Taking your business online can be a shot at the gold mine. You can unfold your products or services in front of thousands of customers both effectively and efficiently. This underscores the need of having a website. It provides your business with a unique identity that can be shaped by your interests. You can also make it client-specific by tweaking the content and attracting scores of customers by improving your Google rankings.
Having said that, the next question that you’ll confront is how to build a perfect website. Well, you can either have a custom-built website (built by website designers) or you can leverage online website building tools such as Wix, Weebly, Jimdo, etc.
Website Builder Tools
There are several reasons behind the popularity of website builder tools. These tools allow you to develop a website, even if you do not know how to code. These are generally offered by website hosting companies as proprietary tools. These tools include an editor, several themes, and easy drag and drop of various elements like images, text, headers, etc. to build a site.
You do not need any special skills to build a website using such website builder tools. While such ready-made templates are easy and quick to use and offer built-in features for a fair amount of customization, these sites become heavy and are often slow to load.
This in turn can affect the SEO performance of the site. Also, most of these tools are flash-based, making them difficult to read by Google. Also, these tools are DIY and hence do not offer support to maintain your website.
Custom Built Sites
Your site reflects your brand voice. Hence it’s important that it stands out from the rest and is bespoke. If you have the budget and time, a custom-built site would be ideal for your business.
Building a site from scratch required you to hire the right web development team that takes time to understand your business needs. Such sites are more cost-effective in the long run as they can be easily customized to adapt to the growth of your business.
Website Builder Tools Vs Building Custom sites
While these tools are cost and time effective, they fall short in certain aspects. Here we have compiled a list of some advantages that custom-built websites offer when compared to online website building tools.
1. Unique Customization of Website
Custom websites are designed keeping in mind your objectives, needs, and goals. They are developed offline using codes and are consequently made online. While customizing the website, aspects such as user interface and user experience are looked into thoroughly to increase effectiveness.
Also, your business can be highlighted distinctively and uniquely from others. In contrast, online website building tools are limited in terms of templates and layouts. Using them may result in a similar-looking website to that of your competitors.
2. Better SEO
The primary purpose to take the business online is to boost its visibility to people. For this purpose, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) helps your page rank higher on Google or other search engines. Being ranked (or listed) higher in the search results leads to an increase in traffic to your website.
To make your website optimized, website designers use planning, keyword research, sitemap creation, and a variety of other tools. On the contrary, online website builders have limited SEO tools which may deprive you of these benefits.
3. Extant Support by Professionals
While using website builders you may come across terminologies like DNS(Domain Name System), TLS(Transport Layer Security), etc. These can be confusing at times.
Hiring a website designer or a custom PHP development company can relieve you of this confusion as all these technicalities are looked after by them. This also ensures time-saving. Lets talk about it
Have a project in mind?
4. Better Page Loading Speed
Once a visitor is on your website, you need to ensure that he stays on it. For this, page speed plays an important role. Also, Google considers your page speed while ranking.
In addition to providing relevant content through the best WordPress SEO strategies, custom websites offer better Page speed. Website designers help in decreasing loading time through coding.
They address specifics like JavaScript and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), Browser caching, CDNs (Content Delivery Networks), Content compression, etc. for providing the best loading speed. Building through online tools does not let you address these specifics in detail. Using builders may result in reduced loading speed on your website.
5. Ease in E-commerce Tools
Most small businesses require tools such as CRM(Customer Relationship Manager), contact management tools, appointment schedulers, etc. While online builders allow these e-commerce features, they rely on third-party applications for the purpose.
Without knowledge, scrutinizing these applications can be overwhelming. Also, installing these third-party applications requires them to be updated regularly. A custom ecommerce website design can save you from such strenuous efforts.
6. Own Your Website
Creating your website through online building tools does not give you its ownership. Instead, the ownership remains with the online building platform since you use their domain name. Whereas in a custom website, you are required to purchase a domain name and create designs from scratch which gives you the ownership of your website.
For example, suppose you want to create a website named XYZ. Creating it through Wix will give you a name like “XYZ.Wix.com” whereas if you purchase your own domain name, you can own your website called XYZ.com. Also, you can upload your website easily on a new server in case you decide to switch your web hosting company.
7. Limited Terms and Conditions
Using online builders requires you to comply with their specific terms and conditions. Some of them are-
- Requiring you to submit your information.
- Reserve the right to display advertisements.
- Termination of the website on specific grounds etc.
While these conditions differ from company to company, a custom website does not require such compliance. All you need to ensure is that your website does not violate general guidelines as any inappropriate content may result in the customer reporting your website as inappropriate on Google or other search platforms.
Make Your Mark
In the modern age, people are accessing the internet more through mobiles and other devices to find out about businesses and even find out products and services. So even if your website offers a short description of your business, it might help customers find your location while they are on the move. A well-crafted website using Magento development services can help you in making new customers and turning existing customers into prospective clients.
Getting a website will help you expand your local and international reach. Also, you can improve your customer service by keeping yourself ablest of all the reviews on products and services and also addressing customer queries online. Opt for our custom WordPress development services and give your business a new start.
FAQs (Frеquеntly Askеd Quеstions)
Q1. What is an online website builder?
Answer: A website builder is an online application which enables users to generate and create websites without coding expertise. By utilizing drag-and-drop interfaces and pre-designed templates, website builder tools facilitate the development of websites for individuals, keeping in mind the latest trends and user-friendliness.
Q2. Why a custom website is best?
Answer: Custom-built website tools reflect your brand style and accommodate the features you require in your website. Websites created with online website builder tools offer extremely limited customization options, limiting users to altering the colours and images of pre-designed templates. This level of flexibility may prove inadequate when confronted with intricate business demands.
Q3. Is a custom-built website for e-commerce sites superior to those created with a website builder?
Answer: Undoubtedly, a website built by a custom website builder is superior for e-commerce sites due to its ability to precisely correspond to the unique business model, payment methods, and other sophisticated functionalities demanded by online stores. Generic website builders with restricted ecommerce capabilities may fall short in providing such features.
Q4. How much does it cost to build a website with a website builder vs. a custom website builder?
Answer: Although affordable website builders may enable the rapid creation of informational websites, custom-built website tools may entail a greater upfront investment but provide unlimited custom features, seamless integration, and scalability to accommodate future business expansion. As a result, they are a more favourable long-term investment in comparison to website builder templates that have certain restrictions.
Q5. Can custom websites be updated easily, like website builder tools?
Answer: Although website builders offer straightforward drag-and-drop editing, custom websites developed by custom website builders can also be effortlessly updated via content management systems, provided that the developers incorporate admin interfaces that feature intuitive dashboards that enable non-technical users to modify content, images, and pages directly.
Q6. Is a custom website more secure than a website builder?
Answer: From the initial stages of planning and coding, experienced website custom-builders can incorporate advanced security features into a custom website that they maintain and develop. However, third-party-hosted generic website-building tools may be more susceptible to vulnerabilities if they contain flaws or are compromised, as they lack bespoke security implementations.
Q7. Can custom websites be optimized for speed better than website builder sites?
Answer: Indeed, developers who construct customized websites possess complete authority over the code and hosting to optimize the site’s structure, images, scripts, and other technical components from the outset by the precise requirements of the business to attain maximum loading speed. At the same time, website builder sites have limited configurability due to their generic templates.
Q8. Can custom websites integrate better with other apps than website builder tools?
Answer: Indeed, the custom-built websites can be easily integrated with other business-critical applications such as CRM, ERP, accounting, or payment gateways facilitated because they are independently developed on diverse platforms via APIs. On the other hand, the extent to which website builder-generated sites can be integrated is contingent upon the third-party applications and services that their frameworks officially support.
Q9. Do custom websites score better in SEO than website builder sites?
Answer: Custom-built websites permit complete authority over HTML structure, page titles, meta descriptions, and additional on-page SEO components so that the answer may be positive. It facilitates search engine optimization of the website from the very beginning of its planning and development. On the other hand, the generic templated page structures of website builder-generated sites may impose constraints on their SEO optimization.
This article is an appealing wealth of informative data that is interesting and well-written. I commend your hard work on this and thank you for this information. You’ve got what it takes to get attention.
Comfortabl y, the post is really the freshest on that laudable topic. I match in with your conclusions and also will thirstily look forward to your next updates. Simply just saying thanks will not just be sufficient, for the fantasti c clarity in your writing. I will certainly best away grab your rss feed to stay abreast of any kind of updates. Great work and much success in your business dealings!