It was 11 PM. I was updating an event on a site when the events plugin wanted version 3.14159 to match the latest patch from what I'll call NerdPush—one of those plugins that ships breaking changes like it's a hobby. Uploading a photo took thirty seconds. That doesn't sound brutal until you add the thirty-five-second NerdPush refresh and six other widgets that all want to update too.
Did that make me confident the page will load faster for a visitor on the phone? Uh... nope.
A Plug-what?
Site builders start with a decent toolbox so you can get something live quickly. It's a good start. Then the business grows, or the calendar gets complicated, and you need more than the defaults.
Enter the plugin—extra software from a third party that snaps into the builder. Calendars, event lists, style packs, layout widgets. Most have a trial period or free tier, but the features you wanted that they advertise in the marketplace are - you guessed it - premium tier.
A plugin can add real power. It can also add hidden cost: the event widget that syncs your homepage might need premium. You tweak the styles, but you already have a style plugin—and the two fight each other. A quick win turns into a weekend of searching forum posts from other DIY admins asking why the calendar broke the hero banner while your six-year-old really needs you to come out and look at the stick they found.
It works, until it doesn't
Usually the fiddling pays off. Something runs, you breathe deeply, and you move on. Two days later the builder pushes an update, the plugin pushes an update, and something in the middle just… breaks.
At that point you ask yourself: where did I mess up? Fair question—but if you're the one up at 11 PM, you can only ask it so many times before it stops being fun.
I lived that loop for years. For the first three years of its existence, my band site was short bursts of fix-it work. (The band is called The Chores, so it was a little bit kismet.)
Get what you want
Once I fought and lost the battle at Plugin Coral enough times, I did what felt inevitable. I built my own site from scratch. It took me well over a year. Most of my website-building experience until then was customizing the HTML on my MySpace page in 2006—I'd taken programming and computer science courses, but modern web development was new. I had to learn it the way a two-year-old learns to tell a story. Three words strung together is the first miracle, but pretty soon they're explaining the rationale behind the ice-cream cart roaming the neighbourhood after bedtime to put ice cream sandwiches under their pillow.
The end result is that I got what I wanted. A site that loads fast on mobile and desktop. Something I can enter events into from the back of a Volkswagen before you hit the signal dead zone on the way to Hinton. A stylistically immature site with simple sophistication of function.
I've aired my grievances. But I want to point something out. When I said I got my start writing HTML for MySpace, I wasn't just missing the good old days. MySpace was the first accessible social networking. A place where everyone knew Tom, and hamsters danced in the margins. It provided the first version of what these site builders provide now. The technology has come a long way and a lot of skilled developers had entire careers dedicated to making these products. They fill an essential role on the internet: They allow for affordable access to express yourself or start an online business or be part of the internet in a way that is meaningful to you.
That's the part worth keeping. The trouble starts when your business needs more than the template was built to carry—then you're back at 11 PM with six widgets and a plugin fight.
I'm not advocating for every business owner to spend a year of evenings wondering if it will ever be worth it. I did that part so you don't have to. When I build for a client, the goal is the same one I chased for The Chores: your contact form goes to the right place, your odd rules (door time, regional forms, Thursday menu updates) are built in so you're not hunting through plugin marketplace reviews at 11 PM.
Speed on phones is not a mystery
As a former member of the 11PM WTFwebsite club, I need you to hear this: That 11 PM content edit wasn't slow because you are bad at this - It was slow because the page was hosting a Battle of Alberta bench brawl between the widgets, the plugins, and the platform. On a phone in a parking lot, spotty signal and a short attention span mean you get a few seconds before someone bails on your site. Every plugin that phones home to a server adds another wait. When plugins don't play nice, menus slide off-screen, chunks never load, and the visitor leaves before they see your business hours. A lean, integrated site isn't a content or feature checkbox; it's built with the person standing in the lot in mind.
What I do instead
I start with how you actually run the business: who updates the site, what must be obvious in five seconds, what has broken before.
Building The Chores site took forever. I meandered through figuring out what I wanted and how I wanted to work. I didn't listen to the plain-spoken drummer throwing sticks at me in my head telling me to keep it simple.
Imaginary rage-drummers aside, it was a valuable lesson. Listen. Think. Plan. Prototype. Demo. Repeat.
Explaining exactly what you want can be difficult. Some folks know the exact flow they want, but can only explain it as an interaction. Some clients know exactly how they want the site to look and flow—they just need the technical work to get it there.
That's where I try to be useful. Years in the arts taught me to take direction, ask the dumb question early, and deliver something you can run day to day—not a theme demo that might break your site if you sneeze on your iPhone.
Questions worth asking anyone
Before you sign or renew a builder plan, ask a few plain questions. Write the answers down.
If the answers are vague, that's not a moral failing—it's a sign you're about to own more late nights than you expected.
- Who holds the domain and DNS—and can you take them with you if you leave this platform or this person?
- When someone submits your contact form, where does the message land? Have you tested it on your own phone, not just the desktop preview?
- What happens when the platform raises its price, changes a plan, or drops a feature your site depends on?
- If the person who built it is unavailable, can someone else update the site without a treasure hunt through plugins and logins?
- Who is responsible for plugin updates—and what is the plan when a plugin stops being maintained or breaks after an update?
- How many third-party scripts or widgets load on the home page, and what happens to load time on mobile when you add one more?
- web
- small business
- Edmonton