CMS: Examining Wordpress
There is no doubt that Wordpress has become the de facto standard when developing a website with a Content Management System. It has the largest following, which means it has a huge selection of plugins to add functionality. It’s well supported by web hosting plans, and in many cases has a “one-click” setup. It is very solid technically, and is constantly updated and well maintained. And best of all, it’s free! Let’s take a quick look at the reigning CMS king.
The First Word in Blogs
If your site is going to showcase a blog, Wordpress is a no-brainer, as it was originally built on a blog model. As a matter of fact, adding any type of page content, as well as managing comments and discussions, is a snap. Wordpress also has a world-class, built-in Media Library for managing everything from images to movie files. This makes adding multimedia elements and linking PDFs or other documents very straightforward.
If your site needs varying amounts of edibility for multiple user levels, Wordpress also handles this very well. It has an interface which is easy to set up, and ties in with a huge community of Wordpress users.
While Wordpress is versatile and easy to use, it really shines when the site design is not too complex, since building page templates for a custom Wordpress site can be time consuming. Making structural changes to your site in Wordpress can also be difficult, and requires some deeper understanding into how Wordpress works behind the scenes. This is not a problem for clients who have in-house tech support with PHP skills, but it can be tricky for clients who do not, and still want complete control over the scalability of their site. Of course, this is the case with most CMS-based sites.
Response Time
Building a mobile-friendly responsive framework into a Wordpress custom theme can also be a bit cumbersome, as it has to be done manually during the initial development stage. There is not a lot of plugin support for responsive frameworks, so HTML, CSS and/or PHP will need to be edited to customize these pages. That said, there are a number of starter themes that can help circumvent some of these hurdles. The key here is to use a SASS-based responsive framework, as opposed to an HTML integrated framework.
Buying into Wordpress
Many of our clients need an e-commerce storefront on their site to sell their products or collect donations. Most CMS solutions have options that can manage secure transactions and track inventory, and Wordpress is no exception. However, while there are multiple e-commerce solutions for Wordpress, they are not quite as robust and intuitive as other CMS frameworks. If your site needs an online store, you may want to consider another solution.
This is just a quick rundown on Wordpress. While it has a proven track record of handling the needs of many modern websites, it’s not the only game in town. With new challengers coming on the market constantly, and older, stable options already establishing a name for themselves, it’s a buyer’s market.
If you would like to know more about how a Content Management System can help you to take control of your site, contact High Seas. We will be happy to go over the details, and create a plan to give your site the management system it always wanted.
Originally published at www.highseas.com.
