In an age of fast and cheap websites, it’s easy to settle for second-best. Businesses are incorrectly taught that a website is just a small part of the marketing equation – and that social media is “more important.” But this isn’t necessarily true. Your website, social media profiles, email list, and content strategy aren’t competing against one another. Rather, they should work together to form a cohesive online presence that drives customers closer to making purchases.
If you want to architect an impressive brand in the 21st century, you need a strong website that serves as your digital “home base.” And while there are plenty of options to choose from, custom design and development is arguably the best option.
The Rise of Drag and Drop Builders
It’s no surprise why custom website design has taken a backseat over the past several years. It has everything to do with the rise of drag and drop website builders that make it easy to build websites without any knowledge of HTML, code, or the other technical intricacies of creating a site.
The latest research indicates that the top four drag and drop website building platforms – Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy, and Weebly – have helped create nearly 10 million websites combined over the past several years. Then there are another 15 to 20 other online building platforms that are responsible for powering millions more.
But do you want to know something interesting? Out of the top 1 million websites on the internet, just 24,842 of them were built using one of the 20 most popular drag and drop builders. That amounts to just 2.4 percent of top websites. Where are the other 97.6 percent of top websites coming from? Primarily custom website design.
According to one Long Island website design company, the price can’t be the biggest issue. It’s certainly an element, but it can’t be the element. Yes, website builders are inexpensive. But they offer almost no customization or functionality options (compared to custom). This begs the question: Why pay less if your business is losing out on potential customers because they can’t find your site or the user experience is so poor that they can’t complete a purchase?
Drag and drop builders are popular, but when it comes to high-quality websites that generate massive amounts of traction (in terms of traffic, SEO, and revenue), it’s clear that custom design and development is far more effective.
Why Custom Website Design Still Takes the Cake
In order to understand why drag and drop builders aren’t always the answer, you have to understand why custom website design is so beneficial. Here are a few of the advantages:
- Tailored to your brand. Website templates might be attractive at first glance, but brands are often forced to fit a square peg in a round hole. Because of the limitations of drag and drop builders, major sacrifices have to be made. This might not be immediately apparent from a visual standpoint, but it becomes quite obvious when you dig into the functionality of the site.
- SEO-first mentality. With custom website design, SEO is a priority from the beginning. These sites are created with strategic metadata, page URLs, site content, alt tags, keywords, etc. The site architecture isn’t an afterthought – it’s the focus.
- Total control. Need to change something in six months or six years? With a custom site, you can update or manipulate anything at any time without negatively impacting the rest of the site. Because everything has been designed specifically for you, you have total control.
- Scalability. Never worry about outgrowing your website. As your business grows, you can easily scale your website with more integrations and customizations. This makes it easy to grow your business and increase your ROI over time.
These are just a few of the simple advantages that custom website design affords businesses. In reality, it goes much deeper than this. Every brand faces a unique set of circumstances, and a custom site ensures this digital “home base” perfectly reflects every need and desire.
Build a Great Website
Why settle for an average website with predictable design and pre-canned templates when you can build a great website that’s perfectly tailored to your brand’s style and your customer’s preferences? Drag and drop builders might be all the rage right now – and they certainly serve a purpose – but having your website built by a custom designer will leave you in a much stronger position over the long term. Make the right choice!