Structure

The day of the 5 page static website is over. Users come to a website expecting both interactivity and timely, easy to find information. They come with a purpose and expect that purpose to be fulfilled quickly. They look at a page for about 5 seconds and if they do not see something to hold them; they are gone.

A simple 5 page website can be created by nearly anyone. Adding calendars, commenting systems, an on-site search, blogs, forums, video, and webcasting requires a professional for a well integrated and successful result.

These days, professionals use a content management system(CMS) to handle the complexity of the never ending requests of their clients. Learning a good CMS requires at least a month for a programming professional. The more complex ones like Drupal require up to 3 months to learn. So, a professional may be inclined to stick with a CMS that is in decline. I would suggest demanding that your website be built in one of the 'big 3', WordPress, Joomla, or Drupal. Personally, I use Drupal because of its popularity, versatility, programming structure, and promise to maintain a data path through major upgrades.