Battle of the Website platforms

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In this episode Marcus and Sam discuss the different platforms available for building a website. Sam grouped into three different broad groups.
1. The self build platforms – Wix, SquareSpace, Shopify and others
2. Content management system platforms. This is dominated by WordPress, but there are other platforms here like Joomla

3. Custom coding. This means someone builds a site for you using code.
Self Build websites
These are easy to use drag and drop website platforms. These make it very easy to get a website online. With some use of templates, dragging and dropping you can make something that looks quite good, quite quickly. They are easy to use  and deal with maintenance, security and hosting for you. This means it’s one simple monthly or annual payment and it covers everything. Once you chose one of these platforms you are locked into it. So if they dramatically increase your prices your only choice is to give up on that website, or pay the higher price. The speed and SEO for these platforms has improved dramatically in the last ten years, however they are behind the other types of website in these areas. Speed effects visitors experience and can also push you down the Google rankings. These platforms also have limits as to what they can do. They have quite a good range of functionality.  But if you want to go beyond the functionality they provide, you have to start again with a different platform.
Sam explains there is a lot more to building a website than adding some text and images and making it look pretty. Take a listen to our back catalogue to get some ideas about this.
WordPress and other CMS platforms
They talk about Wordpress here as it’s the dominant force. Sam explains that Wordpress is quite a basic platform (a bit like a new phone) but you can then add plugins (like apps on your phone) that can do all sorts of things. Some are free, some premium, some freemium. There are different ways to build a WordPress website, but many now use a visual editor so you can see what you are doing. But they are not drag and drop builders like Wix.
When using WordPress you do need to think about your own security and updates. This isn’t that complicated, but does need thinking about. The most important thing is to keep all the software up to date.  Wordpress websites can move between website hosting. So if you have a problem with one web hosting service, you can move it to a different one.
The number of plugins for websites is huge so there is a wide range of flexibility in what WordPress can do. Because these plugins are used by a wide range of users the cost of writing them is shared across hundreds or thousands of users, which keeps the cost down.
Custom coded website
This means that a site is built just for you. There is no excess code here. It is a way to get a very fast efficient website. It can do a huge range of things. But it is very expensive as a coder writes it just for you. For a simple five page photography website, this would be very over the top. But if you want to do something more complex and you have the budget, it’s a great way to go.

 

Moving between platforms
Think carefully before committing to a website platform as to leave you have to abandon the website and start again. But also don’t be afraid to let an old website go. For example maybe you built a Website on SquareSpace two years ago and you want to greatly improve it. Think carefully about whether you would be better to over onto another platform and start again, rather than stick to what you have.

 
Image sizes
As a sideline Sam and Marcus started chatting about photographers getting images onto their websites. Sam explained it’s important that photographers don’t add huge images to their websites.