A great analogy for your website is to think of it like building or remodeling a house:
The back end of a website is a lot like the home’s foundation
If the foundation is good, then it's easy to edit the back end, easy to make changes to the front end, and your site is easy to access across multiple devices (desktop & mobile). Your site will load quickly:
The site will have good security. This is especially important if you’re an eCommerce site or collect any sensitive information.
If there are “cracks in the foundation” you may find that the site struggles in one or more of those areas.
The site's layout (how many pages it has, and the places where the different content can go) is similar to the walls of a home.
Finally, your content and images are like the decorations and furniture you put into the house once it's been completed.
If the foundation of the home is good, then it's no problem to keep adding "new rooms" (pages) and "decorations" (images and content), but if the foundation has cracks or issues, then we're just adding more weight to a structure that will struggle to support it long term. Of course, if cost is a concern right now, there's a time to just get something out the door and worry about the site's foundation later. This is what's called technical debt.
Just like regular debt, there's a time where it makes sense to take on technical debt, it’s also the same as regular debt in that it's very important to know when you're agreeing to do that, and how long you can get by until it needs to be sorted out. If you’re not sure and would like a professional to take a look at your site’s foundation, reach out and we’d be happy to help! Kanani