Complete HTML based website or CMS based website
- Thread starter Ryaljam
- Start date
easyhostmedia
Well-known member
I would say for a seo point of view either will do, but personally i would stay away from a complete HTML site as if you need to make changes you have to manually make the changes in every .html page, but with a CMS site you make a change in the sites admin area and it relays across then whole website.
From an SEO perspective, as long as you fill out every area, then either work just fine.
The problem many run into these days with HTML is that they don't fill out all the different aspects (where WordPress or Drupal have plugins to take care of things for you). Things like SCHEMA markup, JSON information, OpenGraph, Titles, Descriptions, navigation breadcrumbs etc, to name a few.
You can certainly do this on a small site, but it gets very time consuming on large sites.
Something to do if you're looking at an HTML would be using includes and creating a separate header and footer. This way, you can insert much of the extras needed for SEO in a common header, and then just override with certain items on the individual page itself.
If you're going to be changing things regularly, CMS is the way to go. If you're setting something up and probably won't touch it for a year (or more), then HTML is an easy route.
Site Speed is your friend, and not having to make a database call reduces one more step in the page build. With all that said, you could always use a CMS like WordPress, and then have it dump an HTML version which you would direct your site to. We used this method in the past and having pre-rendered pages shaved a ton off speed. These days, with the advances in PHP, MySQL, Memory handling, and optimized themes, we no longer run an HTML dumped site, and rely heavily on site and page cache (pre-rendered).
The problem many run into these days with HTML is that they don't fill out all the different aspects (where WordPress or Drupal have plugins to take care of things for you). Things like SCHEMA markup, JSON information, OpenGraph, Titles, Descriptions, navigation breadcrumbs etc, to name a few.
You can certainly do this on a small site, but it gets very time consuming on large sites.
Something to do if you're looking at an HTML would be using includes and creating a separate header and footer. This way, you can insert much of the extras needed for SEO in a common header, and then just override with certain items on the individual page itself.
If you're going to be changing things regularly, CMS is the way to go. If you're setting something up and probably won't touch it for a year (or more), then HTML is an easy route.
Site Speed is your friend, and not having to make a database call reduces one more step in the page build. With all that said, you could always use a CMS like WordPress, and then have it dump an HTML version which you would direct your site to. We used this method in the past and having pre-rendered pages shaved a ton off speed. These days, with the advances in PHP, MySQL, Memory handling, and optimized themes, we no longer run an HTML dumped site, and rely heavily on site and page cache (pre-rendered).
TheBoss
Member
Things are quite difficult now, before SEO and the newer versions of HTML and CSS showed up. Now, I suggest that nobody starts from scratch. Use a CMS template that is updated and based upon a popular framework (think responsive). As stated before me, it should be a lot easier to use a CMS to insert all of the extra goobly-gook search engines are wanting these days, although these elements should be self-evident.
Sometimes, if you are making a single page or a two-pager, you can learn a lot my just starting from scratch, in this case maybe Bootstrap. Let's just say. Making the SEO elements incl an amped version is a whole lot of work but very satisfying. If you need more than 2 pages, use a CMS or you may never finish the product.
If you are worried about CMS speed, you contact someone like myself and problem solved.
Sometimes, if you are making a single page or a two-pager, you can learn a lot my just starting from scratch, in this case maybe Bootstrap. Let's just say. Making the SEO elements incl an amped version is a whole lot of work but very satisfying. If you need more than 2 pages, use a CMS or you may never finish the product.
If you are worried about CMS speed, you contact someone like myself and problem solved.
easyhostmedia
Well-known member
Only time i use HTML is if i create single pages or 2 page sites and that is because that's what i trained on many moons ago.
I self learned bits of php, but for my websites i usually just use templates/themes and just fill in the blanks to suit my business/website content.
I self learned bits of php, but for my websites i usually just use templates/themes and just fill in the blanks to suit my business/website content.
As far as SEO goes i dont think it matters what language you use to create your website. These days with things like Wordpress and ready to go templates that you can edit to suit the days of needing to use HTML, PHP etc that we trained in are fast dissapearing, its the hard, long way to do it 
Alexishost
Member
If you are effecient in coding and love developing website using html, that will be no problem to update seo for your website like meta tag etc,
But it can be time consuming if you manage more than 5 or 10 website or more client website.
The advantage of using cms will be helping you faster in update the web.
But it can be time consuming if you manage more than 5 or 10 website or more client website.
The advantage of using cms will be helping you faster in update the web.
PeterShene
Active member
I would say depends on your knowledge if you dont know much and are working with a framework that may be just fine, I do find that its limiting and have to re write parts of the template especially if its something running in loops. In raw terms if you know what you are doing in HTML theres no difference between it and a dynamic language as the ouput google gets from a dynamic language is HTML anyway so no advantage except dynamic languages are easier to manage but IMO a little less flexible. If you have the knowledge and really want to dig into SEO and do te testing that all of of do with little variances mess around with html.
Let me puit like this, i went into seo a bit before yoast exploded unto the scene, I went quite deeply into it with html when i look at yoast i think wow nice concept just wish theyd have put it better together.
Let me puit like this, i went into seo a bit before yoast exploded unto the scene, I went quite deeply into it with html when i look at yoast i think wow nice concept just wish theyd have put it better together.
If your site doesn't change too often, you can use a CMS and then pull each page off as HTML using a script.
This way you get the completeness of the CMS, complete with any domain sharding (CDNs etc) or minifying A CMS and it plugins can do but with the Speed and Safety of an HTML site.
This way you get the completeness of the CMS, complete with any domain sharding (CDNs etc) or minifying A CMS and it plugins can do but with the Speed and Safety of an HTML site.
Phil_techie
Member
Small businesses can launch a new website in a matter of minutes using CMS. Some web hosts even have the most popular CMS platforms, such as WordPress, Joomla and Drupal, pre-installed and ready to use. Once a CMS is installed, small business websites can immediately start adding content and customizing their design. Although coding in HTML technically does not require an installation, webpages, images and graphics all need to be created and organised properly in the server’s web directory. This takes time and requires someone experienced with HTML.
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