The latest articles on DEV Community by Abdul Wasay Lodhi (@abdulwasaylodhi). https://dev.to/abdulwasaylodhi https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F4196188%2F3b2e2b7a-ab49-49a2-8c14-8573802b6c7c.png https://dev.to/abdulwasaylodhi en Abdul Wasay Lodhi Sun, 15 Nov 2026 12:30:10 +0000 https://dev.to/abdulwasaylodhi/when-traffic-turns-into-paying-customers-3fc https://dev.to/abdulwasaylodhi/when-traffic-turns-into-paying-customers-3fc <h2> The short answer </h2> <ul> <li>Most website traffic will not turn into paying customers on launch day, or even in the first month. Real sales take time, trust, and repeat visits to materialize.</li> <li>Business owners often expect a flood of orders the moment a site goes live, but the reality is usually silence followed by a slow trickle.</li> </ul> <h2> Why new sites take time </h2> <ul> <li>Search engines take weeks or months to index a brand new domain and understand what your business actually does. You start with zero algorithmic authority.</li> <li>People rarely buy from an unfamiliar brand on their first visit. They need time to compare options, read reviews, and feel secure before handing over money.</li> <li>Early traffic is often accidental, coming from curious peers or social media links rather than buyers actively looking to solve a specific problem.</li> </ul> <h2> Stop watching daily stats </h2> <ul> <li>Checking your visitor counter every hour will only drive you crazy and lead to knee-jerk changes in your design or pricing. Traffic fluctuates wildly for no logical reason.</li> <li>Instead of obsessing over raw visitor numbers, focus entirely on making your core offer and contact process as clear as humanly possible.</li> <li>Ask actual customers if they easily understood what you do when they landed on your pages, and fix the friction points they point out.</li> </ul> <p><em>First published on <a href="https://abdulwasaylodhi.com/notes/traffic-to-paying-customers/?utm_source=devto&amp;utm_medium=republish" rel="noopener noreferrer">abdulwasaylodhi.com</a>.</em></p> webdev startup business beginners Abdul Wasay Lodhi Tue, 27 Oct 2026 13:11:37 +0000 https://dev.to/abdulwasaylodhi/the-idea-everyone-told-you-was-impossible-54fo https://dev.to/abdulwasaylodhi/the-idea-everyone-told-you-was-impossible-54fo <h2> What's actually impossible </h2> <ul> <li>Rebuilding Facebook from the ground up with better graphics and animation. Making Instagram with all of its security and none of its bugs.</li> <li>Hundreds of people built those over many years. One developer, even a very good one working with AI from the first day to the last, can't remake them, and a prototype of them isn't the real thing.</li> <li>Most ideas people call impossible are nothing like that.</li> </ul> <h2> Ideas I'd build tomorrow </h2> <ul> <li>An Italian restaurant that wants a modern twist on its website.</li> <li>A food delivery brand that wants animation, 3D models and a site people remember.</li> <li>A portfolio for a graphic designer, or anyone whose work is visual.</li> </ul> <h2> What I'll turn down </h2> <ul> <li>Anything that goes against my faith as a Muslim.</li> </ul> <p><em>First published on <a href="https://abdulwasaylodhi.com/notes/impossible-ideas/?utm_source=devto&amp;utm_medium=republish" rel="noopener noreferrer">abdulwasaylodhi.com</a>.</em></p> webdev startup business beginners Abdul Wasay Lodhi Mon, 26 Oct 2026 13:14:15 +0000 https://dev.to/abdulwasaylodhi/switching-your-domain-from-co-to-com-3e19 https://dev.to/abdulwasaylodhi/switching-your-domain-from-co-to-com-3e19 <h2> The Short Answer </h2> <ul> <li>Whether you should switch from a .co to a .com domain depends entirely on how established your brand identity currently is.</li> <li>If your brand is not yet deeply ingrained in customers' minds, switching to a .com is likely worth it for better SEO.</li> </ul> <h2> When You Should Switch </h2> <ul> <li>If you have not spent too much time building your identity on a .co, you can probably switch for the SEO juice.</li> <li>Many businesses perform fine on a .co, but if your brand identity is not strong yet, moving to a .com makes sense.</li> </ul> <h2> When You Should Stay Put </h2> <ul> <li>If you have spent a lot of time building your brand identity on a .co, it is better not to move to a .com later on.</li> <li>If you are already ingrained in customers' minds as a .co business, switching will hurt your publicity and customer base, and a simple redirect is enough.</li> </ul> <h2> The Cost and Recovery Time </h2> <ul> <li>Doing all the analytics work to refresh everything after the switch will take about a week.</li> <li>After refreshing everything, SEO takes about a month or even more to get back to its original point.</li> </ul> <p><em>First published on <a href="https://abdulwasaylodhi.com/notes/switching-from-co-to-com/?utm_source=devto&amp;utm_medium=republish" rel="noopener noreferrer">abdulwasaylodhi.com</a>.</em></p> webdev startup business beginners Abdul Wasay Lodhi Mon, 26 Oct 2026 13:14:14 +0000 https://dev.to/abdulwasaylodhi/an-agency-or-one-developer-who-should-build-your-product-18i5 https://dev.to/abdulwasaylodhi/an-agency-or-one-developer-who-should-build-your-product-18i5 <h2> When to hire a team </h2> <ul> <li>If you need several kinds of support at once, or a set of AI agents and automated workflows running parts of your business, hire a team.</li> <li>I can build part of a project like that, and I'll tell you up front which part. The rest needs more people than one, and I won't pretend otherwise.</li> </ul> <h2> When one developer is better </h2> <ul> <li>You talk to one person, so there's no chain of people for your message to get lost in.</li> <li>You can see their work before you hire them, and their name is on everything they ship. That's why you went to them in the first place.</li> <li>With a team you rarely know who built the part that matters. When something fails, it can be hard to find who owns it.</li> </ul> <h2> Nobody locked in </h2> <ul> <li>Whoever you hire, make sure the code and every key are yours at the end. With me they are, once the final invoice is paid.</li> </ul> <p><em>First published on <a href="https://abdulwasaylodhi.com/notes/agency-or-one-developer/?utm_source=devto&amp;utm_medium=republish" rel="noopener noreferrer">abdulwasaylodhi.com</a>.</em></p> webdev startup business beginners Abdul Wasay Lodhi Sun, 25 Oct 2026 12:31:44 +0000 https://dev.to/abdulwasaylodhi/how-long-it-really-takes-to-build-a-first-version-2oom https://dev.to/abdulwasaylodhi/how-long-it-really-takes-to-build-a-first-version-2oom <h2> About two days </h2> <ul> <li>Once the plan and the design are settled, a first working version takes me about two days: 36 to 48 hours of building.</li> <li>The calendar is mostly the part before that. Planning and design are where the time goes, and that's on purpose.</li> </ul> <h2> What makes a project slow </h2> <ul> <li>Miscommunication.</li> <li>Not getting all the ideas and plans out at the start, so they arrive halfway through the build.</li> <li>Unfair expectations.</li> </ul> <h2> What makes it fast </h2> <ul> <li>A plan agreed before any code is written.</li> <li>I build with AI tools, openly, and I do the building and the deploying myself, so nothing waits for a hand-off between them.</li> <li>Stages you can open on your own phone as they land, so a misunderstanding shows up in hours, not weeks.</li> </ul> <p><em>First published on <a href="https://abdulwasaylodhi.com/notes/how-long-to-build-an-mvp/?utm_source=devto&amp;utm_medium=republish" rel="noopener noreferrer">abdulwasaylodhi.com</a>.</em></p> webdev startup business beginners Abdul Wasay Lodhi Sat, 24 Oct 2026 12:32:21 +0000 https://dev.to/abdulwasaylodhi/what-5000-actually-buys-you-in-a-website-g2n https://dev.to/abdulwasaylodhi/what-5000-actually-buys-you-in-a-website-g2n <h2> The short answer </h2> <ul> <li>At $5,000 you get the site that does the work: the pages, the part your customers actually use (ordering, a shop, booking or a live demo), and the animation and polish that make it feel finished.</li> <li>Some things are better with a bigger budget: accounts, an owner's dashboard, an assistant that answers customers. They're not impossible at $5,000, they just deserve more time than it leaves.</li> </ul> <h2> Where the money goes </h2> <ul> <li>About 70% of the work is planning and design. Build and launch are the other 30%.</li> <li>That isn't padding. The better a site is planned and designed, the less there is to fix once building starts, so building and launching go quickly. Skimp on planning and you pay for it twice in the build.</li> </ul> <h2> A worked example </h2> <ul> <li>Not a past client, just an idea to show the split: an invite site for a neighbourhood pool, at $5,000.</li> <li>Planning and design, about $3,500: who's invited, how people reply, what the page has to say on a phone in bright sun, and then the look, the type and the motion that make people want to come.</li> <li>Build and launch, about $1,500: the pages and the reply form, a list of who's coming that the organiser can read, the domain connected, and testing on real phones.</li> </ul> <h2> Four questions to ask any developer, me included </h2> <ul> <li>If you can't build this to the level and scale I want, will you tell me, or will you quietly give up halfway?</li> <li>Which tools do you use, and what do you actually know?</li> <li>Can I see things you've built and shipped, not only websites you say you made?</li> <li>Do you use AI, and will you tell me where? A developer who uses it and hides it isn't being honest with you.</li> </ul> <p><em>First published on <a href="https://abdulwasaylodhi.com/notes/what-a-5k-website-buys/?utm_source=devto&amp;utm_medium=republish" rel="noopener noreferrer">abdulwasaylodhi.com</a>.</em></p> webdev startup business beginners