When you think of the word static, connotations of things slow and unchanging unfold in the mind. How can this possibly be a good thing for websites? Well, we’re here to convince you that static is the way to go.
The difference between static and dynamic websites lies in how, and when, the site is built. Static sites are made ahead of time, and dynamic sites are made when the website is visited.
Think of it this way: a newspaper agency puts together articles and prints a newspaper for mass distribution--this is how a static site works.
Can you imagine, that if every time you tried to buy a newspaper, the agency would have to write and print a copy just for you? That would be terribly inefficient. You’d probably be waiting a while to get your copy. While computers can do this much faster than a printing press, it still takes longer than if the site was already built; and in our fast-paced, digital world, every second counts.
Have you ever tried to visit a website and gave up in frustration because the site took too long to load? If that was your website, you could be losing out on thousands of visitors a day (that’s a lot of missed opportunities!). The main reason we advocate for static websites is speed, and the resulting boost to SEO and conversions.
Static websites don’t have many of the vulnerabilities that plague dynamic websites. There’s no backend server to be hacked. According to Sophos labs, 30,000 new websites are hacked daily. With the security inherent in a static website, you won’t have to worry about being a statistic.
Reliability is a key metric when evaluating any technology, especially when it comes to websites. And for good reason, when your website goes down for maintenance, or simply goes down, you’re losing revenue. A study found that 9% of visitors who visit a down site will never return. Static websites never need to go down for maintenance and are much more reliable than traditional websites. This means your site will nearly always be online.
Developing a static website is faster, too. It’s simpler to customize and deploy a static website vs a dynamic website. This allows developers (us!) to offer more customization, while cutting down on the development time. All of this saves you money when you choose a static website.
You may be noticing a trend here... Hosting a static website often costs much less than a dynamic website. And by saving time on the development, maintenance, and security of your website, you can save money in the long haul.
A static website can be a simple landing page, a massive corporate site, a government website, or even an ecommerce website. A static site can do almost anything a dynamic site can do. The only thing your customers will notice is your website’s speed and responsiveness.
If you want to learn more about static websites (read: get more technical), check out this blog post. Check out some of the static websites we’ve created in our portfolio. And yes, this site is static.
