Please introduce yourself and where you work

My name is Anthony and I am the Digital Marketing Specialist here at Bartlett Interactive. As Hubspot Inbound, Email, and Growth Driven Design certified, I specialize in Social Media, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Email Marketing to increase traffic, leads, sales and customer engagement.  We are a web design, development, and marketing agency cooking up killer Drupal and WordPress websites.

What web services do you provide to your customers?

Our service menu includes custom website design and branding, templated to made-to-order website development and garnished with search engine optimization. We work to create unique user-focused solutions and build engaging experiences.

How do you see the evolution of web development in the last 5 years?

Web development over the last 5 years has transformed into a mobile-first mentality. Many clients expect to see a desktop website design first since this is the more traditional approach, but recent studies have shown that over half of website visitors are browsing the web on a mobile device. We predict that these numbers will continue to rise in the next few years and that web design must adapt to these trends for optimal user experience.

Why do you think Wordpress dominates the market as of now?

WordPress turns up the heat in the kitchen with their user-friendly GUI. Many of our clients find editing with Wordpress very easy and intuitive. Wordpress also offers more customization abilities over platforms like Squarespace. While not as robust as Drupal, WordPress is less expensive to build and maintain, which is attractive to those with budget concerns.

What is your take on the adoption of Drupal, considering it is a preferred choice of most enterprise industries?

Enterprise companies benefit from the variety of ingredients that can be added to Drupal to fit their exact needs (Gluten-Free personalization!) leading to the creation of a fully unique website perfectly suited to their taste buds. With Drupal, they are able to create fully unique designs that help them stand out from corporate templated websites and that allow them to incorporate unique complex functions easier than trying to customize a plug-in that was created for a different function.

What is your advice to people who are looking to take web development as a career?

Before deciding to start a web development career it’s important to learn the fundamental web languages HTML, CSS, and Javascript. These will not only give you the basics you need in web development but they can give you a leg up in any digital role in case web development isn't your choice. Then determine which area of development to focus. There are so many different web development avenues from developing web applications to building websites on a variety of different platforms (Drupal, WordPress, Joomla, etc.), it's important to choose a specialty to know where to focus your learning.