I recently read a forum argument about the custom design vs. template design, and was surprised at how heated the conversation got.

Cheap vs. Good… This was the basic premise behind the argument. Many naysayers held to the position of “Why pay for something new when there are so many good designs out there?”

Yes, it’s true, WordPress has the benefit of being part of a giant community, and there are many, many, many free templates available. Many of them look quite good, and are suitable for some types of businesses. But there are a number of downsides:

• Stock templates rarely have everything you need. “Why can’t I put my logo there?” “Where’s the sidebar?” are questions we often encounter with our template clients. Because there is no consistency of coding in these themes, it often takes more time and money than expected to get the theme looking they way you want it.
• Bait and switch is real and happens often. The sample image of pre-designed WP templates are often made up in photoshop, and are not an accurate representation of what the site will look like with your actual content in place. That’s disappointing.
• It still looks like a WordPress site. Most businesses invest in a website to stand out from the crowd, and very few of the template themes do that.

Here is a great article with some more thoughts on template sites: Click here.

Custom design gives you the opportunity to design a site that is truly representative of your amazing business. You need to be proudly unique and different, because you were just crazy enough to go out on your own and start a business, right? Look at apple.com, fastcompany.com, or ballarddesigns.com. No templates here, also no frills, nothing extraneous, just a bold statement of who they are.

You can have that, too, for your business that truly deserves it! Contact us today to get started.