It's true that you can build a website yourself for free, or for very little cost using a free or cheap template. How can templates be offered for free? If you look at the source code of any DIY template, you’ll see hundreds of URL links that are added for mandatory advertising which cover the costs of providing you free services. This means visitors to your website will have unwanted advertisements imposed on them. Have you ever visited a website looking for (example) a camera, and then shortly afterwards ads for cameras start following you all over the internet?
As stated in my Blog, "Custom websites vs. Templates", the popularity of DIY templates attributes to the surge of non-tech types with no design skills seeking easy money and claiming to be experts on web design – individuals who don’t know HTML and have never written a line of code. They can get a free or cheap DIY template, upload photos, and copy/paste text into the template - so simple that a 10-year old could do it (no joke). But the worse thing is, many of these scammers are charging the same price as a custom website designed by trained professionals. DON'T GET RIPPED OFF!
Custom websites can cost a big chunk of money for companies requiring a large e-commerce website with a back-end database to store a ton of product and customer information. In this case, they would be better off hiring a big web development company that staffs a team of web developers to code such a robust website in a timely manner. Overhead costs for office space and personnel are calculated into the cost of developing the website, so naturally it would cost more.
But for small businesses or individuals who don’t require a mega website, a custom coded website designed by a professional freelance web designer is much more cost effective than hiring a team of web developers since there are no overhead costs. Your website will be completely tailored to your business needs with an attractive design, optimized for SEO, and with much better quality and security. And there are no overhead costs.
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