The global web development market is projected to reach $74.7 billion in 2025. Companies worldwide are busy developing a digital presence for themselves. This is no surprise; we are, after all, living in a digital age. Except for small-sized retailers and the cottage industry, every business wants to benefit from having an enterprise web presence.
It allows them greater access to their customers, enables targeted marketing at a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing means, and helps drive business growth. In all this, having a custom website is crucial to building business credibility and digital presence. Custom web development is the key to success in the digital world. A custom website is the aim of every customer and business. Through a custom website, businesses can reach out to their audience in a special way, making them feel cared for.
This article explores what custom web development is, how it compares to website templates, its difference from custom web application development, the benefits of custom web development, and when you should partner with a custom web development service.
What is custom web development?
Custom website development is the process of building a website from scratch without any pre-defined templates or themes to choose from. It is tailored to meet your specific business needs and allows you to better target your personas as compared to templated web development (discussed below). In customized web development, custom web programming developers design targeted and specific websites with a motive.
Large enterprises always choose to go with custom website development, and rightly so. Custom websites let you offer an enhanced user experience while helping you build a unique brand. This is made possible due to the extensive customization capabilities offered by companies that provide custom web development services. Custom web development is your ticket to the lottery.
Let’s discuss off-the-shelf web development, also known as templated web development, and how it’s different from custom web development.
Difference between custom web development and website templates
Custom web development and website templates are two popular ways of creating websites. Custom web development services tailor each and every aspect of your website to meet your unique business goals. For this purpose, a digital design agency often uses technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to build everything from scratch.
In contrast, a website template provides you with pre-built layouts, designs, and structures to create your website. But most businesses prefer custom web development over website templates.
Going with a custom website is usually the preferred option when you want to build a unique website that does not look like a run-of-the-mill site. That is where an AI website builder comes to the rescue by helping create your company’s digital face. And why not? Your website is your company’s digital face; it represents you and what your business has to offer. Why settle for less? Custom web development gives you a chance to showcase your brand through targeted campaigns.
Functionality, page loading time, scalability, and other key factors are all critical to achieving rapid online and offline business success. Offline because a good user experience helps build a good brand reputation, thus driving business growth.
Here’s a brief comparison between templated web development and custom website development in businesses.
As a rule of thumb, remember that templated websites, as opposed to custom web development, work best when you’re on a budget and quickly want a website. However, if you desire a highly flexible and customizable website, go for custom web development. A custom website is a product of custom web programming, intended for a specific audience and purpose.
Here are some examples of off-the-shelf web development platforms that many custom website developers use:
- WordPress
- Wix
- Squarespace
- Shopify
- Joomla
- Drupal
What is custom web application development?
Sometimes, people confuse custom web development with custom web application development, but they aren’t the same.
Custom web design and development is about building customized websites from scratch or tailoring existing platforms to meet specific branding, design, content, or other goals. Custom web development solutions offer exactly what your business is looking for.
On the other hand, custom web app development is the process of creating a web application that offers services or features over the internet. A custom web application development company creates web apps that run on a web server and are accessed by users through a web browser.
However, custom web application development services providers usually also offer custom web development services. Platform restrictions are a common challenge in software projects; for example, building iOS applications from Windows requires tailored solutions to bridge the gap.
Here’s what you need to know about custom web application development:
- Complexity: Custom web apps are typically more complex than custom websites, as they require the integration of different components, such as a database, user interface, and back-end logic.
- Cost: Custom web apps are typically more expensive than custom websites, requiring more development time and expertise.
- Time to market: Custom web apps can take longer to develop than custom websites, requiring more planning and testing.
7 Reasons Why You Should Choose Custom Web Development
There are several benefits of custom web design and development that are ideal to develop your enterprise website. Here are some of the major benefits of custom web development solutions.
1. Unique Brand Identity
Brand identity comprises the values your brand espouses. For that, the ServiceNow consulting company can help build brand identity by allowing users to customize the platform’s interface with their company’s branding. It also includes how you communicate with your target personas, your messaging, positioning, and how you want customers to feel when they interact with your brand. Custom web development preserves and enriches your unique brand identity.
A custom enterprise WordPress website, developed through a custom web development service, enables you to create a unique brand identity that matches your goals. This is just not possible with WordPress or other templated websites. That’s because they offer pre-defined templates that limit your ability to customize the site.
In the end, custom web design is a field in its own right. And while you can design an incredibly delightful custom web design, you still need a web developer to bring functionality to your website. Therefore, aim to build a good development team. Custom website design and development take care of this.
2. User-friendly and Flexible
Another key reason for choosing custom web development and a good custom website development company is that it allows you to offer a user-friendly website to your customers. With a skilled web developer, you can make the necessary changes to your site, aligning it with user interests and making navigation easier.
Moreover, custom sites are very easy to scale, allowing you to add or remove features, landing pages, etc., whenever the need arises. Templated websites do not allow the same level of customization. Even when they do, you have to use plugins to get certain features. These plugins may adversely impact your site’s performance. Custom web development makes ample use of such tactics and practices.
3. Fast Loading
Website page loading time is a critical metric that determines how good an experience a user receives when visiting your site. It also helps drive SERP rankings. According to research, a website visitor will bounce off the page and exit it if they are made to wait for longer than three seconds. Custom web development services would ensure the fast loading of a website.
Custom websites solve this problem by giving native experiences to users. That’s because these sites are built using specific programming languages, making it easier to ensure faster loading times and better responsive UI/UX design services.
4. Long-term Investment
There’s indeed a higher price attached to developing a custom website. However, it depends on how you perceive it. For enterprises that prioritize the benefits of custom sites, creating one is a long-term investment with a good enough ROI (return on investment). This higher ROI is also due to the client-first approach that custom web development uses. It prioritizes how to attract, satisfy, and retain users. This is why custom web development is preferable.
In addition to offering a better ROI, custom websites are easily scalable and can grow in tandem with your business. This means you won’t need to rely on endless WordPress plugins to add new functionality or scale your website. A good custom website developer will use plugins to design customized websites.
5. Third-party Integration
It is very convenient to enable third-party integration when developing a custom website. Here, the role of a custom website developer is integral. This integration helps you incorporate existing tools, apps, and platforms with your website while reducing development costs.
6. SEO
Some off-the-shelf websites are not designed to be high-speed. That doesn’t mean that all WordPress sites are slow, no. Some are fast, but they require a dedicated WordPress developer to keep them in shape through regular updates and security patches. However, none of this implies that Google prefers custom websites over templated websites. Custom web development takes into consideration the SEO factor.
Nevertheless, custom websites are still more performant than templated ones. That’s because higher quality and performance are key goals for developing custom websites. Naturally, custom web design and development intrigues the customer more. This naturally converts into higher SERP rankings and SEO performance. SEO is critical to helping your customers find you online. To make the most of custom web design and development, businesses should focus on SEO best practices and learn SEO fundamentals to optimize their digital presence.
Partnering with the best SEO services can ensure that your website not only looks great but also performs exceptionally well in search engines.
7. Excellent Security
Website security has become one of the leading concerns of enterprises worldwide. While no website is entirely secure, custom-developed websites are still more secure than their templated counterparts. A good developer uses SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) and other security measures to ensure your website is secure and less vulnerable to security breaches.
Through custom web development, businesses offer heightened security. Custom web design services can help you design your own type and level of security for your website.
When custom web development solutions are ideal
If any of the following situations resonates with you, it is better to opt for custom web development solutions.
- You want to create a very complex website with specific requirements
- You have a vast budget and can afford expensive resources
- You want to personalize your website for the best user experience
- You want to innovate new ideas for your product or service
When not to choose custom web development solutions
Now you might be wondering if there are scenarios where a custom web development agency might not be the best option. Here are three factors you should consider when deciding which option and custom web design services to select:
- Budget: If you’re a small company with a tight budget and you only want to have a digital presence for your business, a templated website will most likely do the job for you, and custom website development services may not be ideal for you.
- Deadline: The great thing about off-the-shelf websites is that they don’t require lengthy development time. You can build a good WordPress site yourself in a matter of weeks. However, remember that it will not be able to offer the exact functionality, speed, or design you want.
- Technical capabilities: Building a WordPress website requires no prior coding experience; anyone can develop a WordPress site. However, you may need a WordPress developer to customize your WordPress site. You require custom web development services. With custom web development, you solely rely on a web developer to build your custom website.
How long does a typical custom web development project take?
Custom web development is more time-consuming than using web templates. So, bear in mind that hiring web developers, designing, and developing the website will take some time.
How long that time will be depends on your project size and the development team’s capacity. Usually, a custom web development company takes about 1–3 months for small or medium-sized projects. However, for larger projects, it can take more than six months.
Here is the custom web development process from start to finish:
- Ideation
- Wireframing and prototyping
- Website design
- Website development
- Quality assurance testing
- Launch
- Post-launch support and monitoring
How much do custom web development solutions cost?
Custom web development price ranges anywhere between $5,000 $20,000, depending on the complexity of your project and the pricing model of your custom web development company.
But the core three factors that determine the bill are:
- How many and how complex features do you want to add to your website?
- The duration spent on designing and developing your website
- Are you working with a custom web development agency or freelance developers?
Why build a custom ecommerce website?
A whopping number of customers worldwide like to shop online. The internet has transformed our lives. A user is first likely to search for their desired product online, read reviews of different options, and then make a purchase. Given the huge number of internet users today, traditional companies with brick-and-mortar shops have also set up e-commerce websites to make the most of the opportunities the digital realm offers. Only a good custom web development company can lead you in this situation. Similarly, just as there are many templated custom web solutions available, numerous e-commerce platforms offer templates for creating your own e-commerce store. From MVP web app development to full-scale custom solutions, web development services help users leverage various platforms to create tailored websites.
However, these solutions might not be the best option for your business. Instead, building a custom e-commerce website might be a better way to go about it. Custom web development services can help you on your way to success with e-commerce websites.
Although custom e-commerce trends are expensive to develop, they offer critical benefits that templated or off-the-shelf solutions don’t. Here are some of the leading benefits of creating custom e-commerce websites:
- Customer satisfaction: A good web development firm will always want satisfied customers. Every e-commerce site has one goal: satisfying its users and visitors. Two metrics help you identify how much visitors like your website – the conversion rate and the bounce rate. Conversion rate is how many people purchase from your ecommerce store while bounce rate relates to visitor retention. Custom e-commerce websites have a greater likelihood of performing better along these metrics than pre-designed solutions as you can tailor customer experiences to your liking. Custom website development always focuses on satisfying the customer. This is the essence of custom website development.
- Business integration: Integrating your business with your e-commerce store is crucial. Offering an overall consistent brand experience to the visitors is important, whether they visit your retail store or your online store. Custom e-commerce stores offer better integration capabilities than templated websites like Shopify or WordPress.
- SEO and customization: It all boils down to customization when choosing between web solutions like WordPress and custom e-commerce sites. As the name suggests, custom websites can be customized however you like, thus enabling you to offer enhanced user experiences. Pre-designed templates offer very limited customization capabilities, thus limiting how much you can tailor user experiences. SEO is also more robust on custom websites, be they e-commerce stores or otherwise. Custom web development services are an important factor here.
Conclusion
By now, we hope you understand how having a custom website is far better than having a templated one. It gives you enhanced functionality, a unique brand identity, an excellent user experience, and a lot more. It’s a sure-shot way of staying ahead of your competitors!
Xavor has developed custom websites using modern practices of custom web development for startups and Fortune 500 companies. Our experienced Web & Mobile App development has expert programmers, web developers, and web designers. Reach out to us at [email protected] to book a free consultation session regarding custom web development services