How to make a website, and how I made this one
Overview
Hello! I am Nathaniel Jennings, the Founder of Tech Solutions After Hours. The purpose of this article is to detail every aspect of creating and managing a website, why you may need one, and what things WE consider when a project involves a website. I have been sitting in front of a computer for over 10 years playing games, experimenting with new technology, and observing the tech industry I work in and hope to give some insight from a practical perspective. I want this to be a definitive resource for those considering a website in the future - and may even share the tools and magic of how techsolutionsafterhours.com was created. If you'd like a consultation for your own website, look at our service offering or contact us!
Our philosophy
From a general perspective a website is a blank canvas open to the entire world. Like a piece of art, every aspect of its creation can inspire feelings which is the primary aim of a website. They attempt to inspire trust, confidence, freedom, structure, whatever - and hopefully that inspiration leads to a good outcome - revenue, reputation, or change. This way of thinking can make a website a complicated endeavor! So much consideration can be made before a single drop of paint hits the canvas, but its a mistake to think too hard (at least in the beginning) because that paralysis is actually just an excuse for getting nothing done. Because it turns out that even if a website was 'finished', there's more tweaks, more blog posts, more logo changes, more that could be changed to fit your vision that we'll never be able to fulfill perfectly. Iteration is more important than perfection.
Practical technologies
Now that you know how we work, lets talk shop. A reasonable website will cost between $1,000 for your local intern or $15,000+ depending on the expertise commanded by a website agency. The technology itself is actually fairly cheap - the prominence of WordPress (43.4% of all websites) has accelerated the availability of other competitive website builders which keeps prices fairly reasonable between $10 and $100/month depending on enterprise features. "Then why pay $15,000 for a website?" It is about the labor and expertise. I can show you how to do all of this yourself, but creative liberty takes time and there is an underrated technical requirement even with website builders as soon as you want something that isn't immediately obvious in the User Interface. If you're stuck, we can help! But now lets see the pricing structure:
| Hosting Prices / month | wix.com | squarespace.com | wordpress.com |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $17.00 | $16.00 | $4.00 |
| Standard | $29.00 | $23.00 | $8.00 |
| Business | $36.00 | $28.00 | $25.00 |
| Ecommerce | $159.00 | $52.00 | $45.00 |
It is recommended to go with the Business tier regardless of the hosting provider because that is the tier where a Service Level Agreement (SLA) will appear which makes guarantees about how much they promise to keep your website running in a given year. Below is a table for that. Usually this also includes more features and impacts website speed. 'Uptime' and 'Performance' are different metrics which can have better results when paying more money.
| Platform | Uptime Percent | Downtime Hours Per Year | Domain Cost | Developer Sentiment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| wix.com | 99.98% | 1 hours 44 minutes 20 seconds | $17.35/year | Negative |
| squarespace.com | 99.90% | 8 hours 42 minutes 38 seconds | $20.00/year | Moderate |
| wordpress.com | Unknown | Unknown | $12.00/year | Positive |
The domain name is such a nominal cost that is goes unnoticed, but it is a fair concern if one wants to purchase a larger set of domain names to discourage other websites from encroaching on a similar name as you.
Creative content
Sourcing creative content should be a mix of custom photos tied to your business and a mix of photos made by other people which describe your intent better than you could have created yourself. We primarily use Adobe Stock Photos with its massive library and clear licensing structure. It can be a bit pricey, but it'll have everything including Vectors which is an underrated way of licensing Infographic marketing material which can be downloaded/modified after purchase in Adobe products. Quarter One Club's 'Process Optimization' graphic was made this way by purchasing a generic vector and modifying its colors, text, and icons to match the business need.
Additional functionality (contact form, blog posts, captcha)
Most website builders will have additional plugins that add more to your website. Here is our starter list of plugins which aims to solve the 'low hanging fruit' per-say of any starter website.
Advanced Google recCAPTCHA - Automated programs are out looking for your website to produce spam and disrupt the efficiency of your website. Google reCAPTCHA is an underrated tool which significantly lowers the rate of spam that makes it through your forms and makes your page view analytics more accurate.
Colibri - (if you are using WordPress) Website builder overlay which replaces the existing Gutenburg blocks with more components and finer control over those components. The key problem this is solving is FLEXIBILITY. From a developer perspective, it is difficult to hear 'you can't do that' when using a simplified website editor. This plugin and others like it aim to give the control back to advanced users!
NOTE: We do not make any money from the above links and are not associated with the authors of these plugins. They are just good plugins.
How this website was made
This website was made using Bootstrap Studio which is a more developer-focused tool for creating a website locally then exporting the project to HTML which all sites run on, then hosting the website via Azure Static Web Apps.
This approach is conceptually more complicated than using a Website Builder and has some pros and con - so lets talk about them:
Pros
- Complete control over what code runs on the website
- Security services provided as hands-off infrastructure
- More control over website availability and speed
- Delivery of new content can be done in 3 clicks
- NO security or third-party plugin maintenance
Cons
- Writing new content depends on technical skills
- Features like Comments and Forms must be custom built
- Delegation of responsibility would be more difficult
- Complex solutions tend to be replaced with simpler ones eventually
Why didn't I do something simpler?
Everything is about sacrifices and values. My solution creates STATIC pages which inherently reduces the attack surface for malicious actors (there is nothing to steal). Sure I don't get neat plugins, but website builders like WordPress need updating, and plugins need updating to maintain compatibility. Sometimes things break because each plugin is essentially a different company with its own compatibility standards. That maintenance is a hidden cost I wanted to control. I value control and have the technical skills to mitigate the downsides of a custom solution. I also have the authority to accept the risk of missing out on certain features. THIS MAY NOT BE TRUE FOR YOU, and it is still highly recommended to go with the solution that is more broadly compatible with your company's skillsets. Choosing an existing website builder like WIX or Squarespace will ensure that it is easier to develop, cheaper to maintain, and simpler to delegate responsibilities to less technical staff. If you'd like more information on how we can help you with your website, see our Website Services.