WordPress Websites
For a very long time, WordPress was always associated with basic blog sites. For a lot of web professionals, our first impression was one of underwhelming, it just wasn’t the best for making a high-quality website that you could really control. WordPress sites of the old day were just rough to look at and to really use, but as time has gone on things have improved to another level.
Back in the day before we were even Edge Digital yet, we did almost entirely hand-coded websites from 1997 when we did our first business website until about 2012 when we did our LAST “from scratch” hand-coded ASP site. The absolute last one we did was for a little TV show called “Lizard Lick Towing” a few years back. But that was the LAST time we went for anything hand-coded. Since then, we’ve been using WordPress and we truly haven’t looked back once. We’re not against it, but turning out a quality site takes considerably longer than using something like WordPress. Honestly, almost none if any companies still make hand-coded websites, they’re just a thing of the past as tech has improved.
Websites are Always Changing
Websites, just like technology, are always evolving. WordPress has become a very powerful website building tool that is both powerful as far as usability for the end-user and for the web site developer, as well as in overall website capabilities. It has a near unlimited amount of themes and design you can choose from, and with all of the customization and features, we can really make your website yours.
WordPress Offers Powerful Widgets (plugins)
There are numerous plugins (widgets) that can be added to a WordPress site to give incredible capabilities to your website in minutes. And to make it better, a majority of these are free. Having built a lot of these advanced capabilities into some of our own hand-coded websites in the past, we can say that these are far easier and a massive step up. With a HUGE user base, if a mistake is in the widget code, it is usually found and corrected quickly. When you have some hand-built code, it can take days, weeks, and even months to find problems in it, if ever. With the huge WordPress community always analyzing these things, mistakes don’t stay around long.
WordPress widgets are available for nearly anything you could possibly want to do with a WordPress site. I currently use a number of WordPress widgets for things ranging from event calendars to SEO items such as Google sitemaps and search engine optimization.
Change the look of your site Inexpensively and Quickly
WordPress themes (WordPress templates) can either be bought inexpensively or created specifically for your website. Having a custom WordPress theme does ensure that no other site will look exactly like your WordPress website – which can be a good thing amongst so many WordPress sites out there. We have our own custom themes that we like to use for sites – they allow us to customize things and get the overall feel/look that we want to every time.
Your Website is Actually Yours
WordPress is so easy, the average person can change their own data without the help of expensive webmasters or web developers. If there’s one repetitive thing that I hear from both clients and potential clients, it’s, “I want to be able to change my own website. Can I do that?” With the very user-friendly WordPress website, you sure can! With how important constant good content is for SEO, being able to update your own site is a huge advantage!
Maintaining your OWN web content and web site has great benefits. As a company that maintains several sites, we would like to think that we’re always able to hop right on a customer change request for their website. But realistically: things come up, other projects are ahead of the web request, sometimes it’s a big change and you just don’t have time to get to it immediately. When you’re able to maintain your own content, you don’t have to wait around waiting to hear back from your webmaster. If you want to add a section of text to a page but don’t think it’s worth waiting for, you can simply add it in yourself.
Should Everyone Have a WordPress Website?
When we’re thinking about creating a WordPress website, these are the things that we generally look for.
- Are you somewhat flexible with your design?
WordPress DOES use a general layout schema that is mutable and it CAN be highly customized. However, if you’re trying to save money by using WordPress, remember that a lot of customizing can be expensive and turn into a lot of work. If you are trying to do lots of gradients, image alignments that need to be pixel perfect, it could take some intense work to get it all working just how you want it to – and that really may NOT making the best use of WordPress. Can it be done? Yes, but other methods or even third-party plugins may be a better answer. - Does your site scream for some serious functionality?
WordPress sites are powerful out of the box but can be extended immensely by WordPress widgets. If you want a lot of functionality, WordPress can be extremely cost-effective – but as above, you really do have limited modification abilities. As new updates come out, it really will be just as simple as “Click here to upgrade”. You’d be amazed at all the things different plugins can manage to do these days, some of them are truly revolutionary and website changes. - Do you want the ability to change the look of your site quickly?
WordPress themes can be built to change the whole look and feel of your WordPress website quickly. It can be a little risky in terms of styling to change between themes, but if you’re just ready for a new appearance it’s as easy as that. With WordPress, it’s really as easy as uploading a new WordPress theme and activating it. That simple. No lengthy major redo as with a hand-coded site. That alone is a lifesaver for some.
Those are just some of the things to think about with WordPress sites. There are a lot of pluses, and a few negatives, with a WordPress site, but if you need more information, we urge you to contact Edge Digital and we’d love to talk more in-depth with you. We’ll be glad to take a few minutes to discuss your website needs and guide you in the right direction. We have all the tools needed to take great care of your business and website digital marketing needs.
Edge Digital Recommends WordPress for Almost Every Website
So, do we recommend a WordPress site for everyone? Pretty much, yes. While some people with very specific needs or businesses may benefit from a website produced on another service or even done by hand, these are far and few between. We can safely say 99% of the time you’re best off going with a custom WordPress site. It can change and be reactive just like you need it to in these ever-evolving times.
If your business needs help with social media, or any other aspects of digital marketing, give us a call at (888)404-5850 or contact Edge Digital today. We’re ready to work hand-in-hand with you to help with all of your marketing needs. We even offer more obscure services like review monitoring, and more!
