Helping You to Succeed: Platform
Building Your Site
If you want to have an online presence,
then - before you build that website - make sure that you have
selected the proper platform to build your site.
Platform means the "code" you use to
build your site.
There are 3 ways to go on this...
1- Web-Based Apps:
If you are not technical and you are not
a business, then a web based site creation tool is a good choice.
Website builder sites - like wix.com - let you drag and drop
site elements to create your own. The problem is that you can
only create a site based upon what they offer. AND if they go
out of business so do you. So most serious businesses do not
rely on such sites.
2- HTML (Hypertext Markup Language):
is a standard coding system (a simple
programming language) for editing text files so that they will
display fonts, colors, graphics, and internal/external links on
web pages.
3- WordPress:
is a free open web publishing application,
content management system (CMS), and blogging tool which allows
users to build websites and blogs that are managed from inside
the Wordpress application.
About the Wordpress Platform
Pros of Wordpress:
Ease of Use:
Wordpress was designed with the newbie
in mind. Many believe (me excluded) that Wordpress makes it easy
to create, edit, and manage pages, articles, menus, text, images,
and embedded content like videos.
Plugins:
are the main advantage of Wordpress.
Plugins are software that can be installed inside of Wordpress
which can help your site to add easy to customize forms, to
embed videos, to run training programs, and to add navigation
bars and widgets.
Themes:
are predesigned templates with themed
graphic-color combinations allowing users to quickly
create a good looking site. Make sure your theme is
responsive for your mobile visitors.
Comments:
if you want others to comment on your
site, then WordPress - which was created as blogging software
- is for you.
Members Area:
You can add a "Simple Members Area" to
create a membership site so that your users can access your
paid content without being able to copy and post it freely online.
Cons of Wordpress:
Security:
if your WP site is hacked - which is
much easier to do with Wordpress - not only is your site offline
BUT Google will lower your site in the search rankings. Over
500,000 WP sites were hacked or destroyed or taken down in 2014.
Portability:
WP is not easily portable. It is not
easy to install (in my opinion) and it is even hard to transfer
because the server url is hard coded inside the database.
Maintenance:
For WP to work, your web host has to
keep all its server components up to date. If even one component
is out of date or if it fails, you are out of business.
Bandwidth:
means that WP sites take up more space
on a server and load slower than the same pages coded in HTML.
WP sites can crash with a sudden surge of traffic. Many WP
sites get booted by their hosts once they hit big traffic.
2014 saw a record high of WP sites crashing during well
publicised product launches.
Lookalike WP Sites:
Since there only so many
themes, WP sites tend to lookalike.
My opinion: I do not like Wordpress due
to its security risks and its boring look.
About the HTML Platform
Pros of HTML:
Limitless:
Your HTML site is only as limited as
your imagination. You can do whatever you want once you are
the master of HTML.
Security:
HTML sites are hard to hack and much
more reliable with superior uptime.
Search Rankings:
Since you can load the filename of your
page with keywords AND since you can embed keywords inside your
page with meta tags, HTML pages do better in the search rankings
and so your site automatically gets better traffic.
Portability:
HTML is easily portable. While it is a
programming language, it is simple and easy to learn. Plus it
is easy to move your pages to a new web host or a new server
for the same host.
Maintenance:
HTML is durable. It will not fail if
it is out of date, it will only look bad... and that is easily
fixed.
Bandwidth:
HTML is economical: it saves on server
space and it can better handle a sudden surge of traffic.
Comments:
If you do NOT want others to comment on
your site, because like me, you do not want to spend lots of
time monitoring, then comment-free HTML is definitely for you.
Cons of HTML:
Ease of Use:
Since HTML is code, many view it as less
easy to use. Although you can use HTML drag and drop code
generators, that creates messy, unfriendly code. So HTML is
less friendly than WP for newbies (in most people's opinion
which I do not share as I have a programming background).
Plugins:
HTML has no plugin system like Wordpress
does. Yet if you want to take advantage of plugins, you can
install WP on your site (as I have done) and use WP to run the
plugins but not to run the site.
Members Area:
HTML has no "Simple Members Area" to
create a membership site. You would have to get software or
use a paid service to do that for you.
My opinion: I use HTML for the greater
level of control it offers.
Moving Forward with the HTML Platform
If you are a WordPress fan, here is
how you can get started for FREE:
https://wordpress.com/
If you are a HTML fan, here is how you
can get started with an editor for FREE:
http://www.evrsoft.com/products.shtml
I have used evrsoft's First Page for many
years until I became more proficient at HTML coding and just did
it by hand.
So, if you are an HTML pro, and do not
need the help of an HTML editor, then I recommend:
Textpad, the Text Editor for Windows:
https://www.textpad.com/
