In this age of the Internet, having a website is imperative for nearly every business. Most consumers choose their next service provider, seller, on simple facts. It’s either based solely on the appearance, speed, and ease of use of their website. At the same time, the popular opinion seems to be that in the website development field it’s only possible to ace these factors by opting for a custom coded website. The reality, however, is quite different.
In the following article we’re looking at why most businesses would actually benefit from choosing a visual builder based web developer. And how these types of websites help ensure the sustainability of the website while significantly cutting web development and web management costs.
1. Website development, managing and editing
For most companies, it’s important to be able to change, update, etc. their website over time. In that case, choosing a web developer who uses a visual website development software is a clear choice. When choosing a website that has been created using a visual website building software like Elementor, you can rest assured that making any changes in the future is easy enough that you can do it yourself. However, if you’ve opted for a custom coded website, that’s far from being the case.
1.1. Visual website builder – everyone can understand it
Visual web builder based websites are created with the idea that it would be as simple as possible to change and manage them in the future. And even if the person managing the site hasn’t seen a piece of code in their life. Once the website is created, the web developer can give you all the necessary knowledge. Knowledge to be able to easily and quickly update and manage your website on your own. In case the developer doesn’t give you the necessary knowledge, you can easily get it from tutorials on Youtube and Google.
1.2. Custom coded website management / editing – you are depending fully of developer
When it comes to custom coded websites, the code for the website is created and only accessible by the developer. Whatever changes or updates you require in the future will have to be done by the web developer. (As they are the only ones who know the code of the website.) Being able to manage this type of website as a non-expert is unfortunately very difficult.
On top of you having virtually no actual control over your website, you’re bound to end up paying significant amounts of money to your developer for even the smallest changes. At the same time, a visual web builder based website can easily be edited by yourself without having to pay for someone else to do it. For most companies, this can mean saving hundreds or thousands of dollars per month.
The biggest problem with custom coded web development is the risk of losing developer. In case the company and the web developer have a falling out for whatever reason. As previously mentioned, the only one who knows the code of such a website is the web developer. This means it is extremely difficult for another developer to take over the website development and management of it. Even if you find someone to ‘crack the code’, it’ll be a costly over-taking. Reason behind that is that the new developer is bound to charge you for the time it takes them to understand the code created by the initial developer.
1.3. No need to lose money
A visual builder based website development uses visual building blocks and no line of code is needed. Simply put – you have almost unlimited options of developers you can hire.
Even if you’ve opted for a custom coded website – it’s okay. We strongly recommend making sure that at least the base of the website is still built with some sort of visual builder. Not fully html based, so the main pages and elements of the website are still accessible to you to edit. This will help ensure that a bigger variety of web developers will be able to take over the management of the website if needed. And you won’t end up losing thousands of dollars should any issues occur.
2. Website loading speed is one of the most important parts
As time is one of the most important things in this day and age, people tend to be impatient. They have no interest in losing valuable seconds waiting for your website to load. Most people would rather leave a site like that and find another, faster loading one. Although many web developers like to say that custom coded websites have a better loading speed, it’s actually not true if website code is not optimized. This is overused and false claim only sell more expensive solutions to their potential clients, . There actually have been lots of web developers who have turned away from custom coded website development and chosen visual web development software based solutions for the 3 main reasons:
- 1. To cut down development time and website prices
- 2. To avoid themselves of burning out because of 12-14 hours of workdays full of coding
- 3. To give customers option to edit their website themselves without paying web developer for that
2.1. Visual web built website loading speed can be lightning fast
Various companies offering visual builders (e.g. Elementor) have put in a lot of work and effort to ensure that this type of websites would have at least the same loading speed than custom coded websites. Though it might seem too good to be true, creating a website that’s fast-as-lighting is actually fairly easy in the hands of an experienced developer if the correct visual web building software, theme and optimizations are used.
2.2. Custom coded website can be fast-loading, but it depends of optimization level
When it comes to custom websites, the truth is that in many cases the web developer is focused on getting the website up and running as quickly as possible, not giving attention to actually optimizing the site. In that case, the client might end up with a visually beautiful but painfully slow website. This can cost valuable business to the company. Though this is not applicable to all developers, fact is, the more web development service providers that are out there, the more you’ll encounter ones all too eager to sacrifice the quality for a ’quick fix’.
Optimization is important in visual web builder based websites as well. Althought some visual builders use bloated code, there are well-optimized ones available.
They are supported by either developers themselves or by various addons. Thanks to these the end result is a beautiful and fast-loading website. This means that companies opting for such website development will have easy-to-use websites their clients will enjoy visiting. If the developer takes things a step further with a visual web builder based website and optimizes as much as possible, the client is guaranteed to have a website with a loading speed well above average or even faster than 90% of sites out there.
3. Design and functionality comparison between visual website builder vs custom coded website
One of the main misconceptions about visual website builder based websites is that they all look the same. Or they do not have the same capabilities as custom coded built sites. Luckily these statements are not true. This is said by some web developers who are looking to sell their clients much more expensive custom coded solutions. The main fact that brings website speed down is overuse of plugins or addons. This can happen in both cases – with a website built with visual web building tools and also with a custom coded website.
In reality, all visual builder based websites can be created by an experienced developer in a way where the design, ideas, and visions of each client are taken into consideration and fulfilled. For example Elementor has tons of unique elements which can be easily expanded with Elementor Pro without and other addons. Choosing the best optimized add-on and plugins will guarantee that website loading speed is unaffected.
When choosing a web developer make sure you choose an experienced one. He / she can ensure that a website developed using a visual website builder will not fall behind a custom coded one. By now, visual web builder programs come with endless options. Options allowing a professional web developer to make a visual website builder based website look like it was custom coded. And in lots of cases even surpass custom coded website in appearance, functionality and speed, all while offering better price.
4. Website development price – is the pricier really better?
Although custom coded websites are marketed as something reflecting high status, the only companies that actually really need custom coded websites are big international companies with billions of revenue. For most businesses, visual builder based beautiful websites are a better, smarter, more convenient, and sustainable option.
There’s almost any or no difference in the functionality, speed, design, and appearance of the website. You’ll essentially only be paying bigger bucks for a website that takes longer to create if you are going with a custom coded website. When opting for a visual web development based website, you’ll be ensuring that any web developer you’ll ever hire will be able to manage the website, in case you’re not planning to take that upon yourself.
4.1. What is the main difference between different developer pricing?
A popular opinion still remains that when it comes to web development, a more expensive solution is always better. However, the price is determined by the hours the web developer spends on creating your website. As developers hourly rate is not in the low category, multiply that with the developers hourly rate and you might be looking at quite a hefty price tag.
When it comes to hourly rates, developers truly land on all ends of the spectrum. There’s no doubt it’s usually a bad idea to go for the cheapest option, as usually the cheapest option is offered by incompetent or beginner developers who want to take their part of the web development market.
However, going for the most expensive one is usually a bad idea as well. In most cases, big agencies have much higher hourly rates as their daily expenses along with revenue expectations are significantly higher than the ones of freelance developers or self-employed professionals. And there are lots of freelancers or smaller agencies who are more experienced, offer better and faster service and prices.
4.2. “Using the best tools available” or “wasting time and your money?”
The amount of working hours is the thing that dictates the end price. We recommend sticking to the tried and true and basing your decision on who will use the tools already available to them. If the developer develops your new website from the ground up using custom code, you are paying for hours that really shouldn’t even be counted for. Instead of creating something from zero, they could easily make use of components already out there and available for use. On top of waiting for your website to be done for a much longer time, you’ll also be paying for unnecessary time.
When it comes to websites created by using visual builders, the developer will make the most of elements already available. They’ll put those elements together based on the desired design and spruce them up to create a website just as powerful as one that’s custom coded. The only difference is that the visual builder based website will be ready for you much faster. And with a significantly smaller price tag.
5. Lowering risks in web development
It would make sense to assume that if you pay more for a custom coded website, most potential risks are basically taken care of. Unfortunately, that’s not necessarily the case.
5.1 Custom code is prone to human and AI error
In many cases, the web developer who wrote the custom code left an error (bug) in the code. As to make mistakes is humanly thing, it happens. But this can result in a specific function to not work properly. A lot of the time, these types of errors go unnoticed at first. This means they’ll have to be corrected at some point in the future, bringing along another unexpected and costly expense for the client.
There’s also a lot of AI help that’s being utilized in the custom code based web development world these days. This, however, brings about countless security risks. When a developer let’s AI write a piece of code, the AI will not do anything else than main task. The AI won’t take into consideration the fact that the website code needs to be safe. The only focus is on getting it done fast. In that case, the code created might be not secure, over-exaggerated (which negatively impacts the loading speed of the page). And again the developer would have to fix all these problems causing hours to increase. In many cases they won’t even notice them before it’s too late.
5.2. Visual web builder tools for the win
In case you’re wondering how visual website development building tools are less prone to these issues, here’s how. They are extremely popular and widely used. Over 10 million pages have been created using Elementor and over 5.8 million using Wp Bakery. Thanks to their wide use, all errors are identified and fixed very fast.
Looking for a website developer?
To sum up, if your business needs a new website or you’d like to give a bit of a facelift to your existing one – think carefully before opting for an expensive custom coded option you probably won’t necessarily benefit from. It just might be a wiser decision to opt for a cheaper, user-friendly and website you’ll be able to manage yourself.
If you plan to build or order someone to develop website for you, either using visual web builder or custom coded one, don’t hesitate to contact us.
