Why Custom Web Design Matters for Your Business

Not everyone knows how to build one that performs.

Proper SEO shouldn’t be an afterthought, In Sally’s web design, it’s baked into every page from the start. Structured headings, front end and back end meta data, mobile-first design and more.  Properly implemented SEO is what gives your site a fighting chance in Google.

AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google’s AI overviews are now surfacing business recommendations. A properly structured website gives you the best chance of being found and recommended by these platforms, not just traditional search engines.

Your business is unique. Your website should be too. Every site I build is designed around your brand, your customers and your goals. No websites that look like everyone else’s.

Have a website that isn’t performing? A custom website redesign isn’t just a facelift, it’s a chance to fix the structural and optimization issues that may be holding your site back from search results.

Most web designers can build you a beautiful website that looks amazing on the surface. But behind the scenes, they often skip the most crucial optimization opportunities, either because they are cutting corners to save time or they simply don’t have the technical SEO knowledge to do it right.

In this quick video, I look under the hood of two client websites I recently took over from pervious designers. These clients came to me looking for help from a referral. What did I find? Hundreds of images uploaded as raw files like IMG_8675309.jpg with absolutely zero Alt Text.

Search engines don’t have eyes. Google cannot see a picture of your storefront, your team, or your products. It relies entirely on properly structured file names and descriptive Alt Text to understand what an image is. When a designer skips this foundational step because they are lazy or lack the expertise, they are throwing away dozens of daily opportunities for your business to show up in local image search results.

The Sally Guarantee:
A pretty website without SEO is just a digital business card that no one can find. When I build or redesign your custom website, optimization is never an afterthought. It’s baked into every single image, heading, and line of code from day one.

Before You Sign Anything

Your name should be on the domain registration, not theirs. You purchase the domain if you don’t already have one. Do not transfer it to the designer. Always verify before you start. Don’t know where to buy a domain?
We use Namecheap.com. They don’t charge extra fees for privacy, like some other registrars.

I would suggest you have your own hosting, unless you trust the designer. Once you have paid for your site, it should be yours. If you decide to host the site with the designer, what happens if you want to move it? Get this in writing if they are hosting it.
There are many larger marketing companies that will take your site down if you stop using them. Know what you are paying for. Read the fine print in their contracts. If you are paying for website development, it should be yours wherever you want to host the site. When it comes to hosting, there are companies we do not recommend, we use WPX.net on all of our important sites. (If you purchase through that link, I may make a small commission – but I’d still recommend them even if I didn’t)

You should always be able to get into your own website independently, especially if it is a WordPress website. A fully custom coded website, may be another story.

Ask for specifics, not buzzwords. What do you do on the pages, to images, do you use meta data? Get a picture of what does “optimized” actually mean to them? If it sounds foreign or like gibberish to you, write it down, then go ask ChatGpt what it means and if what was told to you is part of building an optimized website. Do this before you agree or sign a contract.

The cheapest web design is not always best and sometimes it’s the most expensive mistake you’ll make.

A poorly built or unoptimized website can cost you far more in lost business than you ever saved upfront. If a designer can’t answer those four questions clearly and confidently, that tells you something important about how they operate.

When you’re trusting someone with your online presence, the digital front door to your business, you deserve to know exactly what you’re getting, who owns it and what happens if you ever want to leave.

With Sally Sutton, those answers are always clear before we start.