Over the last few years, building a beautiful website has gone from mind boggling to fairly easy. The advent of services like Squarespace, Wix, and WordPress have put a lot of powerful tools into your hands, and this has changed that way that this industry operates. Of course, though, there is more to a good website than simple design. In fact, most of the work which has to be done is very challenging, and is still far out of reach of those who haven’t trained to do it. To help you out with this, this post will be going through some of the areas in web development which you should be leaving to a professional.
Security
A lot of people have never heard of SSL before. This feature is vital to website security, though, as it encrypts the data being sent back and forth between the site and its users. This can stop things from being stolen, prevent hacks, and will help to make a website look more professional. Installing it can be a challenge, though, as there are very few automated services which can handle it for you. Instead, you have to manually put together the background for this part of your website, ensuring that the URL bar stays green, while also updating it each year to make sure that it doesn’t expire and leave your website unprotected.
Along with SSL, there is a side to security which few people know exist. Web forms, logins, and any other part of your site which can be accessed by users also need to be protected, and this requires code to validate the data which is being entered. For example, if you have a registration form without validation, people could use text and file upload fields to insert malicious code onto your pages. Not only could this make your site look back, but it could also damage your chances of getting into the top spots on websites like Google. Not a lot of people consider this when they are building their website.
Server Management
Managing a web server seems like it is an easy job when you buy your first hosting package. Modern hosting companies offer a lot of services to make this work as simple as possible, but rarely cover issues like migrations, malicious attacks, and even making backups. To ensure that these areas are covered, it’s always worth having someone in the know to manage it for you. A big part of this will surround your databases. A lot of website platforms don’t save their pages as simple HTML, anymore. Instead, they will be split up and put into their own tables, and this can make it very hard to understand how your website is actually built.
SEO
Getting a website into the top spots on a website like Google is a challenge, and one which a lot of people fail to overcome. This can leave you resorting to paying for services like Google AdWords when the work you need to do shouldn’t cost much at all. If you want to do this by yourself, you can use tools like SEOptimer and Google Search Console to help you out. They will give you information about the state of your SEO, making it a little easier to get to grips with what needs to be done.
In reality, though, you’ll probably find more success if you ditch this work, and leave it to someone else to handle. You will need to view here and there to find the perfect company to handle this for you, doing plenty of research along the way to make sure that you’re not wasting your time on work which doesn’t need to be done. Along with this, you can also read some reviews to help you to find the best company for you. It’s a good idea to remember that this is location-based, though, and companies which are close to you will have a much better chance of finding success in your local area.
Compliance
Over the last few years, there have been loads of new laws springing up which dictate how user data is handled. You have to make sure that people are being made aware of your cookie usage, while also working to give them the chance to delete their data and remove it from the internet. If you fail to follow the rules in these areas, huge fines could be passed to your business, and this is never a good thing. Thankfully, to help you out with this, there are loads of services out there which can assess your website compliance for you. In a lot of cases, a simple page being put up to let users know your policies is enough to cover yourself.
Optimisation
Finally, as the last area to consider, it’s time to think about the size of your website. With images playing a huge role in the way that sites sell themselves, it’s likely that you have a lot of them on your various pages. Along with this, when it is unmanaged, code itself can take up a lot of space. This is very bad news for people using mobile devices to view your content, as it can make websites much slower to load, while also eating their data allowance in the process. A professional developer will have the skills and know-how to solve this sort of issue for you, but it will be worth working hard to make your content as small as possible before you upload it.
There are plenty of jobs which you can do in the process of building your website, making the whole thing cheaper, while also giving it a unique touch. Along with this, though, there are also jobs which should be left for a pro to deal with, as they are simply too complicated and important to get wrong. Most development companies will have entire teams dedicated to all of these jobs, giving you the chance to sit back and relax when you decide to go with one.
