Why a custom coded site is a great investment for your business

Functionality: Tailored to Your Unique Needs

One of the biggest advantages of a custom coded site is the ability to create functionality that is specifically tailored to your unique business needs. Off-the-shelf website templates might provide some basic features, but they don’t take your individual needs and goals into account. Although you might find one that ‘looks nice’ on the surface, it may not produce the results you’re looking for. With a custom coded site, you have the freedom to design and develop the functionalities that align perfectly with your business goals. Whether it’s an appointment booking system, selling digital products, or any other specialised functionality, you can have it all, designed just the way you want.

Flexibility: Adapting to Your Growing Business

As your business evolves and grows, your website needs to adapt accordingly. A custom coded site offers the flexibility to scale and expand as your business requirements change over time. Unlike pre-designed templates that can be limiting and difficult to modify, a custom coded site can easily accommodate new features, pages, integrations, and design changes. In collaboration with your designer, you’ll have full control over the layout, navigation, and overall user experience, ensuring your website remains aligned with your evolving business goals.

It might be that you have a fixed budget that you want to invest into a website as your business is just starting out. With a custom site, you can invest this into a design and build that you can afford right now and then invest further as your business grows and expands. If you go for the template DIY option, it can be difficult to add new pages that flow with the rest of your site that aren’t simply a copy and paste job from another page.

When choosing a web designer, check if you’ll have the option to make changes and edits to your site yourself without needing to contact them. My clients have full editing rights via a content management system so that they can make changes to copy, text and even duplicate sections. This is a great way to future proof your website for keeping it fresh and exciting, and also saves you money in the long run as you don’t need to pay your designer each time you want something updated.

Scalability: Growing With Your Business

Every business owner dreams of growth and expansion, and when your business takes off, you need a website that can handle the increased traffic and demands. A custom coded site is built with scalability in mind. It can handle high volumes of traffic without sacrificing performance or user experience. Additionally, a custom coded site allows for seamless integrations with third-party systems and APIs, giving you the ability to connect and expand your digital ecosystem as your business grows.

Leaner and More Efficient Code: Optimised Performance

Behind every great website is clean and efficient code. A custom coded site ensures that your website is built with lean and optimised code (if you choose a developer that knows their stuff), resulting in faster loading times and improved performance. This not only enhances the user experience but also positively impacts your search engine rankings.

Think back to the last time you visited a website which took more than 5 seconds to load. Did you wait patiently for it to finally load the content, or did you immediately exit the site and go back to Google to find another option? Chances are it was the latter. Less code can equal a quicker load time, which equals more potential eyes on your product or service!

Templates are built for the masses and often include a lot of features that you probably won’t use on your site – this means more code. Even though you aren’t using these features, the code will still sit in the back end and can impact your site load time AND your SEO ranking. This is called “code bloat” in the developer world, and it’s something you definitely want to avoid. With a custom coded site, you can say goodbye to unnecessary bloat and enjoy a website that runs smoothly and efficiently.

If you are on the fence about whether or not to invest in a custom coded website, I hope this has helped convince you of the many benefits it can offer your business. It offers unmatched functionality, flexibility, scalability, and optimised code, all tailored to meet your unique needs. Long term, the investment will be worth it for your business.

If you’d like to chat further about having a custom site for your business, get in touch with me to share your vision!