Theme and custom design – What is the difference?
Overview
When it comes to doing web designing work, a common question comes up from the client mind is, what is the exact difference between the custom and theme based website. Obviously, this question is generally based on the price of the custom-based website vs. theme-based website.
Here, you will get some things to understand the accurate difference between custom and theme based website. Before entering into the topic, get to know what is a theme-based website and custom-based website.
What is a custom website?
A custom website is actually used to code the way you wish to look. To make you clear at the point of the custom website, WordPress is taken as the example. With the latest version of WordPress, you will get default theme but you will customize the layout, design, and functionality to suit your specific needs.
Thus, a custom website means tailoring website aspects according to your needs. At present, many businesses choose custom website as it has the ability to do both web design and internet marketing. This type of website renders more benefits for the users.
Pros
- Bespoke design
- Amazing functionality
- Excellent support and guidance
- Better website performance
Cons
- Expensive
- Take longer hours to complete the task
What is a theme-based website?
The theme-based website is usually a website in which coding and layout are already done. Are you using WordPress? Well, you have numerous collections of website themes to choose from. Theme websites are highly popular among the web designers because most of the coding is completed already.
All you need to do is simply putting content and images on the website and making some tweaks. That is enough! Now, you are ready to launch the website. In the last few years, the theme marketplace has completely exploded.
Without any doubt, plenty of talented website designers have developed some better-looking themes and made them easily available for little investment. This is one of the best ways for getting a beneficial yet cost-effective site.
Pros
- Extremely cheap
- Outstanding speed
- Pre-coded theme
Cons
- Generic
- Redundant code
- No SEO
Difference between custom and theme based websites
Below-mentioned are the aspects that you need to understand before committing to the theme based website or custom website.
Get to know whom you engage with
As mentioned already, most of the web designers use theme-based websites as they can able to sell them extremely cheaper. In many cases, the intensive coding of the website is finished already.
However, the major problem is that they do not know search engine optimization. Usually, web designers are not internet marketers and therefore they do not know how to optimize and promote the website.
In this place, you need to ask yourself the reasons for having a website in the first place. When running a business, you most likely want to generate leads. This is why it is better to engage with one who provides all kinds of internet marketing services from web design to email marketing all under the single roof.
On the other hand, custom websites are designed in the manner, which you wish for. Therefore, any professional can work on it anytime to do modification and changes according to the current business needs without any hurdles.
Design styling
With the custom websites, you avail the exact appearance, which you wish to reflect on your brand. You are also free to have the website that you want. Additionally, you will not be limited by the structure and design of the theme.
Contrary to this, you will have limited access to the structure and design in the theme-based websites. However, you will explore numerous theme options in which the coding part is already finished.
Coding
In case of theme-based sites, there will be a chance to get unnecessary things, which you do not need. For instance, if you buy XYZ theme site, you get all the whistles and bells whether you require them or not. Additionally, the unneeded code can also bog down your business website, which makes your site does not perform well.
If you choose a custom site, then you can make enough changes in the coding according to your needs and expectations. This means you will only get the code that you need.
Developer support
When you work on the theme-based website, there is no answerability from the theme developer. Along with this, getting high-quality support is also unpredictable because many theme-based developers reside overseas. Additionally, your web designer frequently will be on his/her own to solve the problem whatever you are facing.
When you decide to invest in the custom website, you will get support from any web developers, as the coding is not too complicated to understand. Sometimes, you will obtain top-notch support from the one who develops a custom website for you.
The back end of the website
Imagine that you are working on the theme-based site and need to change anything. However, you will not able to do the tasks easily because you have to search for the source file in which you need to make changes. It is actually time-consuming and hassle process.
The custom website is actually built on the default theme so that you can easily find the code where the need to make changes. This saves your time and money on spending on figuring out the exact code.
Apart from these, other things make a huge difference between custom and theme based websites are security concerns, responsive on all devices, and much more. Before choosing any website choice, try to consider the factors including budget, importance, and timeline.
Conclusion
Hence, if you do not have a realistic budget, then it is better to go for a theme-based website. It is a cost-effective solution for business where the website has no importance. If you are giving more importance to your business website and need to get success online for your site performance and aesthetics, you can prefer custom website built by the good company.
