Top 10 Reasons to get a custom designed web site over a CMS (content management system)

I originally wrote this article about 2 years ago; there are quite a few updates to the info. Hope you find this informative.

The utilization of CMS systems such as Joomla and phpnuke wordpress and several others has become more and more popular. The major reason for this is software's like this provide the site owners with the ability to make small alterations to the site on their own with little or even no web design or coding knowledge. While this may sound like an ideal solution to some of you it is something that should be considered carefully. It’s important to really envision the future of your site and check around to see what you like because while there are new add-ons and widgets being added all the time, the reality is that real customization is something that can’t be attained from a canned site solution.

I'm going to outline the top 10 reasons that I favor custom design over template CMS systems.

1.Customization:
This is a big one for me and for anyone who is trying to really establish a web presents that is unique. Wordpress does provide some very nicely designed templates with some eye catching elements but at the end of the day as interesting as your template site is; you are still only one of possibly thousands of people who have either bought or downloaded that same template. There are several other CMS options aside from wordpress however wordpress is by far the largest community with the most developers each CMS having its own focus. As an example Wordpress is focused on blogging now you can create a web site with wordpress however being that it’s a system set up for blogging you’re going to hit some snags, it’s kind of like hammering a nail in with the heal of a shoe it will get the job done however it’s not the ideal tool.
When you have a custom made website on the other hand, the site will be made to do just what you do. Video, Ecommerce, Pod Casting you name it and your web designer can create you a site that fits you like a glove. What’s even more important at least to me is that with a custom site your personality can be reflected in the look and feel of your site. People who know you will see it and people who don’t will fide it more personal than a canned site.

2. Animated Elements:

Right now the only way to achieve advance animated effects is to use either flash or jquery and Css. with template based CMS systems you have a very limited ability to enter code of your own so the animated elements available to you are extremely limited. Some of these systems have animated templates built into them that allow you to enter a couple images and text and it will animate it for you but you really have no creative control over how it looks and how the animation behaves. Basically what you have available to you here is the decision of how your images transition be it slide left or right up or down fade in and out etc. All together it’s not terrible looking but the real issues are 1 if you should decide you’d prefer not to have it they are sometimes very difficult to remove and in some cases you have to actually build a new page just to get rid of that element. 2. The animated elements or sliders pull information from your site and sometimes from your posts and pages themselves, you might have to edit every page on your website in order to change the images and text that show up this is a situation that I can tell you from experience is annoying both while you’re trying to figure out what to do and then still after you know how. This is just one aspect of our next bullet point which is difficulty.

3. Difficulty:

This is one of the biggest reasons that I don't recommend CMS systems. 9 times out of 10 people choose a CMS system to save money. They don't want to pay a web designer to create a custom site and they don't want to pay for updates and things like that after they have a site. The issue is however that CMS systems often time are very difficult to use when making alterations that are more complicated than just text or images so after all is said and done you need to get a web designer anyway just to make some changes, the whole reason you got the CMS in the first place was to do it yourself...

4. limitations:

Here's another big one, as I said before CMS systems have templates that determine what goes where and something so simple as you wanting to move a menu from the right side of the pages main text to the left in some cases require that you download and install a whole new template and start from scratch. Imagine the lunch tray from school there was a big area meant for the main lunch food and then little side compartments for the sides and milk etc. The same idea holds true here if the compartment isn’t where you’d like it or if it doesn’t exist at all then your back to having to hire a programmer to hard code the changes you want. I know this has become the norm in recent times but you don’t have to settle for what’s there and you shouldn’t have to imagine ways to trick the system or take and element meant for one thing and rename it just to get as close to how you wanted it to look as you can; it is possible to have something done fast and correct and be just how you want it.

5. Analytics:

 there are many free site services such as Google analytics that allow you to track you websites visitors and traffic quite nicely and effectively these are services that allow you to set up an account and then they provide you with code that you place into your site that allows the service to communicate with your site to gather this information. there are ways to get this code into your CMS web site but when you actually see how it's done it often times is a back door or work around, basically a way of fooling your CMS into accepting the code that Google or other service provider gives you. Now I'm not saying that these workarounds don't work but it seems a little annoying that you would have to basically work harder trying to trick the system into doing what you want than it would take to build it from scratch. Using analytics code can be challenging as it is but depending on what system you are using the process gets even more difficult. A plugin for wordpress I recently tried wanted to have certain parts of the code given by Google extracted and placed in individual areas to set up, if you are someone that is not used to coding; what it looks like and how to identify where things are would be totally lost doing this.

6. SEO:

Search engine optimization this is the term for the code and techniques used to make your site show up on search engines whenever someone searches for a term that encompasses something related to your site. For example if you were a plumber you'd want your site SEO to make you show up when someone goggles plumbing or leaky pipes etc. Most Systems available have quick and “simple” SEO plugins that are supposed to generate all the code for you which sounds great. The issue I encounter in most the SEO systems I have tried is that they are extremely complicated. You have to be an expert in SEO in order to use them cause they ask you dozens of questions some easy to understand some not and you could be at it literally for hours just filing in these boxes and you don’t know if you did it right until months later when you either have steady site visitors or not.

7. Social Media:

This is a huge feature of a successful site and as social media gets more and more popular there are more and more tools and methods of incorporating social media into your site in order to create a social and web presents for your site. But yet again here we are with the good old code issue. Some Systems allow you to enter your own code however it takes a skilled developer to be able to sift through the default code to add or alter code to meet a specific requirement. When you deal with Social media plugins some are easy to use and just need your login information to integrate and connect your site with your Facebook or twitter for example, however sometimes there are deeper connections that can be attained between your site and your social media platform that relies on code. The issue is with most systems you are able to work with PHP or HTML both are very similar but you can’t do much with JavaScript and other scripting languages and unfortunately a lot of this added and advanced functionality is generated on the Social network side and you then can’t really enter it cause the CMS doesn’t allow that language. When you build a website from scratch you don’t have this issue, you can have as many languages in your site as your server will permit. One site can have HTML, JavaScript, PHP, JQuery, Pearl, CGI and more if needed all depending on what you need done and what code is best for accomplishing that goal.

With the CMS if you can’t find a plugin or widget that does what you want then you not only have to build one yourself but you are also limited on what tools you can utilize.

8. Hosting:

A lot of people don't know that CMS systems need special hosting because the CMS software has specific structures and folders that need to be present in the correct placement for the CMS to function. Basically you might have to buy a new hosting package to accommodate your CMS. Due to the increase in the popularity of these systems since this article was first written there are a lot of different hosting packages all over the net made just for these kinds of CMS. They range in price and in usability depending on the host you choose. The hosting is a consideration simply because when you go to get a web site started there are different options to choose from when it comes to hosting, different kinds of hosting servers support some kinds of code while other wont, if a hosting company doesn’t have a specified package or hosting service that is made for the CMS you have chosen then you have to do a lot of research to assure that the hosting you choose meets the system requirements of the CMS you chose. A custom web site on the other hand can be made to work on any server which depending on the situation can be a major advantage.

9.Cost:
While the CMS you use may be cheap or even free when you need to get new templates or modules for the CMS those often time do cost money in addition to the hosting cost mention in the last point. Some things will work great right out of the box while some will need to be tweaked or even re-coded this will cost money and you will also have to spend time finding a web design or coder that can make the alterations you need. Basically with a template site you never know how exactly to get something fixed. When you have a web designer you know just who to call if something doesn’t work or if something doesn’t look right or what have you. When you use a CMS you’re on your own to figure out either how to fix it or how to find someone to help. It’s like the difference between living in an apartment with a maintenance man and living in a house of your own, most people don’t realize how much repairs and things like landscaping and maintenance cost for a home, not to mention the incidental things that come up unexpectedly.

10. Believe in your Business:

The final point I'd like to make is this. If you need a website then go to a real web designer. Your web site is extremely important to your business why would you consider not using a professional? When your home Air conditioner goes out you call a qualified repaid person, when your car has an issue you call a mechanic.

Why?

Because even though you may have some knowledge of how to fix them it’s just a good idea to let someone who is an expert handle it. You are busy trying to start a business or trying to increase sales which is hard enough without trying to learn a whole new world worth of information on top of it. Having a professional web developer handle the creation of your website provides you with a fully functional site that fits your business and you as the owner of that business it’ll be unique and stand out in what has literally become an ocean of website out there. You will have someone to advise you and let you know based on experience how to best facilitate your plans and ideas. The personal touch, the “Human Element” that’s the missing element to a lot of CMS and other kinds of canned website solutions available. You are a human your prospective clients are also so why would a website that looks like it was designed by a robot be the way to go?

I can’t tell you how much of my business comes from people who got the CMS for convenience and to cut costs by doing themselves, and came to a point where they couldn’t make heads or tails of what they were doing and needed help making their supposedly simply solution work.

My point of view may be bias as a web designer but at the same time, who would know better than a web designer all the common follies and issue that real web site clients come up on?