Our web developers can build websites from scratch, but we still favour WordPress as the platform for our builds.
If you've ever spent much time listening to devs argue about the best way to build a website (don't, it's boring), you'll probably have heard WordPress crop up, with plenty of praise and complaints in equal measure.
The argument was settled for us many years ago now – we are a WordPress development agency, using it almost exclusively for our website builds. In terms of delivering what the client needs efficiently, and to budget, it's far and away the best option.
As we've said before, in our blog about content management systems, sticking with custom-built sites over something like WordPress tends to put the preferences of the developer over the needs of the client. And that's not what we're about!
If you're not sure whether a WordPress website is the right choice for your company or not, we've dug down into our reasonings for using it, so please do take a look.
However! We do obviously recognise that every business, and every website, is different, and there's no such thing as a one-size-fits-all solution. If you still have questions – or any lingering WordPress doubts – when you get to the end, please do get in touch for a chat about it.
WordPress is ubiquitous
The commonly repeated stat is that WordPress powers about a third of the internet, which is a pretty staggering achievement when you think about it.
That's millions of websites, including some of the most-viewed in the world – supposedly CNN, NBC and the NFL all use WordPress.
What does this mean? It means it's incredibly well-supported, with a huge community of users. And that means…
WordPress is secure and reliable
You'll see plenty of news stories and opinion pieces arguing that WordPress is unsafe and under attack – and while hackers do try and exploit vulnerabilities in WordPress, that huge user base means there's no shortage of people testing bugs, providing fixes, and building tools to improve security.
Ultimately, your developer will have to do some work to keep WordPress secure, but it's not actually that much work. Keeping the WordPress software and any plugins or themes updated is key, but the rest of it comes down to things like secure passwords and backups – which you'd have to do for any website.
WordPress is flexible
Another commonly repeated myth is that WordPress is inflexible – and it is, out of the box. It uses templates and themes to give users a quick and easy website that looks nice, but can't really be changed around all that much. Want something slightly different? Well, tough.
However, if you're an experienced WordPress developer, you can basically build a site from scratch, to exacting specifications, without losing the WordPress content management system in the back end.
Our dev team have more than a few years' experience between them, and all of them started out custom coding from scratch before making the jump to WordPress. It means we can deliver sites that look however our clients want them to, while pushing the back end to its absolute limit to give complete control over the content of every single aspect.
Take a look at two of our recent projects – one for a textile manufacturer and one for a theatre – to see what we mean. There's a huge difference in styles and features, but both come from WordPress.
WordPress is easy for our clients to use
We've mentioned the content management system (CMS) a bit already, and that's really all that WordPress is – software for adding content to a website, whether that website uses a pre-determined WordPress theme, or has been built from the ground up by some top-notch devs.
And it's really easy to use. While it's not quite a drag-and-drop editor, it's incredibly easy to learn your way around it.
Of course, the more complicated the front end is, the more complicated the back end will be to match – but we do everything we can to make sure adding content to our sites is straightforward and logical. We'd recommend the aforementioned blog on how we build a CMS for more info on this!
But we do look beyond WordPress when we need to
WordPress can't do everything. Sometimes you need a shop or a booking system – or maybe you have your own database of products, or properties, or job listings. WordPress doesn't offer that functionality on its own.
However! We've become specialists in integrating all sorts of systems with WordPress, making them talk to each other and ensuring you can make changes in your database that will show up on your website with ease – that sort of thing.
So, that's why we love WordPress! As we said, get in touch if you have any questions - or if you're looking for more website guidance, have a click on the button below to take a look at our guide to writing a website brief for a prospective agency.
