If you’re one of the many people questioning the future of web development or assessing whether web development is dying, we don’t fault you.
With plenty of Wix ads on YouTube and the ease of dropping content on simple WordPress themes, anyone can doubt the need for custom websites.
Well, the answer is a no and a yes. Is Web development dying? No. Do people even need custom websites anymore? Yes. More than ever.
Say, for argument’s sake, web development is dying. So what is the alternative? Well, sites like Wix, WordPress, and Shopify are platforms for building websites referred to as Content Management System (CMS).
Simply put, they are tools that let users build a website with very little skill without writing all the code from scratch and having technical knowledge. (or even knowing how to code at all) but are they as successful and powerful as custom web development?
Not by a long shot. Here’s why:
1. A Customized Website Is More SEO-friendly
(Source: https://www.webtekcc.com/blog/internet-marketing/website-not-ranking-in-google)
So a majority of bloggers and marketers out there who are not web developers simply install a WordPress theme and make their website live. But their websites fail to make it to Google’s organic search, and they end up being disappointed.
The reasons why websites with stock themes fail to top Google’s search rankings are:
- A CMS platform still depends on knowledge and tweaks from a web developer to improve optimization
CMS Platforms like WordPress, Elementor, Wix, and Shopify which are called killing web development platforms still require software development knowledge to improve and create a better user experience.
- They rely heavily on too many plugins
The load time of your website will likely exceed 2 seconds if you have more plugins. Due to its slow loading speed and high load time, plugins like page builders adversely affect its search engine optimization.
However, custom websites will always enjoy the upper hand due to better design, user interface, and personalized features.
This is the first reason we believe web development has a lot more to offer than CMS.
Even in the future, the need for the software industry to adjust and tweak website features to improve optimization will form an integral part of a website’s rank on Google’s first page.
2. Custom Sites Are Miles Ahead In Terms Of Speed And Responsiveness
(Source: https://socialmediaweek.org/blog/2018/07/why-you-should-improve-your-website-speed-today/)
You might not feel the need for speed while driving, but it is super crucial when it comes to websites!
Just installing a theme from WordPress or using page builders and hoping for the best is simply not going to cut it. In fact, there are going to be quite a few drawbacks here.
You see, templates and themes are for general use situations to create websites, and they can never offer the kind of responsiveness and fast loading times that custom websites do.
For example, a button, header, or an image all require alignment to the individual user’s screen size and resolution. To make a button or image responsive to the user’s screen and size, we set media queries(a front-end web development concept) and make the image smaller or larger than the resolution.
Stock themes just cannot offer that type of flexibility. Even great themes can be customized by web developers to perform much better.
So the next time you ask yourself, “Is web development dying?” remember, poor loading time, responsiveness, flexibility, and personalization are more reasons why building websites using web technologies and custom web development will continue to be essential.
3. Custom Websites Provide Greater ROI And Conversions
(Source: https://coreaxis.com/insights/blog/aligning-goals-for-greater-roi)
Most people make the mistake of going all-in with CMS platforms simply to save the higher costs associated with custom web development and web design. But precisely what they don’t realize, is that they’re missing out on greater long-term Returns on Investment (ROI) which ends up being more costly.
The reason is simple. When a website is designed and tailored to the needs of a business and its target audience and conversions. Their sales increase. This makes custom web development highly attractive for lucrative ROI.
4. Web Development Can Greatly Enhance User Experience
An area where custom web development hands down beats CMS is in providing a superior User Experience for online business. That’s because Custom Web Development offers the facility of unlimited design options to make the website more visually appealing, user-friendly, and efficient. Superior user experience, greater conversions from a professional perspective.
Better UX design could yield conversion rates of up to 400%.
For example, there are a lot of custom features we add for our clients in order to bring it on par with their vision. Content Management Systems just don’t offer that flexibility or the potential for a seamless user experience.
Maybe building websites with custom code is exactly what businesses need.
5. Highly Scalable In Comparison To CMS
Another essential upside to web development is that it is highly scalable in comparison to CMS which has a lot of limitations. Oftentimes, the software you choose or the website theme you pick does not let you make the improvements your business needs.
Custom software development is easily scalable through Frameworks like React, Angular and Vue, and APIs.
Pushing for changes in CMS software for the site owner is a much more costly affair as opposed to custom web development and writing code, which is another rebuttal to people who ask the question, “Is Web Development Dying?”
6. Web Development Provides Ease Of Functionality
The beauty of a code is in its simplicity. Can a ready-made suit ever fit someone perfectly as opposed to a tailor-made one? A clean code can make all the difference because it allows convenient tweaks and changes in the backend whenever required.
One of the key reasons why web developers utilize custom codes for building websites is due to ease of functionality. The problem with stock codes is that they can sometimes be hard to understand and therefore decode, which can make changes to a website complex and painstaking.
Standard CMS systems utilize a lot of redundant code that can create problems and be hard to fix.
At TechNerds, we often deal with clients who approach us to customize a website theme they bought. More often than not, we end up redesigning their whole website with custom web development. This is because the kind of features and flexibility they require just can’t be bought from off the shelf solutions or automated tools.
Buying themes that look fancy is one thing, but making custom changes in their code is quite another.
As a result, they end up losing more because they become stuck on how to tweak their theme to suit their business needs.
So the next time you decide to shell out cash on a website theme or a mobile app, know that instead of saving more, you might end up burning your resources, so why not go with web development from the start?
Tired of being ripped off in getting your website made? Read our latest blog on 5 Ways Digital Agencies Can Burn Your Cash & How TechNerds Can Help You Recover here.
7. Web Development Can Be More Secure
If you’re one of 99% of people who care about their data and privacy, you surely know how important web development can be to preventing it.
In today’s day and age, cyber attacks are pretty common but you can strengthen your business’ guard against them through web development and a competent web developer. There are a couple of reasons for this.
- Custom Code is hard to crack and much less accessible even for the most powerful super-computers.
- You can deploy high-security levels to protect your content and customer data by deploying a web developer experienced in cybersecurity.
At TechNerds, we provide our clients full-scale web development services using programming languages with unlimited customization options to bring their vision to life. We are a complete digital agency ready to help your business breakthrough with digital tools. Get your free consultation now.
Is Front-End Development Dying?
Another common question we feel the need to address in this blog is, Is Front-End development Dying? Well for that, let us dive a little into what Front-end Development is all about.
What Is Front-End Development?
Whether it’s a homepage, About Us or Contact, graphical designs of your website are just images until somebody develops them and makes them functional.
This is where front-end development steps in. With the use of HTML, CSS and JavaScript, Front-end development converts data into a graphical interface. This allows the users to view and perform action on a certain web page.
Use Of Front-End Development In WordPress And Other Custom Management Systems (CMS)
Did you know that wordpress themes can be customized to be tailored to your needs?
Development of WordPress themes is known as front-end development and involves the coding of content your users interact with.
A front-end developer creates the code to determine which colors and fonts should appear on the screen, keeping in line with your brand’s identity.
They can also determine image and media placement, the layout of the text on the whole website, and everything else that defines your web page.
Is Front-End Development Dying?
We are integrating technology into more aspects of our lives than ever before. It isn’t merely limited to our screens. .
From desktop to mobile, we’ve already seen a major shift, and we’re seeing others in the form of wearables, VR, and voice-activated technologies like Amazon Alexa and Google Home.
Isn’t this implying that there will be less demand for front-end developers as we become less screen-centric, in general?
Yes it’s possible that future tech might not have graphical User interfaces but user interaction with technology is bound to increase as newer gadgets are invented.
Such tech would still require developers to make the User Experience better, logical, seamless and easy to navigate.
Possibly the front-end developer will no longer write code for web browsers in 10 years, and might become known as a UX Engineer in time to come – but one thing is clear. Front-end development is here to stay even with the emergence of CMS platforms.
Final Verdict
While killing web development Content Managing Systems (CMS) like WordPress presents a less costly way to get your website up and running, is it the most effective way to go? Nope.
if you are serious about getting your website ranked top on competitive keywords, you just can’t do it without full-scale web development. Doing successful business on the web can only be done if you rank on the first page of Google.
Factors such as top search engine optimization, higher scalability, greater security, superior user experience, better ROI, conversions, faster speed, and responsiveness can only be achieved through web development.
So is web development here to stay? For the foreseeable future, Yes. Could CMS software like WordPress improve? Definitely. They will get better. But for now, there is only one clear winner.