Custom web design: How to get what you want and save a bundle

(Watch the 3:40 minute video below) One of the most difficult things in building a website or re-designing a website for your business is the design. You can go looney tunes (official description) with design decisions and spend yourself silly in the process. I can't tell you how many times a design firm has created what they thought was a masterpiece of design only to have it shot down by the client, and have to start from scratch.

You can go about design a few different ways:

Get a free template (freecsstemplates.org, WordPress, Drupal, etc)
Buy a template (MonsterTemplate.com)
Customize an above template
Design from scratch

They are all valid ways to go depending on budget, but if it's a business you are promoting your entire budget might be $2000 - $5000... and spending $1000 - $2000 on design is pretty easy to do.

Remember you also have to spend some money on things like search engine optimization, email news, content creation, call to action items, etc.

Go with the value proposition (#3 above): customize a premade template. If you hire a pro to work with an existing design they will brand it and make it yours. Watch the video below that illustrates how our company transforms a template into a finished website design that looks custom (and please feel free to leave a comment!):

Listen to the audio track: