Designing an online store is a time-taking process and requires in-depth research. A lot of focus and patience are also necessary to build a prominent one.
Design matters greatly in web development, as functionality and content play a huge role in the user experience. As per recent website first impression statistics, it takes about 50 milliseconds for users to decide whether they like your website. Your website visitors will only engage with the website if the content or layout is attractive.
As per statistics, WordPress is used by around 63.3% of websites built using the CMS platform. This is 43.2% of all websites on the internet. With numerous benefits, this CMS platform tops the list of the three most often-used site builders worldwide.
In WordPress, users are always in a dilemma whether to opt for custom WordPress development or use a pre-built website template to serve their purpose.
Thus, businesses need to consider the pros and cons of a template and custom design before making a final decision.
So, let’s have a look into the differences between custom WordPress development and a pre-built website template development approach.
Factor-Based Comparison Between Custom WordPress Development and Pre-Built Templates
Design Flexibility
Custom WordPress development provides complete design flexibility. It allows you to create a layout that matches your brand and incorporates all the required features and functionalities. A custom site can be designed from scratch to suit your business needs.
In contrast, with a ready-made template, there might be the chance that your website layout is similar to someone else’s brand user interface.
Overall, custom WordPress development is preferable because it lets you create a unique web solution tailored to your needs.
Scalability
Custom development has the advantage here as well. Customizing a website gives more scalability options. It is developed to support your business’s growth, add new functionalities, and expand your web solution with business expansions. In other words, the site will be developed to adapt to your growing business needs.
However, a pre-built website template is complex to scale. Templates do not have the required features and functionality to support your future business growth. With this, you might have to rebuild your entire website or switch to another template for integrating additional features. This can be time-consuming and expensive.
Which One is Budget-Friendly and Time-Saving?
In this aspect, the answer is clear. Using a pre-built website template is a time-saving yet budget-friendly approach in the long run. When dealing with budget issues and time constraints, you must consider pre-built site templates for your website development. On the other hand, custom development requires much effort and time and could be expensive.
So, here the winner is a pre-built website template approach.
Security
WordPress website development approaches are secure if proper security measures are implemented.
However, custom WordPress development gives you more control over security and lets you implement features like firewalls, malware scans, secure logins, and others.
In contrast, a pre-built template comes with limited security features. There is also the possibility that many template providers offer robust security features like SSL certificates and firewalls. Still, the customization level is limited with them.
SEO-Friendliness
A custom website can be developed with SEO features in mind. This can include on-page optimization, like meta descriptions, optimized URLs, and header tags. It will be helpful in increasing your website rankings in SERPs (search engine result pages).
On the other hand, a pre-built website template may not offer as much control over your site’s SEO. Some templates may have in-built SEO features but limited website optimization options in search engines.
Maintenance
When using a pre-built website template approach, the template provider often handles the maintenance. This can be beneficial for businesses with limited technical expertise. On the other hand, custom WordPress development requires ongoing maintenance and updates to keep the website running smoothly.
So, with a custom approach, you will be required to hire a WordPress development company to handle the maintenance tasks. Or you can do it by yourself if you have proper technical expertise.
Custom WordPress Website vs Template Theme: Pros and Cons
Custom WordPress Website
Custom-built websites are all about building sites from scratch specifically for you that are tailored to your business needs. For custom website development, you need to hire a professional web development company that can develop a winning WordPress site for your business. Let’s delve deeper to discuss the pros and cons of building a custom WordPress site.
Pros of Custom WP Site
- Always Business-Centric – Custom-built WordPress sites are pre-decided templates, and built to ensure all business needs are covered. Developers consider the specific business requirements and create a unique, responsive WordPress website that looks and feels professional and functions the best.
- Well-Compliant with SEO – Custom-built websites with a user-friendly portal always secure a higher ranking on Search Engine Result Page (SERP). By opting for custom design, businesses can have an SEO-compliant site from the very first day it’s built, thus boosting the SEO of your site.
- Flexibility and customization – A custom-built site is designed along the lines of specific business needs which enhances the scalability and flexibility of the entire website. A custom-designed website includes all the extra features that are missing in a template theme.
- Greater support – With custom website development, you get access to greater support during the design and development process, and the website design will likely be implemented for you. That means you do not have to do a lot on your own.
Cons of Custom WP Site
- Time-consuming – WordPress custom-designing requires a great deal of knowledge and skills and it takes a huge amount of time to give a custom website the unique look, feel, shape, and structure that you have envisioned. From developing to testing, you need to give a custom website some time.
- A bit expensive – Custom-website needs expert programming, thus small-sized businesses should refrain from opting for custom site development. Though it’s adaptive and functions well, a custom WP site might take all your savings.
WordPress Template Website
Template themes are pre-set ready-made themes, and templates that are available in WordPress stores that go easy on your pocket and take a shorter amount of time in developing the website. Let’s discuss the pros and cons of building a template WordPress site.
Pros of Template WordPress Site
- Highly customizable – Even though WordPress template designs are made with the concept of ‘one-size-fits-all,’ they are still highly customizable. You can change the font, text size, layout, colors, and other considerable things as per your business needs.
- Pocket-friendly – It is always advisable to choose a WordPress template theme if you have a budget constraint. Even paid themes are priced somewhere between $10 – $100, which is affordable for any business, irrespective of size.
- Faster and Scalable – Installing a WordPress template theme is easier and faster. Once you have installed your desired theme, you are good to go. Besides, WordPress template sites are easy to scale as they are designed to work more quickly than custom themes.
- SEO-friendly – Most WordPress themes come with ready-made SEO solutions, and even if you end up choosing a non-optimized theme, there are tons of plugins available that can make your site fully SEO optimized.
- Long-term support – Most WordPress themes (especially paid themes) come with long-term developer support without any extra cost. This means that you don’t have to worry about WordPress updates or changes.
Cons of Template WordPress Site
- Not custom – While there are a lot of customization options, you’re ultimately bound to the theme’s elements and design in many ways. If you need complex features or customization, you’ll need to do it by yourself.
- Inadequate technical support – There is less technical support available to troubleshoot problems that are encountered in web themes. The non-availability of technical support reduces the reliability of WordPress theme sites.
Conclusion
To conclude, we have discussed a number of considerable factors related to custom WP design and template design. Now that you understand the pros and cons of each, you can decide which one is right a Custom WordPress site vs a Template website for successful website development based on your business needs.
