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Web Developers Studio, a Hudson County NJ website designer

Web Developers Studio, a Hudson County NJ website designer

NJ Website Design and Development

  • About
    • Staff
    • FAQs
    • Prices
  • Services
    • Website Development: What Makes a Good Website?
    • Graphic Design & Logos
    • Search Engine Optimization
    • Updates & Maintenance
    • Social Media & Marketing
    • Service Agreement
    • Google Tools: Analytics, AdWords, AdSense
  • Portfolio
  • Testimonials
  • Blog
  • Contact

WordPress vs Static vs Site Builders

There are 3 basic options. Let us break down the pros and cons of each.

We recommend adding lots of content to your website if for no reason than to attract search engines. We work with you during the development stage to take the deep knowledge you hold about your area of expertise and construct authoritative content.

Even after the site is developed, we encourage you to add content often to keep the interst of the search engines and your human visitors.

Typically, we recommend that if you need to update your website at least quarterly. If you do it more than quarterly, you probably want a content management system like WordPress? But not necessarily.

There are three basic options. Fortunately, Web Developer’s Studio is intimately familiar with all three. Our sites are built on WordPress, some are Static, and we know of “Site Builders“. Let us share some expertise.

WordPress

WordPress is the top of the line, gold-standard, comprehensive content management system (CMS).

WordPress powers about one-third of the internet. It is nearly infinately customizable.

There’s a “front-end” (the website visible to visitors) and a “back-end” (the dashboard where you log in and make changes).

Visit our Portfolio and click WordPress to see how varied and beautiful we can make a WordPress site.

Static sites

Static sites these days are not built just with your Daddy’s HTML. Web Developers Studio uses tools that allow us to be quite fast with updates while retaining the “hand coded” look and feel.

For example, this client simply didn’t want the regular technical updates required by WordPress, or the hassle of logging into a CMS for updates. They prefer to leave updates in our professional hands based on notes sent to us regularly by email.

Site Builders

There are “builders” that are considerably less costly to develop: Squarespace, Wix, Weebly.  These are getting better, and are no longer beneath discussion for some clients.  This client site is built with Weebly. But are in some ways, these are not suitable for professional sites. 

A site builder is quick and inexpensive. If you have a tight budget and just want to represent your business, maybe sell a few products, but don’t need anything fancier, a builder might be just right.

Builders offer many beautiful templates, but restricts customization in an effort to keep every site looking clean and simple. While this limits design options, it means that creating a small, attractive builder site can be quick and cheap. It’s possible for us to customize them extensively, but that would compromise the main advantages of speed and price. Here are other deficincies:

  • The site cannot be backed up in such a way to be useful off the platform. (Imagine not being able to backup a Master’s thesis — ever.)
  • It’s too easy to mess up the home page. (We’ve done it! But fortunately only in a test environment.)
  • Most have terrible basic SEO capabilities. (One service seems to be an exception.)
  • Platforms go out of business. We placed a number of clients on the Business Catalyst platform. The well-regarded company, Adobe, powered this hybrid of a development tool and a builder. They announced their “End of Life” and sent us scrambling.
  • Exceptions to the standard are not allowed.

Note that in comparison, a WordPress site is yours-all-yours, fairly easily moved from one host to another, is nearly infinitely customizable, and it’s nearly impossible to delete the homepage!

More to Know

Themes

Themes are great for budgets. They can be free or paid, and any theme can be altered as much as you want (see our tips for choosing great themes). WordPress has the advantage of popularity here, with countless themes available on various marketplaces. WordPress themes are also capable of altering the back-end. This means the themes not only look different, but have different capabilities – some may have calendar functionality, others may have built-in social media buttons, more user-friendly ways to customize the look, etc. For WordPress we now stick to a well-regarded framework to provide a consistant under-the-hood experience.

Dashboards

Content management systems typically have a back-end: the dashboard, or design mode. Dashboards are for general management and don’t necessarily look anything like your website.

That’s where you can create, delete, or hide pages, change the menu or add widgets and plugins for extra functionality. It’s also for admin tasks, like managing user logins and comments.

Taking Backups

Oops – you made a mistake! You thought you deleted a sentence, and now the whole page is gone. Sound familiar? Taking backups before altering a website is a practice WDS holds dear.

In WordPress, we can back up everything as often as needed–never a problem. Site Builders typically cannot really be backed up. If you make a mistake, or accidentally delete something, it must be recreated from scratch. This means they are best for small sites that would be easy to recreate quickly.

Conclusion: What’s best for you?

Ultimately, each system has its own strengths, and your ideal choice depends on what you plan to do with it.

If you want a “Dear Diary” style news site or blog, or a website you can add to (not just update or change) regularly and by yourself, WordPress may be the obvious choice. But many WDS clients can’t be bothered with blogging anyway – they have a business to run! So a static site maybe best.

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  • WordPress vs Static vs Site Builders
  • Website Development: What Makes a Good Website?
  • Social Media & Marketing
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  • Search Engine Optimization

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Testimonials

You did superb job ….

Financial Services Firm Website

Hi Terri!, You did superb job so far.  I’m so thankful to find you!  

Tae Chang
Transportation All In One

Simple And Easy To Navigate…

“Terri – It truly has been a pleasure working with you. Prior to working with Web Developers Studio, updating and maintaining our website seemed like such an arduous task. You made suggestions that made sense and now our Library’s website is simple and easy to navigate. Thanks also for all of your assistance in “demystifying”… Read more “Simple And Easy To Navigate…”

Dr. Matthew DiPaola

Only regret is that I wish I found you sooner. Would have saved me a lot of trouble.

Dr. Matthew DiPaola
Orthopedic Surgeon

You are a genius!

…You are a genius! Most of my ads are coming up 1 or 2 on top and side ads.

Andrew Bosin

The website looks great!

The website looks great! Thank you!

Hedy Grant

A Website Is Today’s Business Card…

I just wanted to send you a heartfelt thanks for the work Web Developers Studio performed for my company. 

Rob Solimano
Angel Oak Financial

This is just perfect

Terri, this is just perfect. I’m so pleased. I didn’t realize how strongly I felt about a professional looking web site before we started this process… We brought the new website out at the membership meeting last Thursday, to high praise… This has been great fun.

Ruth Bogan
Pals Plus

Clean-Looking Website…

“Terri, here are some comments I’ve gotten over the past several days as we’ve announced the launch and asked for previews. ‘It’s a great page!’ Mario M. Gonzalez, Director of the Passaic Public Library ‘Nice “clean-looking” website…our info. is correct.’ Susan Serico, Director of the North Haledon PUblic Library ‘The new site looks very, very… Read more “Clean-Looking Website…”

Christy Sayre
Pals Plus

Gorgeous New Website…

Terri Karp’s talent is brilliant and savvy from concept to realization I am so fortunate to have discovered Terri at Web Developers Studio, LLC to design my gorgeous new website. From the first meeting, she listened and “got it”. The scope of the service she provided far exceeded my expectation. She is brilliant and experienced… Read more “Gorgeous New Website…”

Andrea Jacoby
Andrea Jacoby Interiors

It looks great!

Thank you. It looks great!

Holly Saper
Community School

Great theme designed by the Web Developers Studio

If you thought only large urban libraries (eg, New York Public Library) could launch a unique Omeka-powered digital collection site, think again. The Ringwood Public Library in New Jersey recently released, the Upper Ringwood Collection with a great theme designed by the Web Developers Studio.

Sheila Brennan

Very professional work

Thanks again for your very professional work and product. We are getting very positive feedback on the website.

Elizabeth Davis

Truly impressed by your website

Dr. Pat was wonderfully adept and engaged throughout the web development process. When she asked for feedback, a knowledgeable associate wrote that he was “truly impressed by your website. Most attractive and informative, in every way.” She modestly replied “The webdesigner is really the creative one.”

Dr Pat Robinson

..the best

Terri is dedicated to helping her clients get top results from their Web sites. She’s the best.

Kent Smith

Excellent plus!

Excellent plus! I very much like the colors, and the general presentation.

Mimi Sabatino

As a designer and the communications project administrator for the NJ Meadowlands Commission I was apprehensive going into the project of rebuilding our 8-year old website. I have always been extremely particular about branding for the Commission. I had concerns about anyone being capable of creating a website design that I would consider attractive and suitable for… Read more “Mimi Sabatino”

Mimi Sabatino
NJSEA

Gorgeous New Website…

Terri Karp’s talent is brilliant and savvy from concept to realization I am so fortunate to have discovered Terri at Web Developers Studio, LLC to design my gorgeous new website. From the first meeting, she listened and “got it”. The scope of the service she provided far exceeded my expectation. She is brilliant and experienced… Read more “Gorgeous New Website…”

Andrea Jacoby
Andrea Jacoby Interiors

WDS was wonderful to work with

The Meadowlands Conservation Trust told Web Developer’s Studio that we wanted to use a hand drawn sketch for our banner and animate the egret. Terri said, “Let’s see if we can make the bird fly off the page”, and she made it happen. WDS was wonderful to work with and made the process of updating our website… Read more “WDS was wonderful to work with”

Debbie Lawlor
Meadowlands Conservation Trust

…made this process very easy for me.

First of all thanks, the website looks great and I feel good knowing it is on a solid platform and have someone knowledgeable available to maintain it. You were great to work with and made this process very easy for me.

Summit Private Investments

I Highly Recommend …

The Meadowlands Conservation Trust told Web Developer’s Studio that we wanted to use a hand drawn sketch for our banner and animate the egret. Terri said, “Let’s see if we can make the bird fly off the page”, and she made it happen. WDS was wonderful to work with and made the process of updating our website… Read more “I Highly Recommend …”

Debbie Lawlor

….well received.

Joe presented the new website at the Board meeting this past Saturday and from what I was told, it was well received.

Schuyler Jenks
NJ Botanical Garden

I want to tell you “formally” how much I love the new website

I truly appreciate your friendly frequent dialogue with me via e-mail and your collaborative spirit.

Mia Anderson
Heal From Within

Grateful To Have You As Part Our Team…

Dear Terri, I wanted to take a moment to thank you for your help with our new website. I had postponed updating our dreary, outdated site because the task seemed daunting. I interviewed other providers, but didn’t feel confident after speaking with them. After our initial phone call I felt the weight of the website off… Read more “Grateful To Have You As Part Our Team…”

Lauren Locker
LockerFinancial.com Project

Let’s work together

Get in touch with us and send some basic info about your project.

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Navigation

  • About
    • Staff
    • FAQs
    • Prices
  • Services
    • Website Development: What Makes a Good Website?
    • Graphic Design & Logos
    • Search Engine Optimization
    • Updates & Maintenance
    • Social Media & Marketing
    • Service Agreement
    • Google Tools: Analytics, AdWords, AdSense
  • Portfolio
  • Testimonials
  • Blog
  • Contact

Recent Posts

  • WordPress vs Static vs Site Builders
  • Website Development: What Makes a Good Website?
  • Social Media & Marketing

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