Many web developers know this already, static websites are better. But for the average internet user, a static website is a website where all of the pages on the server are served to the browser. That means that the page you view, this very page for example, is on one complete html page. There is no server sending the header, the banner, the content, the footer, etc. in little tiny pieces one at a time. There are also no databases so that means this website cannot have logins.
4 Reasons why you should have a static website
1. Static websites are smaller
Static websites are smaller. Having all the documents preassembled means that there is no backend (no system of compiling separate components) to take up space and slow down your server.
2. You don’t need to be a web developer to create a static website
A basic static website only needs HTML and CSS and you don’t need to be a web developer to handle HTML or CSS. HTML and CSS isn’t strictly a programing language. In fact there are several frameworks that are prebuilt for you and make designing easy. Foundation and Twitter Bootstra are two great grid systems that automatically make your website easily viewable on phones, tablets, and PCs. Both are well documented and have great support from other people using Bootstrap or Foundation.
3. There are easy tools for blogs that are static websites
Just because you want a blog doesn’t mean you can’t have a static website. There are tools that can help you. Jekyll and Octopress (built of jekyll) take markdown pages, images, and HTML pages and compile static pages to go to your server. These tools are by no means perfect, but they are well supported by their creators and many others who use them. You can even install themes and mess around with the HTML and CSS.
Jekyll and Octopress also allow you to change the url of blog posts to help with SEO and thanks to Disqus, you can easily add commenting to your blog posts.
4. You don’t necessarily need to sacrifice content management for a static website
Again, Jekyll and Octopress can help out here. They allow you to easily add posts in markdown and then generate the website. So you can use these two tools as a content management system. That’s great for clients or people who know a little bit of web development, but what about ones who don’t?
I built a client a static website. It had under ten pages and was pretty simple to build. My client wanted a way to edit some information if need without having to go into the html document or through me. That’s a perfectly reasonable request, but the challenge is finding a service that is affordable for a static website with a content management system. Thus I found 900dpi. This platform is basic, you just add a specific class to the sections you would want to be editable, save it to your dropbox project folder and you’re good to go.
More on Static websites
Static websites aren’t perfect for every project or client, but they do have their uses. And with tools like Jekyll or Octopess, you can still run a blog that is a static website. You don’t need to sacrifice SEO, in fact static websites offer faster load times, which is great for SEO.