What if we say that it’s the rightest time to prepare for the upcoming 2017? No, we’re not talking about the Christmas Tree or Santa’s Elves but about your website. See how to get it innovative and start everything successfully, in full speed.

The choice between better and…better. CMS or Static website?

Let us clarify, you haven’t been so wrong before, in case you think that if we deal with CMSs then we will persuade you hardly to migrate or switch your website to CMS platform (In fact, we will, but a tiny little bit :). We would like to provide here a short difference analysis on how both websites building methods can be effective. Here we go.

Static Website

We should start from the very beginning. Literally. The beginning of ALL websites. Run an HTML built website? Then you probably know that you are free. What do we mean by that, right? Well, you can create whatever website you want, starting from design and finishing with contents by just modifying a simple code. The static website doesn’t require many resources to maintain or update it. HTML/CSS using suits best for the small business websites. Themes and hosting prices here are even more than optimal. In some sense, static websites work faster than some CMSs as each page contains an HTML code that points to the predetermined structure and page’s content type. (Short fact: HTML5 is used by 58.2% of all the websites).

Though you should be aware of such HTML based websites:

–Coding is simple but after all some technical knowledge is needed;

–Want to change something? Make no mistake. Even the slightest flaw in code can cost you not just one dysfunctional page but an entire website.

–It’s obvious from previous statement that all the changes have to be done manually. Frequent updates are not static website’s muscles at all (that’s why it’s actually “static”). It can take maybe 0.00001 less than eternity and mirrors back on your website management badly.

–There are no appropriate add-ons or it’s difficult to find and add them.

CMS

Content management system was discovered to make everyone’s lives easier. Let’s consider why CMS built site may prevail over the static ones. (Short note: ~26% of the world’s websites run on CMS, which is WordPress, and 0.7% of websites belong to Joomla. This tendency is only growing )

–Since the predetermined amount of themes and plugins or extensions is available, it’s possible to create something interesting even in few minutes/hours.

–It’s FREE… Though, you can make it the paid one if you aim for something more than “basic”. There is an entire universe of CMSs with different options and pricing plans if you want.

–You need no coding knowledge at all or you can get acknowledged with the current CMS by discovering its learning curve.

–Updating and modifying isn’t a problem for CMS, you can add or delete something with 1 or a bit more clicks.

–CMS platforms have own choice of plugins or extensions which are responsible for security, speed-increasing, SEO, etc. Thus, you can see that website creation isn’t the matter of all life.

There is also the dark side of the Sun:

–As was mentioned there is predetermined amount of themes. It can be good or bad. Why bad? Since in static websites everything is based on coding, you can create whatever template you want. (Though some CMSs support CSS and HTML modifying)

–Not every platform suits your needs. There are platforms which are good for blogging or universal websites (like WordPress), others are the wise choice for e-commerce (like Joomla) or corporate websites (like Drupal).

Content

Dynamic and bright contents it’s what you need nowadays. The core bringer of your traffic. Analyze your website data well before posting it. Determine what kind of website would you like to create and avoid putting there anything off-topic. Run a portfolio website? Upload here your case studies and works which are considered to be worth posting. Dealing with an e-commerce or provide services? Offer products of only high quality and include here customer care options. Blogging about world events or your interests? Choose the single topic, make it interesting for your readers and try to unite them on your blog. It’s better to concentrate on one item, instead of doing everything which in result turns to nothing.

If you run a business website (in fact, any kind of website), start a blog where you and your users can get to know facts and express opinions on what is going on in the field you’re engaged in. Apart from that, 92% of companies who blog several times per day have acquired a customer from their blog. So, you should think of starting a blog too.

Performance

It’s crucial to make your website quick and flexible. You should find yourself a reliable and good web hosting provider. It’s said that 40 % of people will leave your website if it loads more than 3 sec. There are lots of ways to boost up your website. Among the best ‘to go’ are:

-Simplify your website’s design or add less on-page components (Flash, images, stylesheets,etc.), minimize HTTP requests;

-Browser caching is recommended to be enabled;

-A web page with a good-quality content weights big. Logically, it makes things go slow. Try ‘zipping’ such pages with contents or ‘compressing’ it. This will reduce the bandwidth of page and minimize HTTP response, while files are being downloaded from your website;

– Compress / optimize images. Don’t use images of gigantic format (like TIFF or BMP), instead upload JPEG;

Even the smallest loading increase from 8 to 2 seconds can make your conversion chances 74% higher.

Appearance

Make it all the way readable and intuitive. The design is responsible for the time users stay on your website. Almost 40% of people quit website which they find unattractive. That’s big. And bad. Look for a good web-designer with a rich portfolio. Determine what you want your website to look like. Study a bit of color psychology 🙂

Responsiveness

We all like mobiles and tablets. Websites like them too. Approximately 53% of users prefer entering the Internet via mobile devices. See what do we imply? Responsive design. This one should be included to ‘spreading your website among the masses.’ What are the pros? Firstly, it provides the access to a website on-the-go and making it reachable whenever you want. Secondly, because of the content gets adjusted to the resolution possibilities of various devices, responsive design is very flexible.

SEO

An entire field of study. We can talk much about it. Though what is the main aim here? To receive more users and traffic on your website. To get more ‘viewable’ and obtain more clients. If your website is powered by CMS, you should know, that your website’s SEO power depends strongly on plugins, which will help you detect what your website lacks to get in touch with more people. Apart from the plugins, you should also take care of such factors, like including keywords, links to internal pages on your site, readable URLs, etc.

Get Advised

This final step completes our road towards a successful website in 2017. When you’re out of ideas, allow others to provide you with useful tips. After, you can put the pattern together, analyze it and create something unique. Create polls, be an active participant in forums, get into discussions and , in the end, make friends 🙂

Do you want to pave the way with all new CMS platform till the upcoming 2017? Make it smashing with CMS2CMS.