I think that quite a few people who have a custom design still end up having an ordinary, template looking website though. I don't think enough try to break through the mold. Some bold sites like mediatemple are a great example of truly custom sites.

I like using a template because it;s faster, however I change everything. All images color and so on.

We have used a common template.And planning to update it in the near future

You could try the website DIY kit if you wish to design your own website and have more customizable than website template.

I just fully custom designed my website and integrated whmcs into it

Using pre designed templates is a good way to start out if you have no design skills.

However I think its best to come up with your own unique design.

Start by getting your ideas down on paper, get down what you want from the site, what information you need to get across etc, then come up with a theme and some images etc.

At the worst you will have some nice relevant information for a design company to make a good start

Used a premium template

A custom design make you look unique. Uniqueness is very important in the digital market. It grows a positive impression among the customers and definitely good for your business.

We use our own in house design, the fifth version of which is due at the end of this month.

Hello,

I think firstly you start working on template . customization of design is the second part after when developer put the code in that .

Use WordPress! There's themes available to suit everyone either for free or cheap and the search engines love them. There's SEO plugins as far as the eye can see. It's easy and there's some really configurable themes that allow you to create what you want.

Template, faster and easier. But it was a paid template.

I would go for custom design just for uniqueness. However free templates are available and it is easier as well as faster and we can make many changes so that it looks unique

We started out with a wordpress template that we really liked and used it as a non-wordpress site. Over the past two years, As we've seen elements from other sites and templates that we liked we've integrated them when possible into our design. It's pretty much grown into it's own thing.

I think it should be noted tho that none of us here are web or graphic designers. We're all pretty much customer service savvy system administrators and technicians. We have yet to agree upon actually spending a couple grand to pay a designer to make a site. I think eventually that time will come when one of us finds someone that we all agree upon and then we will pay to have a custom site done.

One of the things I've learned is don't try to please everyone with the site design and layout and forget about what you and your team like.

i am template is better