The sales pitch used to convince companies to refresh or fully upgrade their website almost always focuses on two things: look and performance. There is no disputing that both are very important and will dictate how long users will stay on your site.

But the key piece of the puzzle is often overlooked: the backend.

There are many reasons for this. First and foremost, let’s face it, it’s not the sexiest thing to be talking about. Second, the focus tends to be on the user journey not on the employees’ experience. And third, it’s not the easiest thing to explain to people who are unfamiliar with website development.

For the first point… I’m not going to argue. The second and thirds points, however, underscore the importance of having the right people involved in the decision-making process.

Papering over the cracks

The backend is rarely the reason clients reach out to Alpha Agency when they are growing frustrated with their setup. They generally want to reskin their existing site, make it modern and freshen up the layout, but keep the changes skin deep.

The backend of a website is like the foundation of a house. If it’s poorly built, it will undermine the quality and longevity of anything constructed on top of it. Renovations become more difficult than they need to be, if not impossible. Cracks will appear over time and there is only so much that can be done to paper over them before the useability of the website is compromised.

It's at this point thoughts turn to revamping the site – but, again, the focus isn’t on improving the foundation. Companies often take one look at the cost and kick the can down the road, opting for a cheaper facelift.

But another coat of paint isn’t going to fix the underlying problem.

Building Frankenstein’s monster

The Alpha Agency team tends to work on websites built using WordPress. There are countless platforms available, but the main benefit of WordPress is that it is highly customisable. Whatever you want to achieve with your website, there will be a plug-in that can help make it happen.

This benefit, however, is also the root cause of WordPress’ primary flaw – namely, it allows companies to gather various components and fuse them into something resembling Frankenstein’s monster.

This “unorthodox construction” means making any improvements to the site becomes incredibly difficult. Threads need to be untangled; pathways need to be established… it’s a mess. Adding more plugins into the mix in a futile effort to bridge gaps just makes the whole situation worse.

When a developer, who is perhaps not a WordPress specialist, encounters a problem, often their first thought it ‘what plugin can I use?’. When, in fact, it should be their last thought. A specialist would write custom code to build custom functions.

Plugins are a cheap and easy way to bridge a gap or ‘solve a problem’, but they create what are known as ‘dependencies’. And, ideally, you want as few dependencies as possible because that is the key to ensuring you have a long-lasting site.

It’s not to say that plugins are necessarily a bad thing, but many act as plasters that cover up a problem rather than fixing it. Our criteria for using them is that the plugin must be well maintained, be from reputable developers and, most importantly, it must provide a function that we cannot easily replicate.

An example of a plugin that checks all those boxes, and one that the Alpha Agency team recommends, is Yoast SEO. The SEO tool is developed by an incredibly reputable team to improve the search engine optimisation of the website. It would take an incredible amount of time and effort to duplicate, whereas the Yoast SEO plugin is excellent and immediately available.

Getting it right from the start

The Alpha Agency approach to website projects starts with gathering the key stakeholders; that means speaking to the people who routinely use the backend as well as those focused on improving its look and feel.

Our goal is to build a foundation that is as easy to use as possible. The backend experience is fully tailored to each client, meaning that every menu item available to them is something they will genuinely use. This ensures the backend remains uncluttered and is easy to navigate. We build bespoke components, from the ground up, in collaboration with UX/UI designers to ensure adherence to brand guidelines and with the end user journey front of mind.

A strong foundation also means scaling the site – such as adding new pages or entire sections – becomes the work of minutes, rather than hours and days. It reduces the need to make expensive, wholesale changes to the website. Each site developed by the Alpha Agency team is designed so our client’s employees are empowered to make changes.

Upgrading a website is always an investment, not only of money but also of time and resources. How much of a commitment a company is prepared to make is entirely up to them.

Our recommendation would always be to make sure the foundation is strong. It’s an investment that will pay dividends because a well-built site requires less maintenance, will be longer lasting and, ultimately, is much easier to update/upgrade.

If you would like to speak to the team about your website, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.