What’s the Difference between a Templated Website and Custom-Built Website?

Most small and medium sized businesses have already realized the importance of having a mobile responsive website design, one that works great on a phone, and also fits nicely on larger monitors.

Google Search Explorer Open for Custom-Built WebsitesWith a website, we can add images of our team members, our work, products, and some good informational pages about our company.  Why then can’t I get exposure and more new business through search engines like Google?

There is one large mystery which is often not well-understood when building a new website. WHAT is this important factor that, in many cases, prevents or allows a business to achieve greater online exposure?   Sadly, most of the digital marketing calls you get will not directly address or explain this issue.  This one factor can be the difference of a business being profitable or barely surviving.

There are a couple hundred factors that Google and other search engines look at when analyzing the best options for a search. The website itself contains more than half of those factors. Therefore, having the right website framework is so important. This missing piece to a new website is the “Framework!” To keep it simple, the website framework is the core code and bones of any website.

WIX, GoDaddy, and Squarespace are good companies, but their websites are mainly pre-built or templated frameworks.  To get the best Exposure on Google, it is vital to have a “Custom coded/built framework, ideally a custom WordPress framework or theme. One may ask why?  And what does that even mean?

Icons of People Designing a Custom-Built WebsiteLet’s use this analogy. Think of your website as a home. The coding of a website is the building material that goes into building a house.  It is 100% important and vital to the home (website).  Templated websites and most website rentals are all pre-built frameworks and sold to thousands of other businesses. Think of these sites as premanufactured homes already build and ready to drop on your property.

However, a “Custom Built Website” will have its own unique and specific code and SEO optimization to literally stand out from the rest of them out there.

Now imagine that Google is a big drone in the sky. The templated sites appear as homes that look alike, and the custom-built website is the nice one standing out with beautiful architecture and cathedral ceilings.  It really is that simple!

So, the reality of not having a custom-built, SEO website can be less expensive initially, but extremely costly in the long run… and the sad part is most business owners never realize it.

American Creative