There is quite a bit out there about websites and how to make them, but let’s go back to the basics.
What feels like many eons ago, it was all the rage to use a program called Macromedia Dreamweaver (now owned by Adobe) to create a website. There were no builders such as WordPress, WiX, Shopify and all the others on the market now.
But fast forward to now and there are so many options. We won’t go into each individual product but rather discuss when you should use one of these as opposed to a completely original design using code and a geek.
With over 30% of all websites powered by just WordPress alone; it is easy to see the popularity of builders. They offer some great pros with the biggest being ease and price. If you plan on a blog, or a simple site to have an online presence then the reality is you probably don’t need to look any further than these.
If, however, you have something quite unique or custom then chances are you will need a site designed and developed from the ground up. If not from the ground up; at least some custom functionality added. This can be a bit costlier, but if your business relies on an online presence then… well… it’s a no-brainer.
Ask yourself this of your website
- Do I plan on having a site that does something no one (or very few) are doing?
- Is my site similar to an App whereby it ‘Does stuff’ and doesn’t just show content?
- Is speed mission critical? Bearing in mind this research by Amazon on every second of load time can lead to 10% less site visits.
- If my site goes down; will I lose business?
- Do I need to hold people’s data, and if so, do I know how to secure it?
If you answered yes to any of these; chances are WordPress and similar won’t be for you and you or a web guru will need to create something.
Should I do it myself?
If you are tech savvy, then yeah of course – it can be rewarding and fun (it can also be frustrating and time consuming but let’s think optimistically); but if not then it is always best to get someone to at least help.
If you know what you are looking for there are ample amounts of resources to look for. If you’re tech savvy you can lookup things like Bootstrap, jQuery, and PHP – I pick these three because they are straight forward and powerful options. It is obviously worth looking into Vue, React and Angular too but this is out of the scope of this article.
There is a lot to a website including: SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), UI/UX (User Interface and User Experience), Load time, Caching, Security, Database design, Content, Hosting, Redundancy, not to mention some phycology on content placement and colours plus a whole lot more.
OK I looked up Bootstrap, jQuery and PHP but they kept on talking about food and cleaning (Especially Cookies, Breadcrumbs, Raspberry Pies, Sanitising and AJAX)
Well, if you looked these up and you found food then it looks like you need a web guru. Now just to find one.
Web design is such a huge field and every web person has their speciality. There are Web Designers who specialise in the look and feel of a website, Web Developers who specialise in the backend and making your website do things, Network Administrators who specialise in making your website accessible, Graphic Designers that specialise in logos, and graphics, Content Specialist that know keyword and SEO and more.
There are other specialities in the field (which by no means are you expected to know) such as framework specialities, security niches and programming language specialities.
You can use a free quoting service such as geekable.com.au to find the right Geek for you. Web Gurus will give you free quotes, and an outline of what technologies they have in mind to achieve your goal. Geekable works by finding the right geek for your project meaning you don’t need to know exactly what kind of web geek you need, Geekable will work it out for you.
When you get quotes from Web Techs, no-one will expect you to know exactly what they are talking about, but it is worth familiarizing yourself with some of the terms used. This can be done by simply googling them.