Why should I use WordPress?
As mentioned, WordPress has 1/3 of the market share on websites, what this means for you is there is plenty of support available from all corners of the globe. The WordPress Platform is tried and tested and therefore is the go-to platform for many Web Design & Build Agencies, this gives you plenty of choice when choosing who to work with on your website project.
It’s flexible
A WordPress website can be used for pretty much any kind of site you can imagine. Start Up Business, Hobby, Blog, E-commerce, Portfolio, Corporation. WordPress can do it all!
What is a ‘CMS’?
A CMS or Content Management System allows a user, who has no knowledge of coding a website, to add & delete pages, create blog posts and change copy and text throughout a website. Without a CMS a website will be ‘hardcoded’ and every time you wanted to change some content or add a new page you would have to go to a developer to make changes. With a CMS you can log right into the back end of your website and change content with ease.
How much does WordPress Cost?
Probably best of all WordPress is free! – What do we mean by that? Well, you can go onto the WordPress site right now and start building a website.
But…
The costs for WordPress sites are associated with creating something truly custom that meets your business requirements, this is achieved by using an agency with in house designers & developers who can take the time to understand you, your business, your users and up-to-date design trends to create a bespoke website on the WordPress platform. Giving you the perfect blend of custom, yet stable.
What if I want to do something WordPress can’t do?
WordPress cannot do everything out of the box, sometimes you may need to install a plugin to gain some functionality, these can be free while others will come with a price. You might want to use a plugin to add a shop to your website, Plugins/Services such as Woo-Commerce are a great solution to this and allow your website to list products and enable customers to add these to their baskets and make payments.
You can use plugins for just about everything on a WordPress site, but go careful, having too many Plugins on your site can cause it to run slowly, this is again where custom development come in, as a developer can create a lot of what plugins do, but without adding extra weight to your site.
View the full list of Plugins for WordPress.
WordPress.com vs WordPress.org
If you go onto Google now and type in ‘WordPress’, you will be presented with 2 different WordPress sites .com & .org. Despite both looking like they should be the same thing…they are not!
Here is the Difference.
WordPress.org – The free Open-source platform we have been talking about in this article.
Wordpress.com – A commercialized platform that allows users to create WordPress sites through a 3rd party that makes the process easier but comes at a cost.
In short, we recommend the .org platform.
Why not use a Web Builder?
Good Question? You will most likely have seen many web building services advertised on social media such as ‘Squarespace’ (who seem to sponsor every other video on YouTube!), or ‘Wix’ another site builder.
Well, these are great tools, if you have the time to learn them and have an eye for design but they do have their limitations. If your website needs any extra functionality other than being able to post text, images or have ecommerce functionality these platforms cannot support much in the way of custom code to add in the extra functionality. For example, if you wanted to include ‘Calculator’ on your site to work out the cost for a bespoke product, this would be very difficult to achieve on Web/Page Builder platform.
Website Builders are great, if you know what you are doing, have an eye for design and have the time to invest in learning and creating with one. But you will not have a team of skilled designers/developers around you to aid in creating a website that will meet your goals.
Website design is more than just ‘making it look good’ there are a whole host of other things to think about such as user journey, business goals and objectives as well as knowing who your audience is and what they want to achieve on your website.
To sum up
Although there is a vast array of different platforms to build your website on, WordPress has more flexibility than most, more support, and will act as a solid foundation for you to build your website upon. To see what is possible with a WordPress site, take a look at our portfolio or get in touch to discuss what your options are.
