Custom Web design is not as popular as it used to be a decade ago. Before, the fear people had is that their website would end up looking like that of everyone else if they used templates. This is no longer the case, thanks to the availability of millions of themes as well as premium themes.
The great thing about premium themes is that you will be guaranteed that you will be the only person using that specific theme. In addition to that, there are many more reasons why custom Web design is dying. Below are some of the key reasons why people are turning to WordPress themes.
When compared to working with a developer or building your website from scratch, the first thing you will notice about themes is that they are inexpensive. Custom built websites are quite expensive with figures ranging from $5,000 and $50,000. This may be an impractical investment for the non-profit companies.
The better option is the use of premium themes. The best thing about premium themes is that they are finely crafted and are within the reach of anyone. They are quite cost effective when compared to having a custom built website. In the long run, themes are cheaper to build and maintain especially when considering that with a custom website you would have to pay for customer support. This means thousands of dollars in maintenance.
Just because you are using free themes does not mean your website will look like every other website that uses the same template. Most of the themes are customizable. You can mold the theme to your liking so that it perfectly matches your content. Alternatively, you can hire a designer to custom build a template for your website. Even this option is much cheaper than having your complete website custom built.
Thanks to the availability of WordPress plugins, you can easily change the functionalities of your website. There are plugins that can transform your simple website into a fully functional online store, subscription portal and do so much more. What is more is that you can still customize the actual code of the plugin using code editors to achieve exactly what you want. More about WordPress plugins.
All in all, when editing your website with plugins, you should remember that the use of too many plugins will cause your website to load slowly. This is because every plugin will result in a request the server will have to make to completely load the page. Only use relevant plugins and don't add unnecessary elements.
The reason why themes are the best option is because of their advanced content management systems. This is especially so when using WordPress themes. Themes are smart codes that take your content and make a site out of them. The best thing is that you don't have to type or edit any line of code. Once you paste your photos, videos or text, the code will do the rest. This means you don't need advanced programming skills to create your own website.
Powering over 58.6 percent of the websites, WordPress is the most widely used CMS. It has great support and offers great themes to help make your work easy. The system will handle virtually any kind of content you throw at it.
With the custom websites, you should be prepared to part with at least $2,000, which you spend on the content management system (CMS), which depending on the one chosen, can be difficult to learn and easy to get dated.
This is not the case with WordPress. To begin with, the system is free for you to use. It also has a huge community, which keeps on updating the core code to make sure that the system does not get stale. The WordPress platform is created by people for people. This simply means you don't need advanced skills to use it. It is the most user-friendly CMS in the world today.
If you have been keen on the newest trends in Web development, you may have learnt that more people are using mobile devices to access the Internet. This means that your website has to be tailored to cater to those consumers.
In the past, when it came to custom Web design, you had to create two versions of your website; one for mobile and another for desktop. This meant that you had to create and maintain two versions of your website. This is no longer the case, thanks to responsive Web designing. However, because this is a new method of Web design, developers will tend to charge you more for a custom website.
The best thing is that there are themes that have been designed for mobile. These are templates designed with intelligent code, which adjusts the website to fit the screen size it is being viewed on. This means you don't need two versions of a website.
Having a mobile-friendly website is no longer crucial but mandatory. Google is unforgiving of sites that are not mobile friendly in its ranking. If your website cannot be viewed perfectly on a smartphone, you need to redesign it. WordPress themes make it easy for you to create a mobile friendly website.
As you may have noticed, it can be better to use WordPress themes than investing in a custom website. With themes becoming more advanced with each passing day, custom Web design is quickly dying.
All in all, you need to note that investing in great content is the most important thing in online marketing. Your success is all about how people perceive you. Great content makes it easy for your target audience to trust you. Second, you need a robust site that is easy to read, manage, fast as well as one that is mobile friendly.