No doubt transporting your business online has never been easier. But one towering question remains: should I use a turnkey software that's already been developed or a totally customized Website option for my business? Continue to read to learn the pros and cons of these two website building options, and to decide whether to choose a turnkey website builder or a purely customized solution for fulfilling your business requirements and expectations.



Below are major factors to consider when you are shopping for the right website building solution for your business:

Timeline and resources; budget; flexibility and scalability; administration and maintenance; support and training.

Customized Website Solution

First, I will address a customized website solution. For some business owners, they would not be satisfied unless their website is totally custom-designed. There are certain advantages such as specialization, personalization, and uniqueness when a website is completely built from scratch. With so many companies today that provide website development services, you can work directly with a web designer during the entire web developmental process to make sure that you receive exactly what you want. You will get mock-ups for each web page, reviews, and opportunities to suggest changes. When approved your web designer will implement selected designs within the site.

A 5 to10 paged Website may cost you any where from $2000 up to $10,000. The timeline for completion is usually between two to four weeks.

A turnkey Website solution is one which has been developed and is available to you on a monthly rental basis. There are many providers that offer turnkey website software, but only a few good ones that offer shopping cart software, free support, and many features.

Beware of falling for those inferior shopping cart software providers which specialize in web hosting. You do not want to use a company that offers you ecommerce software as an added benefit. Be extremely careful of making this oversight. The “wrong” provider can cost you thousands of dollars worth of lost sales down the line.

A number of competent turnkey ecommerce software packages are available to you at a very reasonably low cost. Keep in mind that these companies have invested years in research and a lot of money to develop their ecommerce software. They can afford to provide you a high quality turnkey website solution at a remarkably low cost. Because their focus is to attract the masses, their turnkey software has to provide a sizeable number of features in order to fulfill a vast range of business requirements. In addition, the price you pay monthly will be quite low since such software providers have thousands of customers.

The resources that are required to use a turnkey software truly depend on how many services or products you are planning to sell. You will either get manual or automated product updates.

Be certain to create a list of the utmost important features you will need to run a successful business online. Then, compare your list of needs with their list of features to make sure that most of those features that you require, are available once you sign up. Never be in a hurry. If you got questions, never hesitate to call or email. Make an informed decision when all of your questions are answered to your complete satisfaction.

Some turnkey software providers may fail to deliver a high level of support to their customer base. Bear the support factor in mind when shopping for a good turnkey software provider.

The vast majority of turnkey software companies provide web-based administration so you can easily use point-and-click features to quickly make updates whenever you need to. Maintenance of a website through turnkey software is relatively simple, efficient, and very cost-effective since the cost is already included in your monthly rental fees.

The budget requirement for a turnkey website usually runs under one hundred dollars a month. The timeline to launch a new website can realistically be done within a day, depending on how involved the project is.

The Pros and Cons

So what are the pros and cons of each described website option? A customized website gives the business owner less control over content update, takes longer to create, and costs much more to build, but it does offer a more unique look. A turnkey software provider, on the other hand, gives the business owner total control over content updates, takes less time to build, costs incredibly less, but the look and feel of a finished website is not as unique and personal as of a customized web project.