How To Build a Static Website?
Suppose you need a website for your small business or create an online portfolio of work and showcase it on the web. You’re in the market for a marketing site, and you want something that will showcase your work but don’t know where to start? This guide is here! It’ll help explain if static websites are suitable for what YOU need. Whether starting from scratch or using generators—it covers everything necessary when building an online presence with no retreat available.
What is actually a Static Website?
A static website is the most common web application found on the internet. They’re simple, quick, and provide all necessary information without any fuss or bother for your visitor’s browser to download in its entirety—a perfect way to keep them coming back. Static sites are HTML files served statically by the server instead of being generated dynamically on the fly.
As a general rule, JavaScript is not used for constructing the entire page. Instead, it’s usually reserved for enhancing and interacting with on-page components like menus or search boxes—not static content such as text blocks in an article body.
Why Should You Build a Static Website?
The speed of static sites is well known, and they work particularly well for one-page styles with a lot of pages with similar layouts or content types. Static sites are suitable for SEO projects because they have fast load times. This makes the site more user-friendly and likely to rank higher in Google searches going forward, even after 2018, when page speed became an official ranking factor of search engine results pages (SERPs).
In the past, it wasn’t easy to create interactive web pages without a full-stack framework. But now, with serverless technologies and static sites, we can do most things that would have required an application backend before.
Different Ways to Build a Perfect Static Website
When building a static website, the first thing to consider is what technical knowledge and experience you have. There are many sites, so the approach must precisely suit your needs.
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Build Your Website from Scratch Using Coding
The site is made up of pure HTML, written directly in .html files, and those get served to the browser once you deploy them. This approach has benefits like:
- You don’t need any build tools if you’re not interested in using them;
- It’s easy for beginners in web development because everything works without too much finesse required on their part.
- And finally, it can produce highly custom designs unlike anything else available today.
There are different ways for you to create your web page. You can either start with a pre-designed template, one that’s been customized in CSS (you’ll need it!), or if none of these options suits what you’re looking for, then head over from the starting gate and make something from scratch.
Whether you’re looking for a free template or one that’s paid, there are many options available. Some popular choices include HTML5 UP, Templated, and Themeforest.
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Static Site Generators Are At Your Help
Static Site Generators (SSGs) are a more advanced way of generating websites. The idea behind static site generators (or SSGs) is that you use data and content such as Markdown files instead of writing HTML pages. Then there are different page templates combined with a build process to generate your website’s web pages. SSGs are equipped with various programming languages to handle this process and can be configured in multiple ways.
Static site generators (SSGs) offer a lot of flexibility and ease for website builders. They’re somewhere between hand-coding or using an established content management system like WordPress in terms of functionality. However, they still have many advantages over other options regarding speed & maintenance time investment. This approach has benefits like:
- They’re lightweight and faster to be used on smaller or dated devices that may not have the resources for heavier software like CMSs.
- You don’t need any layout code since all of your text will appear as normal paragraphs.
- It suits big websites where many similar pages exist.
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Get Your Website Online
Once you have your website written or generated, the next step is to put it on the internet.
Buying a Domain:
The major key to success in this business is finding the perfect domain name. If you need help, various services can offer good suggestions for your needs – NameMesh has an excellent search tool where they’ll enter one or two keywords. It will show relevant domains on their site and other companies like GoDaddy who provide similar services with more specific criteria.
Deploying Your Website:
Static websites are easy to host and maintain. There is a lot of free or cheap hosting options available for static sites:
- GitHub Pages: Get your site up and running in no time with this easy tool.
- Netlify: If you’re looking for a powerful option. You can even deploy on every code push, but there’s so much more included than just that (including great tools).
- Amazon S3 might be good if trying to integrate into other areas like e-commerce or marketing campaigns using their advertising network.
What about Back-end Functionality for Static Websites?
Static sites are great for front-end projects, but sometimes you need functionality that only server-side code can offer. Think contact forms or user logins to make your site more robust and responsive in certain situations.
Implementing back-end features with serverless cloud functions is now even more convenient. Serverless functions simplify the process of creating your static sites by allowing you to define reusable code that can be triggered at either specific times or in response to events like user input, and a visitor clicks on links within pages; they’re effortless for non-developers to use.
Final Note
Static websites are a good choice for beginner-level websites that have room to grow in the future. Ideally, it’s used with blog handling and small business-owned sites because they don’t measure up to industrial standards yet.
Some people might think that static sites are not good enough for the needs of prominent websites, but in truth, they can work perfectly well with some adjustments, and as long you write your code to run on whatever server it is being hosted on without any change needed.
Want to build a Static website for a better online presence of your brand? Squash Apps would be a great choice to get your website perfectly customized or created as per your needs.
Frequently Asked Questions
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How long does it take to build a static website?
The average process takes 14 weeks. The typical timeline for launching your site starts with three weeks of discovery, six more designing it (which includes lots of creativity). We spend another two preparing modifications after that – so keep this in mind when planning out what content will go where.
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What is a static website example?
Static websites are often used without a back-end and can be accomplished through blog posts, documentation, or web design. Generators make it easy when writing blogs/documentation to scratch out some words.
