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Designed in Wix Studio
What are the pro's & cons of purchasing a pre-designed website?
Let's start by assuming you've made the decision to own a website to promote your business online.
How do you start the process of building your website and launching it on the Internet for potential customers to find you in order to purchase your products or services and how will search engines to find your company?
What are your options?
1. Build your own site using a website builder programme.
2. Purchase a pre-designed website design (save on designer fees).
3. Commission a web designer.
Build Your Own
There are countless pre-designed website templates readily available on the Internet all produced by energetic skilled web designers using a variety of web builder programmes who freely advertise them to kick start an owners project.
The question is which template do you select and in what website builder programme?
The selection process is not too complicated, decisions maybe be made by accepting the look and feel of the template and what functions are included to service your business needs.
Choosing the builder programme is a bit more daunting because not possessing any knowledge of how to design a website or use its programme can leave owners frustrated and demoralised.
It’s possible to create a new website design quickly, and with the minimum of stress and headaches, if you base your pages on an existing template. The skill is to find the right website template and make it your own, (customisation).
Some builder platforms are user friendly when it comes to learning basic functions like adding images and text for example, however even these platforms include more advanced functions that can take time to learn for the uninitiated.
At this point its well worth carrying out some research on the website builder programmes on the market to find out a bit more information about how easy or difficult (pros & cons) it is to use a given programme, there are a number of companies like https://www.websitebuilderexpert.com/website-builders/ who make it their business to research and issue independent impartial reviews on their findings.
Depending on whether owners go for simplicity or a more complex design will determine the tasks ahead. What website builder programmes don't tell you is the complexity of not only designing and launching a website but the amount of tasks required to get it noticed on the Internet, so beware choose your builder programme wisely and look in-depth for the services they offer and choose one that covers all the tasks required to design/launch on the Internet
So, the choice is made and you're ready to go.
Purchase a Professionally Designed Website and save on designer fees.
The second option is to purchase a professionally pre-designed template for a specific industry/market these designs usually come preloaded with free trial applications associated with a particular industries/markets for example: (pizzeria shop) in order to promote its products or services, design costs can often be reduced dramatically.
It is more possible to individualise predesigned templates – particularly those advertised by website builder companies like, Wix, go daddy, squarespace – and still have an excellent online presence. Including having all the SEO, UX (User Experience), lead conversion and secure payment functions integrated.
In the right hands, website templates can be personalised to a specific enterprise and its business goals, and provide scalable digital marketing solutions that grow as the business grows.
Predesigned templates, however are just templates! they offer the owner a visual and strong foundation to develop and customise. Templates will not immediately represent a company on the Internet effectively from the word go they need customizing adding native applications, address SEO, monitoring and fine tuning.
So what are the challenges facing the owner of a predesigned template.
Although the template will be fully functional and responsive (displays across all media) the owner must customise it by adding their own content, business applications and images, therefore they have to allocate some time to learn the basics of builder programmes to carry out customisation.
Even if they manage to complete the required tasks they are then faced with preparing the SEO plan, to get found on search engines, get indexed, comply with the GDPR among a myriad of other important tasks before going live.
Commission a Web Developer
Business owners may choose a design agency in the knowledge that they know absolutely nothing about web design or how to use the programme! In many cases, particularly in medium to large businesses owners draw up a design brief then seek competitive tenders for the project.
For an advanced, truly unique and high-performing website, engaging the services of a leading website designer/developer who can innovate with code is worth the investment but beware it does require a sizable budget.
Custom web design comes at a cost there is no doubt, and in many cases is out of reach for small to medium sized businesses (SME's) owners who often have limited resources or none at all.
It can take up to 6 - 8 weeks to complete with many hours discussing the design, framework, colours, theme and functions to gain client approval as well as building in the latest website design features for your project.
Custom Designed Websites
Company Nex Design Agency provides a collection of pre-designed packages that are tried and tested offering the small business owner a fully integrated service, from web design, business development, digital marketing and search engine optimization (SEO). Adopting this process helps to capture the unique qualities of a business and provides companies with a working, high performing website that not only delivers results but gets a business found on search engines. If a business is struggling to allocate the time to populate their newly acquired template don't worry, there is a rescue plan available by signing up to a population and maintenance service.
It is good to remember a business website is the first point of contact with prospective customers online, it represents and promotes a business, therefore it's a valuable cost effective asset and marketing tool, the approach must be to focus on creativity, user experience, and functionality.
Nex Design claim their engagement model is an iterative and collaborative process, working together with clients they create something that is going to fundamentally improve a businesses online presence and results. They take the view that long-term opportunities are paramount while helping businesses solve the immediate needs of today. From KPI definition and experience vision to rapid design and deployment Nex Design Agency is built on strong core values, transparency, trust, honesty. innovation, diversity, inclusion and compliance.
In conclusion the small business owner is faced with a myriad of questions and choices, each choice has its merits, pros and cons, costs and savings. To unravel what is available it boils down to Time v Cost v Ability v Performance.
02 - 19 - 2024
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Author/Contributor: Michael Fox
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