Today, with the modern Internet being more content-driven than ever, many businesses and individuals are turning to dynamic web design for the many advantages that it offers. A dynamic website is one which uses a content management system combined with a database for easy content creation and website customization. Static websites, composed entirely from HTML and CSS, are becoming increasingly less popular than dynamic websites because they typically require a lot more effort and a fairly intermediate knowledge of the inner workings of web design.

 

How Does a Dynamic Website Work?

While a static website consists of nothing more than a series of HTML files which appear in the Web browser whenever someone enters the page address, a dynamic website renders each webpage by calling on the content stored in a server-side PHP database. The actual structure of a dynamic website is much more complicated than a static one, although this should normally not be much of concern to the end user, since with a dynamic website, everything is handled by a server-side program known as a content management system (CMS).

When building a static website, you’ll have to upload each individual webpage into the FTP server of your hosting company, and any modifications will need to be done by editing the individual HTML files themselves. With a dynamic website, you’ll install a CMS which provides a user-friendly interface which you can use to add content such as articles and various on-page elements to your website without having to edit any code or upload new HTML pages. The CMS takes care of the rest, and every time someone visits a page on your site, everything, including its content, on-page elements, navigational features and style, is taken from the database stored on your hosting company’s server.

 

The Benefits of Using a Content Management System

Modern online marketing techniques, including search engine optimization (SEO), place a high level of importance on fresh, up-to-date content, and this is precisely why blogs and other news- and content-orientated websites have become so popular. However, in order to publish new content on a regular basis, you will ideally need to use a CMS.

When you install a CMS, you will effectively have a blank website with a default design template ready and waiting for you. From this point on, customizing your website or adding and editing content is simply a matter of logging into the administrator section of your website and following the on-screen controls. Modern CMSs tend to offer a user-friendly interface which is largely understandable to the average computer user who has little or no knowledge of coding and the inner workings of website design. In fact, publishing and editing articles using a typical CMS is not really any more complicated than writing and saving an article using any word processor. Likewise, customizing your website by changing and editing styles, themes and adding site-wide elements such as tag clouds and on-site advertising is also a simple and largely self-explanatory process with most platforms. Whenever you want to make a site-wide change, such as adding a footer to every page of your website, all you need to do is change one piece of content instead of editing every page separately.

 

Are There Any Disadvantages to Dynamic Websites?

Theoretically, you have a lot more freedom if you create a static website. You will be in complete control of the entire design of your website, but this will come at the cost of extremely time-consuming updates and a necessity to be highly familiar with coding and Web design in general.

A more practical disadvantage of using a CMS is that dynamic websites tend to be slower because the website relies entirely on a database rather than a set of static HTML files. The database and the CMS which uses it will inevitably consume far more bandwidth and contain more clutter than a simple static website. A CMS does come with a lot of bloat, but this is an unavoidable trade-off of convenience. However, by using a caching tool or plug-in, each page of your website is rendered as a separate HTML file just like on a static website. With caching enabled, visitors to your website will be presented with the static HTML versions of each webpage rather than having them be rendered for visitors from scratch every time they visit. Caching effectively allows you to turn your dynamic website into a static one without any of the disadvantages.

 

Choosing a Content Management System

There are plenty of options available, and you should first consider your goals and the type of website you want to build. Almost a fifth of all websites run WordPress, currently the world’s most popular CMS by far. WordPress was originally aimed primarily towards bloggers, but now it has become popular for a whole range of different websites thanks to the versatility offered by its enormous database of themes and plug-ins. WordPress is easy to install and use and it is suitable for websites of almost any type from blogs to fully-fledged e-commerce websites. WordPress is a completely free and open-source platform, although there are some premium paid themes available for it.

Drupal is another popular CMS, and although it generally has a steeper learning curve than WordPress, it is more versatile and comes with an extensive range of plug-ins (known as modules) to add additional functionality to your website. The official modules include the ability to add user-created blogs, profiles and forums to your website. Like WordPress, Drupal is free and open-source.

Joomla is another of the top three among the world’s CMSs, and like Drupal, it is also best suited to larger. more advanced websites thanks to its extensive administration interface and support for numerous access control protocols. The Joomla website itself also provides over 3,000 extensions indicating that its developer community is very much alive and active. Although Joomla itself is free and open-source, users often find themselves heavily reliant on paid themes and plug-ins.

 

Conclusion

The CMS you choose will provide the entire framework for your website, allowing you to add features and publish content with ease. However, it is also important to realize, that while a CMS is usually an essential tool in any website and content marketing strategy, static websites do still retain their place in certain situations. When all you need is a small website for a traditional bricks-and-mortar business providing information, contact details and perhaps a small portfolio of your most important products or services, a static website should do just fine. If, on the other hand, you want to step on the fast-moving and highly effective content marketing bandwagon, your CMS will quickly become the most critical tool in your collection.