Custom vs. Customized Website
My company has always prided itself on providing fully custom solutions for our clients. Essentially this means starting with a blank sheet of paper and crafting an asset entirely from scratch. One of the common confusions present within the industry is what the definition of custom actually means. Therefore, I would like to give a brief overview of the difference between a “custom” website vs. a “customized” website.
When I looked up the terms custom and customized there were a few key features of each. For “custom” the phrase that stood out to me was made to order. Made to order suggests that the entity was created based upon the requester’s specifications. A search for the word “customized” yielded slightly different results.
The portion that stood out was the word modify. Modification implies making changes to something that already exists as opposed to starting from scratch. Essentially, the whole idea boils down to what you start with. I think it becomes clear that the custom created asset is a much more effective and robust solution- tailored for your company’s growth goals.
In my opinion the truly unique thing about creating a custom (instead of customized) website is the development process that you go through. Just to give you an idea here are some of the steps that we take at BMS:
- UI/UX mapping to establish how the user will interact with your page
- Nailing down your target demographic(s) and creating different “personas” to navigate your pages
- Intensive quality control (QC) process
- Split Testing
- Reevaluate, Reevaluate, and then Reevaluate
When reviewing a proposal for a website we always invite potential clientele 
to explore other options and get different quotes. It is important to note that different companies at different growth stages have different needs, and a fully custom website from scratch may not always be the best solution for your specific situation. However, it is important to at least make an apples to apples comparison.
As you keep in mind your budget, be sure to also delve deeply into their website creation process as possible,since now we know that all websites (even custom ones) are not created equally.
Keep an eye out for my next article in this series. This article will discuss the use turnkey “customized” websites have within the marketplace, and will go a bit more into the specifics of their creation process.