Why Hand-coded Websites Perform the Best
I have manually checked the performance of hundreds of business websites and learned two important facts. The first is that WordPress is the default choice for many small business owners and web design agencies. The second is that WordPress is slow. I get it, WordPress provides an easy and fast way to make a website. The issue is that its benefits are directed towards the website creators and not its users.
Key Reasons for Hand-coded websites:
- Hand-coded websites are faster than WordPress sites because they have minimal code, static content, and no reliance on plugins.
- Fast-loading websites reduce bounce rates, with a 32% increase in bounce rate from a 1-second load to a 3-second load.
- On Google's first page of search results the average website loads in 1.65 seconds, this shows the role performance has on SEO.
Why a Faster Website Matters
It might sound obvious that a faster website is better, but it might not be so obvious why that is. There are two reasons why a business should want its website to be as fast as possible:
- Visitor retention and engagement depend on how fast your website loads.
- Google's search rankings use website performance and load times as key ranking factors.
User Engagement
The goal of a business website is not only to attract visitors, it's to convert them into customers. This isn't possible if visitors are leaving before they engage with the website's content. When this happens it is referred to as a "bounce" and high bounce rates are a sign that a website is not engaging. The main culprit for this is long load times which cause visitors to back out to find faster websites. In 2017 a study by Google found that visitors are 32% more likely to leave a website that loads in 3 seconds vs 1 second. For many businesses, this could cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars lost in monthly revenue. Not only that, but that money is likely going to a competitor. That's the first reason why any business that wants to excel needs a fast website.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO refers to actions that increase traffic towards a website via search engines. SEO is a free way to guide more visitors to your website so you can convert them into customers. Now you might be thinking, "how is something that happens before a user clicks on the website relevant to website speed?". The answer lies in Google's ranking algorithm. Google decides what sites to recommend to its users based on the experience they provide and according to them, one of the main metrics of a good website experience is loading performance. This is also proven in their search results page. An analysis by Backlinko discovered that the average page speed of a website presented on Google's first page of search results was 1.65 seconds. Once again showing, the benefits of high-performance websites for businesses.
Hand-coded Websites are Faster
Hand-coded websites require more expertise and work to produce, but in return, they provide the highest quality experience for the website's users. This is most evident with the lightning-fast performance they provide. The first business I ever made a re-design for had a WordPress site with a 10-15s load time, in contrast my hand-coded proof-of-concept had a 1.7s load time. That's a 6-9x faster performance with a hand-coded website which still had plenty of room for optimization. Now, you might be wondering "why are hand-coded websites so much faster?". Well, there are two main reasons; minimal code and static content.
Minimal Code
Hand-coded websites are extremely lightweight when compared to WordPress sites. This is because they start as a blank slate and allow developers to add the minimum amount of code required to achieve their desired functionality and design. WordPress sites on the other hand come with a bunch of messy and bloated code right off the bat. The problem is made even worse if the website needs themes or plugins. Themes and plugins are designed to accommodate the needs of a wide variety of websites, so it's obvious that none of them are optimized for any individual website. This is why they always end up slowing WordPress sites down.
Static Content
There are generally two ways to generate the content you see on a website. One is a static method where content doesn't change much and thus the files are created once and delivered every time in their original form. The other method is for dynamic content where the content you see is pulled from its source and generated each time it needs to be viewed. Even with just that information, I believe it's fairly obvious which solution is faster. The issue with WordPress' dynamic generation of content is that WordPress sites often don't have content that changes frequently. This makes the use of dynamic generation useless and a wasteful step that simply slows down the sites. That's why most businesses need a static hand-coded website that can serve their website's files to visitors as quickly as possible.
Conclusion
Hand-coded websites require a higher degree of skill to produce but in return allow developers to create the best user experience possible. The main way hand-coded websites do this is by keeping website load times as low as possible. Not only does this keep visitors engaged and less likely to bounce, but it also makes the websites rank higher on Google. Thus, any business that wants to get the most growth and revenue from its website should invest in a hand-coded solution.