses and product brands.
Did You Consider a Custom Website?
Are you planning to get a new website or online store? Have you considered a custom website design as an option? Do you have anything to add to our reasons for building a custom website? What made you decide for or against a custom website design?
Please leave your comments below so our audience can benefit and grab our feed so you don’t miss our next post! And help your audience get the business website they need by sharing our small business website creation guide with them!
For more content relevant to your business or product brand – check out the range of articles on our web design blog. (This one, explaining the importance of user experience in web design, is an excellent place to start!)
Thank you! We appreciate your help ending bad business websites, one pixel at a time!
By Gregor Saita
Co-Founder / CXO
@gregorsaita
