Main Benefits Of Having A Professionally-done Website For Your New SMB

SMB is an abbreviation for ‘small and medium-sized business.’  It is a term that’s commonly used in relation to start-ups. If you are the owner of such a business, then you probably already have a website. After all, very few businesses are able to successfully operate without websites today.

However, it’s very probable that your website is the product of a web-template service. This post will tell you why you should scrap your existing website and invest in one that’s professionally made just for you, by a specialist web design service.

Unique Website

A lot of websites are made using template services, as mentioned in this post’s introduction. However, websites created using templates lack one thing: originality. If you use a template service’s website design feature, then there will probably be 1,000,000 other websites using the same design as you. It can be very difficult for a marketing agency to market a site that’s just like every other website on the internet. The marketing agency you work with will have better success in delivering online results if your website is unique to the services or products you offer. A unique website will also look a lot better than one that’s designed using a template.

First Impression

First impressions are everything. If your site just looks like every other website, then customers won’t pay a lot of attention to you (unless your product or service is very rare or in demand). If you are able to capture your audience’s attention when they first visit your website, then they are more likely to want to do business with you. A uniquely designed website can help you to do this.

Outdo Competition

More and more business owners are waking up to the fact that using templates to design their websites makes them look bad. Because of this, a lot of businesses are starting to make the shift from template services to custom web design ones. If your competition is all still using templates, then paying a company to create a website for you will make you stand out. You can then use this to command a bigger share of the market. Even if your competitors do end up investing in a custom website, later on, you will already be a fixture in the industry and will have more customers.

Increased Sales

For all of the reasons mentioned so far, a custom website can help you to increase the number of sales that you make. As a business owner, increasing sales should be one of your main concerns. Unfortunately, a lot of businesses don’t invest much time or money into increasing their sales. Having a custom website designed is one way of doing this. Marketing is another. You should always outsource your company’s marketing to a specialist agency, because marketing is, in many ways, a full-time job in and of itself.

Search Rankings

As far as marketing is concerned, SEO is one of the most effective forms. SEO (or search engine optimization) is a method of manipulating the algorithms of search engines in order to rank one’s business highly. When consumers type in keywords relative to your niche, if you have properly incorporated SEO into your marketing effort, then your site will appear at the top of the search listings. Unfortunately, SEO is highly technical and is far too confusing for many people. However, when you employ an agency to create a website for you, they can also optimize your site, so it’s ready for an SEO agency to then take over and begin marketing it.

Consumer Interest

One of the most challenging aspects of running a business is getting consumer interest. As mentioned earlier, when you have a well-designed website, consumers are more likely to stay on your website after they visit. However, if your site isn’t well-designed, then they will leave as quickly as they come. A good website is very interesting to consumers because very few websites have them today. A good website can also make you look like an authority, which can increase your brand’s importance in the eyes of your audience.

Website Performance

A lot of web-template services also offer to host. More often than not, this type of hosting performs very poorly. When you pay an agency to create a website for you, they will arrange hosting with the best host that they can afford. When you have a good host, your website will perform better. It’s also worth noting that a web design agency will be able to ensure that your site is designed and optimized with performance in mind. Navigation is a big problem with a lot of web template sites; they can be hard to maneuver. Your website will undoubtedly perform better when you have it made from scratch.

Brand Identity

Brand identity is very important. What’s more important than just simple brand identity is brand consistency. When you use a web template service, you don’t have a lot of control over where you put your logo, or how each page looks. This is not the case when you have a website made for you from scratch. The service that designs it will be able to ensure that each page reflects your brand well and matches your social media pages in color, design, and format. Brand inconsistency can ruin your brand’s reputation.

More Affordable

While at first glance web template services might seem very affordable, in reality, they are not. The reason for this is that there are often lots of hidden charges tacked on, not to mention after a period of around a year, prices for keeping one’s site tend to be increased exponentially. They are, in all truth, scams. The owners of such services wait until you are desperately reliant upon your website before they bump up the prices. When you work with a specialist web design agency, there are no hidden charges. You get what you pay for. Once the work’s done, you own your site completely.

24/7 Maintenance

However, an advantage of working with a web design service is that even after you have stopped working with them (or they have created your website) then they will still continue to maintain your website for you if you encounter problems. Most will offer 24/7 maintenance. All you need to do is to reach out to the company’s customer support department and explain your issues, then they will be able to fix them for you. Website maintenance is a very important part of website ownership, but if you aren’t a trained coder, you won’t have any idea how to do it yourself. The service that built your website for you will be able to do it for free.

Digital Security

Security should be one of your main concerns. Cybercrime is on the rise. More and more business owners are being targeted by criminals and having their websites’ weaknesses exploited. The problem with template sites is that once a cybercriminal is able to find a weakness with a specific template, they can then attack every single site that’s using it. A web design service will be able to ensure that your site is fully secured and protected, all of the time.

More Features

When you have a custom website built, you can have as many features as you want. The features offered by template services are minimal. A custom website can have anything, from games to videos. You should be aware though, if you want very specific, high-tech features (like a game) then you will have to pay a little bit more. Adding these features to a website can take a lot of work, so are therefore more expensive to commission. However, having unique features is worth the cost, since it will make your site a lot more attractive to consumers.

Easy Updates

Whenever updates or changes need to be made to your site, you can reach out to the service that built it for you and ask them to. Since the site’s framework will already exist, any changes that they need to make can be done very easily. It is also worth noting that the good thing about having a custom website is that you can have anybody work on it after it’s been built, it doesn’t have to be the people that built it. It is worth mentioning though that by going back to the company that built it for you, you are more likely to get discounts on any maintenance, repairs, updates, or changes that need to be made.

Chatbot Integration

Lots of websites are starting to use chatbots to answer consumers’ questions. However, you won’t be able to put a chatbot on your site if you are using a template service, because they are far too technical and require too much work on the developer’s part. Template sites are usually just the bare minimum. When you have your own site designed for you from scratch, you can have chatbots, or any form of artificial intelligence (within reason). A chatbot can improve your site’s customer support massively.

If you are the owner of a start-up, then it’s time to invest in a custom website. Having your own custom website will make you stand out, increase your sales, and make it easier for marketers to market your company. Custom sizes are also very cost-effective, so if you are money-conscious, give them some consideration for that reason alone.