Why all the hype over WordPress?
When choosing how you will build a website a very common thing to hear is WordPress. So the question becomes; should I get a WordPress website? Which raises more questions such as ‘What’s the advantages and disadvantages of a WordPress website?’ And what about getting a custom made website? We shall address these questions in this article.
Is WordPress for my business?
This is no simple question to answer. First you need to understand what your business needs are and then you need to understand what are the advantages and disadvantages of WordPress. Let's start with your business needs.
In our previous article we covered some things to consider for gearing up for a website. What are some things to consider, for your business, that will help in deciding on the base of your website? WordPress or Custom?
The following list are things to consider when thinking about what your website will do:
- What will my Website accomplish for my business?
- Basic Information website
- Store
- Anything else
- What is required for my website?
- Blog
- Login
- Calendar
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
- Scheduler
- Support System
- Something else?
- Expected Traffic to website?
- Starting Traffic
- Potential Growth Traffic
Depending on what your business is expecting from the above list does not immediately decide if you should choose WordPress or not. WordPress has a large library of plugins and is being updating all the time. So where should I draw the line? Let's look at some of the advantages and disadvantages of WordPress to help us out.
Advantages
- Quick setup - Even you can set up one
- Basic out of the box Blog
- Out of the box admin panel
- Vast library of plugins to achieve a wide array of tasks
- Vast knowledge; Online Tutorials and many Web Designers are already pros at WordPress
Disadvantages
- The more plugins you install the slower your site is
- No support for combining plugins to accomplish a complex task
- The interface can be confusing to someone new to navigating websites
- A lot of good plugins cost extra on top of everything else
- A plugin could stop being supported and when WordPress updates, that plugin could be rendered useless or worse, make your site stop running
- Does not scale gracefully
Now don’t let the disadvantages discourage you. Back to the first list of considerations. Is your site a basic Information website or blog? WordPress may be just what you're looking for! But if you have come this far and are not convinced, let’s look at Custom websites.
What about a Custom website?
Some have the impression that a Custom site means it will be more complicated. The Designer and Developer have a major role in making your website less complicated for you. When you have one team making your website, rest assured that it will be less complicated than trying to understand all the plugins on your WordPress website which are all made by different teams and people.
So let’s look at some of the advantages and disadvantages:
Advantages
- Handling complex tasks faster
- Stays the same speed no matter how much features are added
- Freedom to make any complicated feature happen
- Ability to scale with ease
- There is no such thing as an expired feature; unless you simply don’t want it any more
- Streamlined admin panel (At the discretion of the Developer)
Disadvantages
- Initial Cost
- Initial Creation time
- New features, after site is done, need time to be created and tested
Custom Websites cost more and take a little extra time. Yet Custom Websites have some heavy advantages in the world of big Websites and Web Applications. Even if you have a smaller website, a custom built one can still have the advantage of custom features and speed of the website.
The Decision - WordPress vs Custom
As with most answers, it depends. Depends on your business needs now and in the future. One more bit of advice is, don’t let cost be a major judge for where you get a website. As I said in my previous article, You get what you pay for. You can’t get a great website for cheap. It will be reflected on your site.
I hope this article has helped in your decision on what your business needs for the base of your website.
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