Companies that carelessly start a website quickly reach their limits. We cover seven common web development mistakes so your business doesn’t have to make them.

A good website is essential for any business today. Your place on the internet tells the world what the company stands for and why customers should choose you over a competitor. In the digital age, the website has become an increasingly important channel for interaction with customers who also want to find information about your business online.

So if you don’t have a website, you run the risk of missing out on customers and revenue. But a faulty website does even more damage to a company’s reputation. Many novice web developers make the mistake of thinking that the hard work is over once the website is live. On the other hand; Its exploitation requires constant effort. The front end of the website is also often given too much attention, leaving the back end neglected.

Does your client want to start a website or does the current version need some improvements? Then we would like to put you on the right path. Gilles Van Marcke (Support Engineer) and Linley Lammens (Team Lead Customer Service) from web hosting provider Combell discuss common mistakes when developing a website. These are the seven deadly sins of web development that you should absolutely avoid.

forgot updates

Like any technology, a website needs regular updates. Updates ensure that your website is well secured, loads quickly and keeps up with the latest technological developments. Despite the undeniable benefits, many companies are sloppy about updates, Van Marcke notes.

“It’s important that you update technical things like the code regularly. This is a particular problem with WordPress-based websites. It’s sort of the flip side of WordPress’ success; “WordPress websites get hacked almost every week because they aren’t up to date,” says the engineer.

“If you don’t update your website, it’s a short-term vision, Lammens is looking for the root cause. “Developing a website has become much easier, almost anyone can be a web developer today. The focus therefore shifts to getting the website online as soon as possible, but aftercare is at least as important. A possible solution is to conclude a maintenance contract with the web designer.”

Van Marcke agrees: “We ask our customers to do this every day, but ultimately they have to implement these updates themselves.” I liken it to an alarm system. You can have the best alarm system in the world to secure your home. If you leave your door open, burglars will just walk in.”

open the doors

Website builders don’t always seem to realize that they are opening their website’s doors wide to malicious actors. Van Marcke puts his finger on the painful wound: “In the course of the updates we see several security problems. Contact forms or subscription forms for newsletters are often misused by hackers to send spam – with all sorts of consequences.”

Contact forms must therefore be provided with the necessary security. “Installing a captcha is essential. It’s sometimes seen as an “annoying tic,” but it’s a powerful tool against spam bots,” says Van Marcke. Lammens adds: “Even a good password policy is still an issue for many. It’s easy to always use the same email address and password, but a data breach where your password is retrieved can cause you a lot of trouble.”

Web developers can still take measures to ensure website security, Lammens concludes. “For example, many pay too little attention to the fact that ‘spoofing’ (Faking a Domain Name or Email Address, ed) is still common. This problem can already be limited by using DNS entries. It’s not 100 percent waterproof, but small details help.”

“Tools are available on our platform that can alert customers when something goes wrong on their website,” Lammens continues. “But then it’s already too late. You need to be proactive about security. Therefore, in our communications, we warn customers about what can happen and how they can protect themselves from it.”

A Dacia for a Lamborghini

In addition to investments in security, companies must also invest in infrastructure. Lammens: “Companies often want to try to get as much out of a limited hosting package as possible. They forget that their resources are limited, especially with a shared hosting plan where they are shared with other customers. You can’t expect the capabilities of a Lamborghini when you’re willing to pay for a Dacia.”

“It is important that you know what you are planning and who will visit your website. This way you also know how many resources you need. If you want to grow quickly, the infrastructure has to be geared to that,” says Lammens. Van Marcke agrees that companies need to know what they want to achieve before they start building their website.

You can’t expect to drive a Lamborghini when you’re paying for a Dacia.

Linley Lammens, Combell Customer Service Team Lead

Late scaling

The golden word for any web developer is scalability. The danger often lies in trying to grow the website too quickly. Lammens keeps our thoughts on expensive cars to explain this: “If you are looking for a small car, you do not immediately buy a Rolls Royce.”

Scaling your website is a step-by-step process, says Lammens. “I’ve seen enough of companies that want to organize an action only communicating this a day in advance. Scaling up is one thing, but seeing if everything is ‘bulletproof’ is quite another.”

“By that I mean that you should thoroughly check whether your website is resistant to sudden influx of visitors, for example whether there is enough caching available to handle it. You can’t do that in one day; To do this, you must take timely action and notify your provider. Good mutual interaction between customer and provider is necessary to prevent problems,” Lammens preaches.

Keep what is not right

That long-term planning sometimes entails drastic decisions. Van Marcke: “If you realize after a few years that your current website is no longer sufficient, then you should also dare to start over. Many companies continue to build on their old website because they don’t dare to invest in a new one.”

“Eventually you end up with code that isn’t optimized at all and plug-ins that don’t work anymore. The result is a cumbersome and slow website that causes frustration for both visitors and developers,” says Van Marcke.

“That’s also the message we wanted to get across with our ‘Ugly Belgian Websites’ campaign,” explains Lammens. “People take their car to the workshop every year or two. Websites also require regular maintenance. There is no point in continuing to use a website that is no longer optimized for your needs.”

Look for tools

To avoid all the above mistakes, web developers must have the right tools. But they don’t always seem very clear about what’s in their toolbox, Lammens says. “We offer a lot of things in our packages, but developers don’t always seem to know exactly what they have on their hands.”

“You can be a very good web developer but don’t know where to start with certain technical problems. Then we will try to help you find the right tools. If you have the right knowledge about what it takes to solve a problem and where to look for it, you can solve a lot yourself without having to hire an additional (external) developer,” says Lammens.

No own backups

“Speaking of troubleshooting, it’s also important to back up your website regularly,” Van Marcke begins the closing argument. “We also make backups ourselves, but we can’t keep them forever. Depending on the package, we keep previous versions of a website for between two weeks and thirty days. However, it often happens that customers request a backup several months ago. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case.”

“While the backups your provider creates are sufficient, you should always be prepared for emergencies. Problems in the backend sometimes only become apparent after a few months. “If you don’t have a backup to fall back on, there can be big problems,” concludes Van Marcke.

7 Web Development Tips

Does your company want to develop a successful website? Then follow these seven basic rules of web development:

1. Update your website regularly
2. Secure your website from spam and other cyber threats
3. Invest in the underlying infrastructure
4. Start scaling your website in time
5. Dare to start over if something doesn’t work
6. Use the right tools to find and fix problems
7. Carry enough backups to be prepared for emergencies

With these tips, you can ensure that the backend is powerful and tailored to the needs of your business. Could the website front end use a lick of paint? Then read our tips for a fresh web design.

This is an editorial in association with Combell. More information about the company’s solutions can be found here.