Websites are Cars
Follow me here. A website is... a car.
The “frontend” is the body
Your car's body - it's shape, style, color, features - is what you and the wide world are probably most familiar with. But it's not just superficial.HTML is the chassis
Underneath your car's curvy, polished exterior is a boxy skeleton. It's essential. You could strip everything off of that frame and your car would still work. It might even move faster because it would be lighter. But your car would LOOK broke down. People would be scared to drive it. And you'd get bugs in your teeth.When it's built correctly, sound HTML doesn't change much - if at all - to provide countless different looks and behaviors. It's hard to build HTML correctly in this way. Right click anywhere on a web page and click "View page source". What you'll see is HTML. On the one hand, it's not as scary as it looks. On the other, if this simple framework isn't built thoughtfully, the whole thing will perform poorly, be expensive or impossible to customize, or completely fall apart.
CSS is the paint, shape, and “lines”
This is the first thing that people see that makes them say "I want to drive that car" or "I want to push that car into a lake." Collectively, fenders, bumpers, body panels, etc. make the lines of your car. The paint, chrome, and polish can make your car beautiful. Or really tacky. And it's not just superficial. Your car's performance on the road is effected by its lines, for better or worse. You can totally overdo it. Don't overdo it.Your website's colors, shapes, sizes, layers should all be in Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). CSS is put on top of HTML to provide your website's look and feel. Good CSS put on top of good HTML, working closely with simple Javascript... is a thing of beauty.
Javascript is the trim package
Your car has bells and whistles. And not just any bells and whistles, but ones so powerful that they can even save relationships. Like the button that with one press automatically adjusts the seats, pedals, and mirrors to personalized settings. All of these buttons and knobs and switches fit the style of your car so well that you hardly notice how utilitarian they are. Your car can go without a backup camera, power windows, and seat warmers. But it wouldn't be as much fun to drive, would it?Javascript manipulates HTML. With one button press, it delivers instructions to bigger pieces that make them move, behave differently, and do things. It triggers series of things to happen in the background of your website without requiring your manual attention. All dressed up seamlessly with CSS, Javascript makes interactions with a website feel simple and smooth without calling attention to itself.
The “backend” is what’s under the hood
No matter how it looks, a car has to move. And there sure are a lot of things at work to make that happen.The server is the engine
Your engine is where fuel is converted to power and exhaust. It's hot. It's noisy. It's expensive. There's a firewall to contain catastrophic failure. Only technicians and the biggest gearheads talk about it. And even a gearhead will leave working on a modern engine to a pro. Because you never, ever want it to break. Your professional will make you feel silly (and much poorer) for messing with it.There's a computer called a server that makes your website go. ALL of the above about car engines applies. EXCEPT... with a website, your server is rented. It's very affordable.
Code is the transmission
When your engine converts fuel to power, it sends that power into a transmission that... transmits that power to the wheels. It turns raw spinning output into rolling wheels. And it does it in the right way without stressing your engine out. There are different kinds of transmissions, but all of them are about turning power into motion.Code takes all of the inputs and data, processes it, and turns it into something. Instead of gears, it's a simple series of instructions that translates information into what is ultimately your website. There are many "languages" of code, and different ways of writing each of these "languages". All good code is effective, adaptable, powerful, and reasonable to maintain.
The database is the fuel system
You pump fuel into the gas tank of your car. It's kept there safely. It sits there until your engine is ready to consume it. Then it's moved carefully and efficiently into the engine where it's turned into power. People make cars move without working fuel systems. It's called "pushing." Pushing is hard.Your website's data is stored in a database. The database receives data from you and your visitors. It holds on to that data, and hands it back out to be consumed and processed in order to make things or do stuff. Your website is nothing without data. If you don't have data, then there is no reason to have a website. But don't worry. Everybody has data. And that's why you'll need a database.
The internet is the roads
Once your car is moving, it's got to go somewhere. But you need a few things first before you hit the streets.The domain name is the license plate
Sometimes, people need to find your car. Unfortunately, with cars it's usually to take your money. Like for toll roads, or red-light cameras. Your license plate is a unique "name" for your car, and that name is put into a big registry that connects your license plate number to where your car is kept. Vanity plates are super neat (and more costly) ways of getting a "name" that is more memorable.Your domain name is the unique identifier of your website. When somebody types your website's domain name into their browser, their computer asks the registry where the server is that has your website on it and the registry gets your visitor and your server connected. Unlike with your car, people are trying to find your website to GIVE you money.
Registration is… well… registration
You register your car with your county every year to keep the record updated as to where your car can be found, and who owns it. You can still operate your car with an expired registration. You might get a ticket, but it will still work, and the ticket won't be all that expensive anyway.When you first purchase your domain name and every year after, you pay a registrar to keep the record updated as to where your website can be found, and who owns it. You CANNOT operate your website with an expired registration. You may have to pay an extra fee to reclaim your domain name if it expires. It may be very expensive. You won't get off with a warning by pretending that you hadn't noticed that your registration was expired.
A security certificate is the inspection sticker
Your car can be dangerous to you and other people on the road. Every year, you are required to take your car to highly qualified professionals who give your car a rigorous inspection to make sure that it is perfectly safe and reliable. Or - more likely - somebody just drives your car one lap around the garage, flips the turn signals, and charges you $10. Either way, you get paperwork and a sticker that tells the world "this car is safe".The whole URL of a website can begin with http:// or https://. You purchase a certificate for your server to get the "https". That means that the things that you or other people type on your website are sent to the server encrypted with the SSL (Secure Sockets Layer). Encrypted information is not readable on its way to the server. Everything that is sent to your server from your website needs to be protected. This is why modern browsers warn visitors when they are on websites that don't have the "https". A secure certificate only covers the short trip between the browser and the server. That means a website must still be built and handled correctly to protect the information after it is received.
Hosting is the garage and the toll road
Your car is likely parked in or at least near a garage. That garage or the building it is attached to has an address. There are entire buildings that are just garages specializing in storing and protecting cars like yours. In these buildings, your car will sit in a numbered space so that it can be found. When your car hits the road, it will eventually get to the big city with lots of traffic. It will slow down. But fortunately there's a toll road that charges for the privilege of safe and speedy driving.Your website sits on a server and the people that own the server charge a fee to keep your website safe. They also make sure your website is ready to roll when you or anybody else is ready to use it. Then your website is delivered across the web which is always big with lots of traffic. Your host keeps the superhighway to and from your website big and wide open. Your host needs to be really good at all these very hard jobs.
Usability is drivability
The best cars have that hard-to-describe quality known as drivability that make them the envy of the road.Accessibility is the horn, lights, and signals
You will do things with your car that will effect other people on the road, or will require them to change their behavior. Your shouldn't just do those things and hope for the best. So your car will use various cues to help people make their decisions. These cues are standard, but it's up to you to use them. Brake lights and turn signals say "I am changing the way I'm moving, so you should too." Honking says "I need you to start or stop doing something." There are also very useful hand signals, some of which are perfect for saying "you made the wrong decision and I want you to know how that makes me feel right now."Your website presents users with lots of decisions and interactions. Menus give people options about where to go. Forms request feedback. Buttons trigger actions. There are tens of millions of people on the web who have some sort of disability that effects their ability to use your website. There are countless standard tools and techniques to make sure that your website informs everyone without changing how your website works. But it doesn't just happen. Your website must use these tools. It's not just the nice thing to do, it's now the rules of the road. Because it makes your site more likely to be useful to everyone, search engines give preference to accessible websites.
Responsiveness is handling
Your car can drive uphill and downhill, through curves, down straightaways, on roads smooth and rough. Maybe even off roads completely. Your grandpa told you to drive it carefully, but that one time he used it, he drove it like a bat out of hell. Fortunately, every piece of your car was designed to handle all sorts of driving. Cars that only do one job are spectacles, reserved for racetracks and muddy arenas but pretty useless otherwise.More than half of the traffic on the internet today is on mobile devices. There are countless different screen sizes and ratios that your website needs to work on. Your users shouldn't have to jump through hoops to read text, view images, or navigate. And you should only have one website. That one website should adapt to do its job everywhere and every way people are using it. In fact, for the best performance everywhere, your website should be built to handle the most challenging stuff first. This is called mobile-first design.
Not everybody does it, which would be bad news for your website. A search engine wants people to continue to choose that search engine. It would be a horrible business plan for that search engine to point people to sites that are a pain to more than half of the people on the web. That's why responsive sites are given a boost. In other words, responsiveness isn't just so people can use your website. It's also so they can find it.
SEO is shiny rims, lift kit, subwoofers, glasspack muffler
Sometimes people want to be noticed in their car. Some people make sure they get noticed for a car that performs, does what it was designed to do, reflects the personality of its owner, and is well taken care of. There are sensible things people can do to highlight features of their car. But other people think it's easier to make a lot of noise, or make their car look like it can do things that it can't actually do. Some shops really like helping these people spend money because once people start spending money on these things, they can't stop. Sometimes these things even break other things on a car. The shops who sell and install these things make lots of money.Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is - in theory - about making your website easier for people to find. Unfortunately, too often SEO becomes a fixation. Unscrupulous SEO shops perform a weird voodoo of tricks, hacks, and wordplay. At best, bad SEO might produce immediate results that look positive, but will ultimately have damaging and long-lasting consequences. Doctored content that doesn't make sense for a website, random keywords, fake blogs... all of these and other tricks might get lots of attention at first. But eventually visitors and search engines will both get wise. Search engines routinely change their algorithms to "punish" websites that use the latest tricks. Then it's back to the unscrupulous SEO shop and the cycle continues.
Just make good content, keep it fresh, be honest. A well-built website makes sure that content is noticed. Then the right people for you will find you.
Data is fuel
Everything that a car does starts with fuel. It is consumed and must be resupplied. Fuel can also get old. With old fuel or no fuel, you might putter along for a little bit longer. But eventually you're stalled out on the side of the road not going anywhere. People will see you. They will see that you have a car. Not everybody has a car. You do. But yours is broken. In front of everybody. People will laugh at you.Your website tells people what you stock, what you do, how you do it and when, what it costs, when it costs less, where you are. If you sell things, your website provides details about those things to help people make decisions, or at least be prepared to ask you the right questions in person. All of this is data. You are going to love what happens when you use it.
Pick the right pros
There are many different professionals who keep your car on the road, and running in tip-top shape.A detailer is not a mechanic
Good detailing is hard. But you would not ask the person who polished your car to change your radiator. A good mechanic is pretty much a magician. But you wouldn't ask him to treat your leather interior. Hell, he's doing good if he remembers to put down a towel before he sits on your seats.Websites require attention and updates to stay looking shiny and new. Over time, technology will progress, data will accumulate, and your visitors' expectations will change. That takes maintenance. There are specialists in content management, and specialists in website management. Make sure you have the right one doing the right job.
A mechanic is (probably) not an engine technician
Your mechanic is impressive for all the things they can do. But engines in general are special and require a lot of very specialized knowledge. So when your car's engine needs more than simple service, your mechanic may employ, contract, or recommend an engine technician.There are specialties within specialties in a website. And there are specialists at every level. Don't be afraid to ask "are you qualified to service my website's transmission?" If they say "is it a standard or automatic?", you're probably talking to the right people.
A transmission technician cannot do what you do
The person who works on your car's transmission is not good at what you do. Likewise you can't fix your car's transmission, at least not as efficiently and effectively. The world is a better place when both of you spend your time doing what you do for people who don't know how to do what you do. In fact, you probably get a fair bit of business from people who thought they could do what you do and then learned that they should have let you do it in the first place.Building a website is not easy. It's not magic either. You could probably learn. But it would take a really long time and lots of accumulated experience. Just like every other field. And you're too busy being really good at what you do for a living.
Somebody has to build the car in the first place
Your mechanic, or your detailer, or your transmission specialist might love cars so much that they build one in their spare time for fun. That would be pretty neat. But they don't build cars from scratch for a living. If they did that, they would be "car builders." Which is a whole other profession entirely. Car builders know the laws of the road, and laws of physics, and fabrication and materials sciences that you might not know. And that's OK. That's their job, not yours.Your website should be built by someone who loves to build things. Your website builder should have a process for learning what you do and what you want. They should also understand your market, your business sector, and what's happening globally. They should know the technical skills and standards behind a safe, responsive, accessible, and cool website. They should look for simple solutions to complicated problems. They should not limit their solutions to just your website. They should understand that the final product is about showcasing your talents, not theirs. And that your website is ultimately about you connecting in the real world, not replacing it.
Oak Hollow Creative builds websites. Let us get you on the road.