What’s Best For Your Business?
Custom Web Design Vs. Website Templates
No matter the industry, market, or niche, we all have that special something that distinguishes us from our competitors.
The challenge we all have is to present our unique selling points online.
Perhaps it’s just the brand recognition and awareness that you need, which can be achieved with a simple WordPress website.
On the other hand, an omni-channel solution like Magento 2 can provide even the most complex custom features to support your sales and communication funnels.
Here are a few things to take in consideration when deciding if a custom website design or template the best fit for your business.
Every business has its own unique needs.
No matter the industry, market, or niche, we all have that special something that distinguishes us from our competitors.
The challenge we all have is to present our unique selling points online.
Is a template enough to boost awareness for your brand or do you need a custom website design to drive brand recognition and conversions?
We discuss the important factors to consider when making your decision, showcasing why a custom website design created by professionals can deliver superior online growth for your brand.
What Are The Benefits Of A Custom Website Design?
While theme and page templates are often a quicker and cheaper option, there are numerous benefits to choosing a custom website design:
1. Supported Brand Identity
With only 50 milliseconds to make a strong first impression, your website is against the clock to portray your brand identity from the moment it loads.
While adaptable website templates go some way to providing a bespoke user interface, only completely custom web designs can highlight your unique brand values, messaging and style upon entry and throughout the user journey.
2. Users Can View Things More Easily
There’s a certain level of freedom that comes with a custom website design because you can say what you want to show and where. And then, a professional agency can tell you if that’s something that aligns with your industry’s best practices and is actually manageable.
When your custom website design ticks all the boxes, it’s much easier for visitors to open different pages and explore your offers. This also means you can get nice images, interesting content and update the site more easily.
3. Adding Your Own Features
Choosing one of the 30,000 templates on Themeforest may seem like a no-brainer. But there is a problem. They all appear very similar and have the same basic features.
Do you really want your website to appear like everyone else's?
This could be an even bigger problem for you if you own a huge firm with a lot of items or services. Using a template is usually not a good idea for your business because you won't be able to change it as much.
But a custom website design can show off what makes you special and what you have to offer in the market.
4. Allows You To Connect Existing Systems
It’s super convenient when you have all your tools and software in one place, especially if you use many of them.
With a custom website design, you can connect everything you need right away, with no downtime or delays. This includes things like your CRM or WooCommerce.
5. You Can Save More As You Go
No one thinks that a custom website design doesn't cost more up front than a template. But if you look past the first cost, you'll see that it can save you a lot of trouble later on.
For starters, did you know that templates come with lots of pre-made code? The more code your site has, the longer it would take for it to load for visitors. That’s not a good look for your business, considering that 53% of users would leave a page if it takes more than three seconds to load.
In contrast, a custom website design only contains elements that are important for your business. No unnecessary code, no additional bloat, no extra features. It loads faster and it’s up to par with your expectations.
Not to mention how much easier it would be to update or rework some parts of it because you know exactly where to look. This makes it easier to find and fix any problems that may come up.
What To Consider When Choosing The Best Custom Website Design Company?
Choosing the proper company to make your custom web design is a personal decision, but there are a few things you should think about:
1. Knowledge And Experience
Choosing to work with an experienced and professional company on your custom website design project will help you get a high-quality result. It doesn’t matter if you want a full website design or just a simple update.
Every custom website design service has a portfolio. You may find out more about their standards and the companies they deal with by looking at their past designs.
2. Feedback From Previous Clients
Would you employ a company to develop a custom website if their past clients weren't happy with their work? No, because you want what's best for your business.
While you perform your research, look for specific things. What issues did the clients who came before you have and how did the agency fix them? Are they pleased with how their projects were managed? Are their results exactly what they wanted and more?
3. Making Sure It’s Good For Your Business
If you ask specific questions, you can learn more about what each custom website design company can do. Check out how they plan each project and see whether it fits with your business plan.
You can do this by setting the standards about what you want beforehand. If there’s any feature you want to add, a certain layout that you think looks good or maybe even add some new colors to the design. It's easier to cut down on the candidates when you know what you want.
4. Being Flexible And Taking Charge
Every company has issues at some point, but what's more important is how you handle it than what caused it in the first place.
What can the custom website design agency do to aid you with these problems? Can they adjust their plans or add new features when they need to?
When things change quickly, our specialists can adjust our plans because we pay attention to what you need and when you need it.
As an example, we just recently used Buddha Brands' new style guide to update the website.
5. Getting Everything Done In One Place
Why go to numerous agencies when you can get everything done in one place?
Look for a custom website design company that offers all the services you need, such branding, marketing, app development, or web design and development.
6. Deadlines And Ways To Get In Touch
Think about how you want to talk to the custom website design agency during the whole process. You need to agree on how you will talk to each other, whether it be by email, phone, or thorough reports.
After that, you can agree on appropriate timelines for your project. If you want extra features, it could take months or even longer to finish a custom website design.
7. Help And Updates For Your Website
Don't be fooled that you only need website support and upgrades if you have complicated plugins and features. Ongoing maintenance is good for all sites since it means fewer problems and less downtime.
Find out what services and support packages each organization offers so you can choose the one that works best for you.
At Digital Silk, we provide monthly retainers to not only give around the clock support to our clients, but also boost their performance through areas like SEO and lead generation.
5 Signs That You Should Invest In Custom Web Design
Not sure whether to go for a custom website design or to purchase a theme?
Here are five telltale signs to look out for:
1. Your Page Speed Is Lagging
As mentioned, a Google study found that 53% of mobile users will abandon a website if it takes more than three seconds to load. In fact, the probability of a bounce increases 32% as page load speeds rise from one to three seconds.
Lagging load time is a sign of poor site optimization — something professional web developers can remedy for a fast and functional site ecosystem with custom website services.
2. You’re Not Getting A Lot Of Customers
It could be that the correct customers aren’t finding you if you get a lot of leads that never develop into clients. You might not show up in search results at all or show up for the wrong keywords.
A full-service custom website design company should be able to help with this by improving your SEO and giving you a more complete digital plan. We look at how your potential customers search for things and make sure that your site uses the proper keywords so your target market can find you.
3. You Don’t Make Enough Sales
Your website is where most of your sales happen. If the numbers don't look too good, it's probably because of your overall design and plan.
When you have a custom website design, you can better direct users to the steps you want them to take.
Let's say you have a hotel website. Your visitors would likely benefit from a booking form at the top so they don't need to scroll all the way to the bottom.
The same goes for a manufacturing site. Adding something like a product catalog or spec sheet can help visitors make the right decision.
4. You Don’t Have A Unique Design
Using a template probably won't help you much. You can modify the colors, pictures and text as much as you like, but the way the core information is presented would stay the same.
A custom website design is the only one that can fit your brand, your goals and the people you want to target.
5. Your Site Doesn’t Look Good On Mobile
Your site's mobile and desktop versions should look different, but they should both be easy to use.
If the only thing you can offer people visiting your site on mobile is big blocks of text, little buttons they can't tap or text that's hard to read, you're done for.
When mobile doesn't look right or isn't complete, up to 88% of users will quit the site.
More than 5.11 billion people use smartphones as of 2026. That's roughly twice as many as there were in 2020, and the number keeps going up.
We suggest that you test your custom website design properly to make sure it looks as it should on all devices, no matter if you use the conventional desktop-first strategy or the newer mobile-first one.
How To Get Your Custom Website Design Right
No matter what field you're in, you need to follow the rules for custom website design.
Our skilled website developers know a lot about numerous design styles and technologies, so we can construct custom solutions that meet the needs of any client.
Here are some of the top things we do to make sure we get good results for clients:
1. Making Plans Ahead Of Time
Before we start working on your custom website design, we do a lot of research on your business, target audience, competitors and goals.
After that, we use what we've learned to create a unique digital strategy for your organization, including a clear plan of action to help you reach your online growth goals.
2. Seeing How It Works On All Devices
More than half of the people in the world use their phones to get online, so it's no longer possible to make a custom website design that only looks good on a computer.
Your mobile version needs buttons users can tap easily, hamburger menus and simple text that they can read on smaller screens. Our experts make sure to look at all these elements for your project.
3. Getting It Higher On Search Results
If your custom website design has a higher spot in Google search results pages (SERPs), more people will find it and click on it.
Since 53.3% of website visitors come from those results pages, you need to think about what your position is.
SEO can help you get more visitors, reach more people and increase your visibility.
Our SEO professionals do a lot of keyword research and then use those keywords in your headers, title tags, meta descriptions and image tags, among other places, to improve your web pages so that they show up on search engine results pages.
What To Do Once You Hire A Custom Website Design Company?
While your selected agency should take full ownership of your custom web design, your contributions as a business owner are still important.
Here are several steps that are universal to everyone:
1. Set Up Communication Channels
You need to let the professionals know what you expect and they should keep you in the loop at each stage.
You can do this by creating and maintaining clear lines of communication from the beginning to the end.
We use a lot of different ways to talk to each other at Digital Silk, such as email, project management tools and video calls.
Telling the agency about your goals and vision can help them make a custom website design that fits your brand.
The best way to share these is through a custom brand book design. Designers will use these rules to make a user interface and experience that is on-brand and gets results.
2. Share Your Brand Vision & Goals
You should openly share what you expect from the project, if you want the custom website design to get good results.
The best way to do this is through a brand book design. This document contains guidelines like brand colors, fonts and other visual elements that designers can use.
3. Share Any Images You May Have
Give the custom website design company any images or visuals you think they could use on your site.
Unless you’re a brand-new company, you probably have a few of those that you use everywhere, such as photos of employees, offices or important projects.
We took this route when designing the website for Dunnion Law, where we added pictures of their lawyers to humanize the brand and build a connection with its clients:
4. Talk About Your Design Ideas
You can tell the specialists what you want from your custom website design and they can determine if it's possible and how to do it.
For example, if you let us know what parts of your business are most important, our team can create a layout that highlights those areas.
As Digital Silk’s client, your feedback helps us make sure the custom website design meets the needs of your consumers and promotes the values of your business at the same time.
5. Review And Share Your Thoughts
Before the launch, our design team will show you mock-ups what your custom web design could look like.
The wireframe is usually the first, stripped-back version you get. Then we add the colors, animations and images.
As the customer, your feedback ensures that the custom website design properly fits what the users want and need, while also promoting values of your organization.
Digital Silk's Custom Web Design Examples
From seamless navigation to engaging effects and animations, our award-winning designers deliver winning custom websites. See a selection of our best work.
1. J&H Tackle
The client: J&H Tackle is a family-run business that sells name-brand fishing equipment at low prices.
The design: The design includes an enhanced visual hierarchy, simplified navigation and a customer-centric approach, ensuring an intuitive shopping experience where finding and purchasing fishing gear is easy.
Dynamic content and video marketing showcase the brand’s expertise and affordability while promoting deeper engagement with customers.
[Source: J&H Tackle]
2. Sandler
Digital Silk made a custom website design for Sandler, a company that trains people on sales and business development.
We used the brand's colors, current animations and easy-to-read fonts to make it easier for visitors to find what they need.
3. G Pen
The next example of a custom website design is a Shopify site that has a lot of helpful features and better SEO.
Our experts wanted to highlight how easy it is to use and carry G Pen’s cannabis vaporizers.
4. The American University In Bulgaria (AUBG)
AUBG is a private university with lots of interesting higher education programs and extracurricular activities.
We made a custom website design that contains simple buttons and menus to make it easier for students to apply.
5. Buddha Brands
Last but not least, Digital Silk partnered with Buddha Brands, a brand that sells healthy snacks and drinks.
Their custom website design is unique and has a bright, colorful and fascinating interface that fits the brand's personality.
To do this, our team used cool animations, features that show up as you hover over them.
Create Your Custom Website Design With Digital Silk
At Digital Silk, we provide bespoke services based on consumer, industry and competitive research.
This way, we make goal-oriented decisions and a custom web design that drives conversions for your brand.
As a full-service professional web design company, our key services span:
- Custom website design and development
- Local web design and development in New York, Miami, California and more
- eCommerce development and design for Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce and more
- Digital branding
- Digital marketing and consulting
For every project, we deliver:
- Project ownership
- Transparency
- Measurable results
Our design team offers free consultation & custom proposals for custom website design projects. This gives both us and our clients the opportunity to explain our processes, understand your website requirements and further discuss the project at hand.
Simply fill out the Request a Quote form, tell us about your goals and our experts will provide you with actionable insights and cost estimates.
Or, call us at (800) 206-9413 to start the conversation.
