GatsbyJS Workflow
- Consultation
- Design
- Development
- Support
- Deployment
Make Your Web Site Using Gatsby JS
GatsbyJS Consultation
You will be contacted by an Iron Cove Solutions consultant who will ask you a series of questions to determine how we can use Gatsby JS on your application.
Here are examples of some questions:
- Do you have an in-house application designer?
- Do you have an existing site that you want to convert using Gatsby JS?
- Do you have in-house developers?
- What is your budget for building this application?
- Do you have a current SEO strategy?
- Can you provide a list of web pages you need to be created?
- Do you need any web-based forms and if so what is their purpose?
- How many people will be updating your site on Contentful?
- Do you have a hard deadline for the completion of this web application?
- Who will be your POC for this project?
- Who is your current web host? Do you plan on staying with that host or are you willing to move to a host like Netlify?
- Do you need any data migrated?
- Do you need to access any APIs?
- Do you have access to the DNS settings?
- Upon completion of how many people will need training on this application?
What is GatsbyJS?
Gatsby.js builds your site as “static” files that deliver the fastest possible website. Iron Cove Solutions website is built on Gatsby. Take it for a spin and see for yourself how fast Gatsby is and how fast your site can be. This is how the Internet should work.
How are GatsbyJS sites so fast?
Gatsby.js is a static PWA (Progressive Web App) built on the JAMstack (Modern web development architecture based on client-side JavaScript, reusable APIs, and prebuilt Markup). Once loaded, Gatsby prefetches resources for other pages. This is possible using modern web tools like React.js, Webpack, JavaScript, NodeJS and CSS.
Gatsby.js is Internet Scale. No more complicated deploys trying to configure databases, expensive setup costs, and time-consuming maintenance. Gatsby creates "static" files that can be deployed anywhere quickly and painlessly. What's even better is Gatsby can free you from relying on legacy CMSs like WordPress.
GatsbyJS sites are build using REACT
React is a JavaScript library for building User Interfaces and its popularity has exploded over the past five years, and it now stands as the number one JavaScript framework in the world.
React is what helps make these pages so fast. You click a button and React (built with pure vanilla JavaScript) figures out what exactly needs to change on your web page, and it just changes that. All the JavaScript resides in the client, so this cuts down on HTTP requests and keeps your pages blazing fast.
GatsbyJS is SEO Friendly
Google says that it searches JavaScript but this isn't always the case and to ensure your website gets seen by Search engines like Chrome, you'll either need to use server-side templates or a static site generator like Gatsby JS. Your Iron Cove Solutions consultant will make sure your site is SEO friendly. We set up Google Analytics, Google Tags, your RSS feed, sitemaps, and your social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
Design
We create a mockup of your site listing all the pages, the SEO strategy, the forms you require and the content types that will be created on Contentful.
Do you have an in-house designer or are you building your site from scratch?
Iron Cove Solutions can recommend designers to help you with this process or to minimize costs we can modify existing approved templates. Whatever your choice we take pride in every site we build, and when your site is finally live, we not only want it to be blazing fast but also responsive, stylish and works flawlessly in modern browsers and devices.
What is Contentful
Contentful is a content infrastructure that can be delivered to any platform. Unlike a CMS like WordPress, Contentful enables you to create your content model. Your Iron Cove Solutions consultant will meet with you to determine how to build your custom data types. Contentful offers RESTful APIs so you can deliver your content to any platform.
Contentful has a sleek and modern interface where you or your team can quickly add content. Assign custom roles and permissions to team members, add validations depending on the kind of material you have to insert and add media such as images, documents, sounds or video.
If it seems like a lot, it is, but your Ironcove Solutions consultant is there to make this process painless, efficient and fun.
Development
We will use Netlify to set up a staging site that we will use to show you our progress on your application.
We will use Git for version control and set up a private Github account for your company.
Git/Github
By now you probably heard of Git and Github. If not this is version control technology. Git is software that keeps track of all the changes in your site so always can revert to a previous snapshot of your site. Github is where these changes are stored in the cloud. We wire GatsbyJS, Contentful, and Netlify together so that any changes you make in Contentful or your developers make in your code are quickly updated on your live site.
Training
After the site is completed we will provide instruction on how to use your site.
The good news is the application will be smooth and intuitive to use so the training should be fun and short.
Support
Your website is alive and continually growing and changing. Iron Cove Solutions is here to help you with any growing pains or site modifications.
Deployment
Netlify
Tired of hosts like GoDaddy giving you a headache? We love Netlify, and that's why we added it to our Workflow stack and highly recommend it.
What is Netlify?
Netlify offers you a single, simplified workflow and provides you with the tools you need to deploy and manage your site quickly and painlessly. Netlify is designed for speed, automated to scale, and intrinsically secure.
We use netlify to set you up with SSL right from the start. You'll never need to renew SSL again as the certificate is restored automatically.
Forms
We use netlify to set up any forms you need on your site, and we can make sure you are notified via email, SMS, Slack and many other options whenever a user fills out a form. The forms can be set up to ensure spam is reduced to a minimum.
We wire up Netlify, Contentful and Github so that we can quickly work locally, deploy to staging and deploy to production.
