If you’re overwhelmed by the prospect of having a website built—let alone building it yourself—then don’t worry: this article’s for you. I’m not going to talk about anything too technical, which would only have you furrowing your brows. Rather, I’ll try to explain, as a web developer, some of the basic considerations for anyone looking to outsource web development or build one in-house.
There are several categories of web development technology, and for any project, web developers could recommend a few from each of these. Without solid foundations, it’d be easy for someone new to it to get lost.
What we’ll be doing in this article is running through five factors to consider in choosing the right web development tech for your site.
I. Convenience and Usability
You might have several reasons for building a website, but ultimately there should be one or two main functions it fulfills. You’ll want to make sure that you’re using the right tools and platforms for the job.
Say, for example, an eCommerce website. It would need to have a search function to allow customers to find the items they want to buy. JavaScript is one of the core technologies with several libraries that offer autosuggest for search functions. This would make browsing your store easier, especially for new customers who may not know the exact keywords to use.
II. Speed and Performance
So you’ve ensured your website can carry out its main function. The next thing you’ll want to do is make sure it does it quickly.
Website performance and page speed are major considerations because of how strongly they affect overall user experience (UX). 40% of people abandon websites that take more than three seconds to load.
One of the technologies that contribute to the speed of a website is the web hosting service. A web hosting service is what makes a website accessible through the web. Investing in one that provides a good amount of space may seem expensive, but will surely be worth every cent.
Choosing a web hosting service provider depends on your hosting needs such as site backup, disk space, control panel, customer support availability, etc. You should also consider the host reliability and uptime guarantees.
III. Security
There are plenty of security threats and vulnerabilities in websites. One of them is cross-site scripting (XSS) which gives the attackers the ability to inject client-side scripts (such as JavaScript) into web pages being viewed by users. It may be used to hijack an account and impersonate the real account owner.
Having your web developers build your website with good development frameworks, such as Laravel, will have your website initially covered aside from other security plugins that can maximise its defenses.
IV. Aesthetics
While web design is in a separate discipline, it still has a bearing on web development—the two come together in creating the overall UX.
A website’s aesthetics should reinforce its function—for example, using colour to emphasize key clickable objects, or using white space to focus attention—and this should be consistent across various devices.
One of the core technologies for this is Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), which is used to add styles to web pages. There are a lot of CSS frameworks and concepts that already support different devices.
V. Unique Selling Point
This is simply the marketing term for “what you have that your competitors don’t.” And it works the same way in websites. There’s a wide selection of features that you can put on your website, such as cost calculators, file converters, shirt design makers, and so much more.
This factor is pretty broad so I won’t enumerate technologies, but as a tip, you can combine all the technologies mentioned in the previous items to build one. Besides, only you can think of your own unique selling point.
These factors are also worth considering when updating or redesigning an existing site. If you’re looking for more detailed advice, feel free to get in touch with us.
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