As a business owner you are always looking how to save money and make your business profitable. When it comes to creating an online presence for your business, just like your marketing materials and office’s appearance, your website needs to project a professional image. The more professional looking your business appears, the more creditable it looks.

Many business owners don’t really understand the difference between having a custom web design done and using website templates. In this article we’ll look at both ways of having your website built and the costs involved.

Custom Web Design

Many think having a custom web design is too expensive but let’s look at the advantages of hiring a web designer over using a free website template companies such as web.com, Intuit or Wix.

Unique design. 

With a custom web design it is created just for your business. Your website will be different from anyone else’s. This will also help with your website obtaining better Google, Yahoo and Bing SEO (search engine optimization) page ranking. Search engines love fresh and unique content websites and frown on free template builders.

By hiring HPG your website will be constructed so it is search engine friendly.

How the background coding of your website is done will influence your success in the search engines. What good is a beautiful business website that no one can find?

Social Media and marketing. 

If you build it they will come only works on mythical baseball fields. Professional design is only the first part of a successful website now comes time for marketing. High Powered Graphics utilizes the power of social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook to promote your website for you. We use the blogging power of our HighPoweredNetwork to create static links in major search engines to drive traffic to your website.

Website Templates

What are the downfalls of using a free website template company?

There is going to be a ton of other people using the same template.

Unless you pay the “Exclusive” price for the template, the template website is going to keep selling that same template to anyone that comes along. Keep in mind, even if you pay the exclusive price, there are others who have bought the template prior to you and they still have the right to use it.If it’s a really appealing template, there may be lots of other people who have already bought that very template.

You will be limited on the customization of the website template.

Without web page coding skills, you are still going to have to either spend the time and money to learn how to code a web page or hire someone to help you. Without this crucial element your creating a website that only the people you tell where to find it will see it. It will not show up in search engines.Some templates are laid out very specific. Meaning if you incorporate your own graphics or have extensive content, the template could break.Some website templates are not built to be search engine friendly.As explained above, it is important how the background coding of your website is done. If not done correctly, it could hurt your marketing efforts on the internet.

Custom Web Design or Website Template?

When deciding if a custom web design is the way to go or if a website template is a better choice keep in mind that you want your business to stand out from the crowd and be memorable.

By going it alone you are still going to have to do some work to get up there in the search engine results. Having a website that looks nice is only part of the internet marketing package. You will have to research the phrases that your target audience would type in the search box to find you then incorporate those phrases into the content of each of your pages.

To maintain or build the website yourself you are going to have to invest some time (and money possibly) into learning all there is to building a web page.

Now, sit down and figure out exactly how much each method of building the website is actually going to cost. Include the time it is going to take you learn whatever you need to learn to use a website template and compare that to the cost of a hiring a company to handle your internet presence for you so you can concentrate on other marketing venues for your company.