3 Types of Web Development

Quite often, we receive messages like “Hello! I want to have an e-commerce website for my services, but it needs to be a very simple website built on WordPress!” or “Can you please create a highly personalized website for me? I want it to be cheap, so let’s build it on WordPress.” But the thing is that such a template-based solution as WordPress isn’t a good solution for any of these issues. In order to avoid misconceptions, we want to define types of web development and their differences as well as determine which solution is the most suitable for a particular purpose.

Regular Websites

A regular website serves the purpose of informing and is usually about using a website building tool such as WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, etc. Creating a new website is easy and fast with a template-based solution as the Content Management System (CMS) has already been developed, and there is no need to spend time on this. Template-based website builders usually have a large library of ready-made themes, so one can just pick a theme from the library and make small alterations to the overall website appearance. However, while template-based web development is fast and quite cheap, it lacks customization.

E-commerce Websites

The purpose of e-commerce websites is to list products and sell them to users. Usually, such websites don’t need a high degree of personalization, and while they can be custom-built, more often than not they are created with the use of website builder platforms such as Wix or Magento. Examples of e-commerce websites are AliExpress, Taobao, Amazon, etc. Such websites are all about informing users of the product range and providing for a smooth checkout and purchase.

Custom Web Development

At Idealogic, we specialize in custom web development. Unlike template-based and e-commerce websites, custom web design is all about uniqueness and personalization as everything is built from scratch according to the client’s preferences. Custom web development is definitely the best choice possible when the goal is to build a sophisticated product such as the equivalent of Airbnb or Booking, for instance.

Apart from a high degree of personalization, custom web development is also about speed. While ready solutions usually include standardized functionality which can be quite “heavy,” custom web design provides only what is needed for the particular client, avoiding all the unnecessary features. Custom websites are also highly scalable and flexible and can easily grow as the client’s business grows. Moreover, a custom-built website is more search engine friendly than a template-based website, so it ranks higher in Google and other search engines which is crucial for businesses dependant on leads and conversion on the internet.

Summary

All three ways of building a website are useful and popular, but they all serve different purposes, so it’s important not to confuse them. If you need a simple regular website for a blog or mere internet presence (e.g. a website for a hotel or a production firm), your best choice would be a template-based website — it’s cheap and fast but still completely satisfies your ask. If you need to sell your products online and there is no sophistication in the process, you should ask for the creation of an e-commerce website with the use of Wix, Magento, or any other website builder platform. If you need a highly personalized website with the potential to scale, your best choice would be custom web development as it provides more flexibility, sophistication, and speed.

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