Here is a discussion on popular website technologies and what mean in the long run:
- Static website: Put in simple words, a static website is a collection of web pages that are coded in HTML and appear exactly the same to both the server and the clients. Many small websites on the internet are built in this way. In terms of content, you can expect nothing more than text and a few images. If you come across a small website with a handful of pages and a few scattered images, it is very likely a static website. Hyperlinks are the lifeline of such a website, and you get blue-underlined hypertext to click on to navigate.
- Flash website: Website owners soon realized that static websites were not good enough. One had to read a lot to figure out what was going on, and the lack of interactivity was not great for the business. This saw the rise of flash websites, where information is present in the form of Flash animations. This means that practically any visual effect can be produced on the website, which does more than make the users clap in delight.
- CMS websites: As websites grew larger and larger, managing them became a mess. You can imagine the nightmare if the side panel of some selected 3,000 pages needs to changed overnight in a website that has over 60,000 pages. With a Content Management System, it is a matter of minutes. Done manually, this would prove harder than digging a redoubt during a war.
So which one to choose?
Before choosing one of these, it would help to understand the restrictions. A static website becomes a quagmire once it exceeds more than a 50 pages. The total number of links on each page are a source of constant headache, as they have to be managed manually. Plus, any new features will take painstakingly patient drudgery to implement.
Flash websites are great, except that they are little more than eye-candy. The pages thus produced are super-heavy in terms of bandwidth, and can take up to three minutes to fully load on smaller bandwidths. This means long waits for the people who might have a slower connection, by which time they’ll get bored and go elsewhere.
A CMS, by contrast, combines the best of both. It is more of a back-office where you can manage pages, add more easily, change content quickly and correctly, and implement new features in a jiffy. CMS is not tied down to any particular technology, but you can use it to embed any type of new features. The best thing about all this is that a CMS is as easy to use as your email system!
More and more websites are moving to a CMS system and gaining organization and ease of use. Get in touch right away to know more.