Today, when deciding what kind of website you need for you business, often you can choose from a turnkey template driven site, which is usually much cheaper in cost, or you can choose to have a custom web site built from scratch.

Custom web site design offers you much more flexibility in the appearance and layout of the site. Your ideas for you website and what you want it to do can be better transformed to a custom designed site. You do not need any technical knowledge of coding or web languages. You can leave that up to the web developer and designer.

Turnkey sites on the other hand, already have a certain structure and layout. Now the cost is significantly lower to have a turnkey site done, but you may not be happy with this choice in the long run. The web is constantly changing and your visitors that come to your site are also demanding certain functions that a turnkey site may never be able to offer you. Sometimes though, depending on your business needs, this can be a good option for your business.

A custom designed web site not only offers you greatly control, but allows the site to grow with your business. Changes can be done to a custom web site much easier than a turnkey site. Also, maintenance and updating the site is something you are going to want to do. Again custom sites offer much more choices. As an example, many businesses like to change the look of their site to match different seasons or holidays. With a custom site, you simply can call your web designer and let them know what changes you would like to make. Typically this can be done relatively easy and affordably.

As the Web evolves, so does the end users experience when they visit your site. In the beginning everyone rushed out to get a website expecting as soon as they put it up, they would have an immediate increase in business. Users and visitors quickly clicked away from bad looking sites or hard to navigate sites. Most companies today are on their 2nd or 3rd website redesign. They are finding that a custom web site offers much more flexibility, thus the long term cost is greatly reduce by not having to do a complete redesign because the original site is not able to handle the changes.

There is no doubt that upfront a custom design web site will cost you more than a turnkey site, but in the long run you will be much happier with a custom designed website. There are many companies offering websites for $200.00. All I can say is typically you get what you pay for. These sites may look nice, but they will not be able to handle the functions you should be incorporating into your site. Today’s website visitors are much more savvy and they are demanding more our of your website. Websites of today and tomorrow are much more interactive and functional that the sites of Yesterday.

In conclusion, when shopping for a new website, take into consideration what you want to accomplish first. Think about what your customer or visitor that comes to your website wants. If you don't know what they want, they slow down and find out. Once you have a clearer picture of your vision for your website, you will then be able to move forward. Do not put the cost of the site first, you need to think long term and the payback of the site. This is why custom designed web sites are a better choice for you business.

Sam Clark
http://imbydesign.com/