The Other Part of Development - Web Presence and Marketing

I wanted to see what other developers in our community are doing in regard to their web presence and showing off their Unity projects or portfolio. It's been on my mind lately as I've been migrating a ton of my own portfolio and business content from an older web host and putting all of this content onto my new host. It's just a ton of work and has consumed the last two weeks so far. There has been zero game development happening while I am working on these websites. Here is a video where I vlog my progress on this front.

To be more specific in my question for discussion: I am personally rolling my own websites using HTML5, CSS (with Bootstrap) and Javascript. I start with boilerplate code and kind of build it up by hand from there. I'm using the Bootstrap framework so it's relieving a lot of manual labor in layout and design. I was curious what tools other Unity developers are using to create their online web presence in the form of websites or web apps. What hosting options are folks using?

 

It helps significantly to use an existing CMS solution. I personally have switched over to Wordpress. Most web-sites these days are data-driven, and use some manner of content management in order to interface with their database. Rolling your own solution for this can be a great learning experience, but it is also a ton of work. Using an existing solution like Wordpress, Joomla, or Drupal is a faster and more efficient approach. Most of these CMS frameworks can be installed and hosted on your own web server, and most can also be extensively customized and re-themed with your own CSS and HTML.

I have some experience working with the bootstrap framework. Using it will make your site slightly more generic in its styling. But it is also very clean and scalable, substantial advantages that frequently make it worthwhile. And a little customization in the styling can help to personalize it. Be sure to take advantage of its column system to adjust your site to different browser widths.

 

Ha ha yeah you're preaching to the choir! We use Drupal for our NASA work and it's okay, but we don't do too much customization. I can see the benefit if you're dealing with a lot of data or even dealing with complex tagging structures. My websites are usually pretty tiny, with the exception of this portfolio one. I think it tells me it's time to cull out older work and make way for the new stuff. I can see the benefits of both systems. You are also right about Bootstrap...it's actually the core reason I'm using it (scalability across devices). I am using the column and row setup. I had a moment where I was going to approach it with CSS Grid, but I just didn't want the downtime of learning some new shorthand syntax. However it looks like CSS grid is less constrainted and there is more freedom with grid layouts. Bootstrap is a handy framework, but it starts showing some limitations once you want to do things with odd numbered columns. You can do it, but it requires extra offsets and work. I am pretty much doing this because I enjoy doing it so much. Some day I'll get tired of it and will automate this stuff under a CMS.

 

The real value of a CMS is when you are making a site that you intend to update frequently. Often times it isn't needed for a largely static portfolio site. But if you are looking to put together blogs, articles, or tutorials that you update weekly or even monthly, a CMS is a real boon.

The scalability of bootstrap requires that you specifically customize your html with the bootstrap specific css styles. Tweaking it scale ideally based on browser size is possible, but will need a greater degree of specific definitions. It's powerful, but not free, it will require extra effort and care to optimize its effects. It's something I frequently run into with my co-workers. They often don't bother with this extra effort, preferring short-cuts that allow them to write less html. When you do put in that effort, the results are impressive.

Picking up some decent jQuery would also be recommended. I use a lot of Angular in my day job, but I can't really recommend that as it involves database interaction. (and would be overkill for a site that has no database) jQuery on the other hand is fairly universal in its browser support, and is often the go-to option for manipulating the DOM at run-time.

 

Yep which is why I think a CMS was overkill for my site...it's very static. I was even debating the blog aspect, but I might have a small blog I update once a month or so. There's just very little traffic from myself or others. I just picked up on JQuery this last summer in school, it was part of our Javascript course. Very handy indeed. My site right now has about 4 lines of Javascript or so as it's really all it needs for image switching. I like to think about potential future functionality and that the site may expand over time.

You know the thing about Bootstrap is it does have that "look" out of the box. It's all pre-styled right off the bat and you pretty much have to go in and override styles on just about everything to make it look unique. At that point I usually ask myself was this even worth using since I've had to do so much styling work?

 

I would advise against a CMS. Your site is primarily a marketing tool. You need absolute freedom in where you can place stuff. A CMS will make that difficult. I wouldn't even use a CMS for detailed game information rich in content that might seem like it would fit a CMS well, as I think everything you do in public should be marketing driven first. You want to sprinkle social referral links into your documentation or whatever to drive people to where you want them? You can't do stuff like that easily with a structure/layout defined by someone else.

 

I would note I don't really consider basic usage of products like WordPress to be a CMS. I was referring more to using data driven features where the layout and such is not easy to control.

 

WordPress + Divi. Completely flexible and customizable as well as portable and responsive.

 

I use reddit mostly. Our Steam storepage news page. And I also have a tech blog driven by wordpress and finally our wordpress driven game page. Its probably the thinest game page ever, but hey less is more right?

virtual-warfighter.com

I have been contacted if i wanted to buy virtualwarfighter.com for ridicules high amount. Didnt reply

 

I'm a big fan of minimal myself. I like the splash page, but I might add one thing and that might be a background hero image to whet the appetite for this game! Maybe a really nice image of the game itself? You do have that mystery thing going on with this landing page and that's awesome. Very much like seeing that beautiful person when you're out and there is a mystery as to what they're all about.

 

If you press the little arrows by the logo you get a trailer

 

For only twelve easy payments of $19.95 (no, seriously, that's almost the correct amount).

 

I use the free wordpress for my blog and like 10 USD for the domain. For my game page I think it pay 80 USD per year included domain

 

It used to be (and I still get billed, AFAIK) 19.95 a year. Which is completely worth it.

 

That's a very reasonable yearly bill and probably a great resource for other developers to look into. I'd say my hosting is the most expensive aspect. I host through GoDaddy (I know), and it's $10 per month for unlimited sites and more storage than I'll ever need. The downside on budget hosting is the server machines are a bit under-powered, but they are Linux boxes so probably a bit more optimized. However that brings my yearly cost up over $100.00, which is not ideal, but it's not terrible either. I do get to deduct these hosting costs come tax time. HostGator looked like a reputable hosting service as well.

 

@JamesArndt I have been with HostGator for about 6-7 years and they are exceptional. Good prices, good support, amazing features, and fast!

 

I use Shopify. If you get a plan with the shopping cart disabled, you can get it for like $14/month. This allows you access to a pretty good CMS, content-delivery network, blogging, articles, product and collection pages, tons of features and integrations with various markets, almost 100% total flexibility on the front-end through the server-side liquid templating code, and you can make almost any kind of website layouts you like. There's a thriving app community for plugins and integrations, you can turn it into a real ecommerce store at some point if need be e.g. for digital downloads. There's no reason why using a CMS means having your hands tied in terms of front-end layouts whatsoever unless it's some crappy old-fashioned platform. Shopify is very well supported and stable, fast and modern, and constantly growing. Even if all you need are a handful of fairly static marketing pages.

For me I bypass the themes that other people have built because I like to make sure everything is very efficient, so I write my own html5 + liquid code, super streamlined small css, and my own raw javascript. I avoid "helpful" solutions that make a programmer's life easier such as jquery, sass etc... they are not for the benefit of the end user.

Also don't forget nowadays that it is absolutely ESSENTIAL that your website be responsive and work really well (and fast) on slow mobile devices. Google is now prioritizing the mobile experience FIRST ahead of desktop and that will significantly affect your rankings if you're not doing it well. Gone are the days of just making "a page" and hoping it does well.

I threw up a little basic website for my little mobile game, since Apple kind of requires you to have a website... but it needs a lot more work. https://www.venus12.com

 

I've use hostgator too, and also switched to greengeeks .... but that was before I started using Shopify as a development platform.

 

I got tired of the overhead and inflexibility of things like WordPress and switched to a static site generator (Hugo). I had to learn some basic HTML and CSS to set up the template, but I write the actual posts in Markdown. Hugo converts those Markdown files into the needed HTML based on my template. No scripts, nothing dynamic, all flat HTML.

 

Sounds like a lot of work the way you are doing it.
But the end result you are getting is really solid. It looks great.

We use WordPress. I use the simplest most minimal theme I could find.

I would really like to either to write or customize a CMS which just outputs flat HTML
and then make our site all with flat HTML pages like this one: https://varvy.com/pagespeed/wicked-fast.html

I am into fast cars, fast women, and fast loading HTML pages