We know what you’re thinking, why pay more for a custom, bespoke website when you can purchase a theme for quite a lot less?

Theme vs. Bespoke Website

At TLD we specialise in what we call “bespoke designed WordPress websites” – which means we design and code each page to be specific to the information that needs to go on that page and to represent the brand and key messages, carefully design and code the way it looks in different browsers, and create custom code so you can use WordPress to update the site on the areas that need updating.
However, when people hear about “WordPress” websites, they often imagine theme websites as these are so common and prevalent online.
Theme websites (also called WordPress template websites) come with pre-existing designs, so you have to be pretty happy with the layout you get.
This isn’t a post to bash themed websites – everything has a place in this world, and we have used themes for some of our clients before. But to us, we see them as a stopgap to the holy grail of bespoke designed websites.

Here are 5 things which only a bespoke designed website can give you

1. You get a completely custom design

You are unique, your company is unique, you deserve a unique identity – and a unique online presence to match that. When we do a bespoke website we take everything into consideration – branding, images, fonts, your key messages, tone of voice, and the personality that you want to express. You may find a theme that loosely represents who you are, with some of the elements customisable to an extent, but you still come out with a website that looks like a lot of other ones seen before. Kind of like wearing the same dress as someone else to a party – embarrassing!

2. Planning for functionality

A big thing to consider when deciding between a theme or a bespoke website is what functionality you would require. So many clients come to us with little awareness about all the big and small things they may require. Once we learn more, we can create the list of what’s needed – contact form, newsletter signup, gallery, payment gateway. With theme sites, there are plugins for so many of those things, but customisation is very limited. Bespoke websites are carefully planned, designed to your specific needs using only what you need and not cluttering the site with extras that slow things down. Bespoke designed custom made sites are specially coded to work for you and never against you.

3. Freedom to make changes easily

When it comes to pre-existing themes, unfortunately, they aren’t always made to be as easy to update as possible. There aren’t any strict rules on usability, and we find that the behind the scenes updatability can be counter intuitive, even if the theme is fairly well built and designed. Without getting technical, it requires a developer to rebuild the theme, and there is no guarantee that it will work. Want to make a change to a bespoke website – sure (!), we built it, we know the code, we can change that. Nothing broken!

4. You know you can contact the developer

Getting a bespoke website done through a reputable company means that the developers have been tried and tested, and that you will have the ability to have direct contact with the people building your site. Contacting the elusive theme developers can often be a tiresome job, they created the theme to be sold to hundreds, even thousands of people, who (if there’s a bug) will all experience it, and sometimes take a while to fix it. It tends to get difficult getting answers when you’re in a long queue.

5. More than just a website

We look at more than just websites when we work with clients. We consider how the website fits in with their overall marketing plans and goals, including your content marketing and social media. We think about what people need to feel and believe about you when they visit your website. You are unique, your company is unique, you should be represented in a unique way. The flexibility and freedom of bespoke website means we can tailor make each and every page to build trust, clearly inform, simplify concepts, and show personality – showing that YOU ARE SPECIAL!

Convinced? Thought you might be!

If you want to find out if a bespoke designed website is possible for you, please get in touch, we offer a free initial meeting and can work out costings and options for you.