In this article, I will explain why we ultimately chose WordPress for building professional websites for our clients.
We have been building business websites for many years.
I built my first website in HTML with CSS and Javascript in 1998.
It was a time when even everything we learned was through technical books that we bought from the Papasotiriou bookstore on Stournari Street in Athens.
The second was dynamic based on Microsoft’s ASP. Way ahead of its time.
At that time there was no reliable Open Source Content Management System (CMS) that could be used as an alternative to the manual construction of a website. Or at least I hadn’t discovered it. Don’t forget that at that time the Internet was still in its infancy in Greece and connection speeds were very slow. When we went from simple modems to ISDN connections, we had the magic speed of 128Kbit!
Display Open Source CMS
As time went by, a plethora of Open Source Content Management Systems based on the PHP programming language and MySQL database appeared.
It was the time when CMS like Mambo, TYPO3, Drupal, ez Publish (now Ibexa), CMSimple, Contao, MODx, PHP-Nuke, XOOPS appeared.
At that time I chose Mambo. An excellent Open Source CMS for its time with a large global community supporting it. I even wrote the first Greek book about Mambo, entitled “Discover Mambo CMS”.
In 2005 a crisis in the Mambo community was created that led to the birth of Joomla!
I have been a user of Joomla! for many years. A very powerful open source RMS. Joomla! is fast and scalable. But for 2020 it is starting to show its age. Customers are finding it difficult to manage. For experienced users, Joomla is not complicated to handle. But the paying customer has the final say.
Back in 2013, WordPress came into my life!
Το WordPress είναι ένα δωρεάν ανοιχτού κώδικα Σύστημα Διαχείρισης Περιεχομένου που εμφανίστηκε για πρώτη φορά στις 27 Μαΐου του 2003. Δημιουργήθηκε από 2 προγραμματιστές. Τον Αμερικάνο developer Matt Mullenweg και τον Άγγλο developer Mike Little σαν fork του b2/cafelog. Αρχικά ήταν ένα σύστημα εστιασμένο στη δημιουργία Blog. Αγαπήθηκε από τους bloggers.
As time passed, it expanded and matured. Now WordPress is a complete Content Management System (CMS).
For many years I was hesitant to make the switch from Joomla! to WordPress because of the “resentment” of it being a blogging system.
But when I discovered WordPress, I never looked back!
WordPress from the business perspective
- WordPress is a free and open source Content Management System.
- Websites built with WordPress are responsive. They display correctly on computers, mobile phones and tablets.
- WordPress is easy to handle. You will love it!
- WordPress provides excellent SEO features. Search engines love it.
- For a business, when their website is built with WordPress, it is easy to make changes, updates, extensions.
- The cost of building a website (website or webpage) for a business is less than with other systems.
- Professional websites built with WordPress are scalable. They can get new functions by adding new plugins. This way the website can be adapted to the future needs of the business.
- WordPress is easy to learn.
WordPress from a web developer’s perspective
- WordPress is very well documented. You will find documentation for each of its functions.
- It can use child themes, functions.php and style.css to override kernel functions or add new functions using hooks and filters. All this without altering the core files!
- You can change the functionality of WordPress using Hooks, Actions, Filters.
- WordPress is well designed. You can have all the changes in just one place.
- There are many hundreds or thousands of plugins that you can use to extend a professional website.
- You can develop your own plugins.
- You can add your own data types and mimic the functionality of Drupal. This gives WordPress huge possibilities.
WordPress from the perspective of a web designer
- There are thousands of themes you can use to start building a business website with WordPress.
- You can create responsive websites that display correctly on all devices (desktop, tablet, mobile, smart TV).
- You can modify the theme you are using with the help of a child theme.
- You can add your own CSS code to style.css.
- You can change the behaviour of WordPress using Hooks, Actions and Filters.
- You can change the behavior of almost every part of WordPress.
Some “secrets” for professional websites built with WordPress
WordPress software updates
WordPress, Plugins and Themes are in constant development. New versions are constantly becoming available. Versions that add additional features and fix security holes.
To keep your professional website created with WordPress secure, you need to regularly update the versions of the Core, Plugins and Themes software.
WordPress has a built-in feature that informs us that new versions are available. A very powerful feature
But with power comes responsible use of it.
Although manufacturers and developers try to ensure that new versions do not cause problems, this is not always the case.
We do not recommend that live professional websites simply click the button to upgrade software. If you have not taken a backup of the website, you are playing with fire. You may end up with a professional website that doesn’t work.
We recommend that you receive a copy of the website. Set it up on a local staging server. Make changes to it. If all goes well, apply the changes to the live site.
At least that’s what we do for our customers. We offer it as a WordPress support service.
Speed WordPress
The speed at which the professional website loads is an important parameter for SEO. It is one of the parameters that affect your position in the organic results. In which position you will appear in the search engines.
WP is an amazing tool. But if you overload it with plugins, it easily becomes a system that is slow to load. This gives a bad experience to users and to you. It affects SEO performance.
You will need to take special measures to ensure that WordPress loads quickly.
This is a process unique to each website.
This is something we provide as a service at AlterMarket. Combined with the fast web hosting we provide.
WordPress Security
As WordPress is very popular (43% of websites worldwide are built with WordPress), sites built with WP are a daily target for hackers.
Things are getting worse as too many people with no real knowledge are building websites with WordPress. Even professional websites. Without taking the slightest measure for their security and protection. Because they simply don’t have a clue. They don’t know.
These are the thousands of sites that are being targeted for attack.
Take special measures to protect and secure the professional websites we manufacture.
Cost of WordPress
The following applies to the majority of free open source CMSs. Not just WordPress.
WordPress is a free Open Source Management System. It has no purchase cost.
But that doesn’t mean that websites built with WP don’t have costs.
In order to build a professional website with WordPress you need to use plugins and themes.
Many of the best plugins and themes needed to build a professional website are not free. They have a cost of purchase and a cost of renewing licenses per year.
Conclusion
WordPress is an amazing system for building professional, search engine friendly websites.
Businesses love it. Web developers love it. Web designers love it.
Its functions are extended by using plugins. By creating Custom Post Types it can work like Drupal.
WordPress can be used from building One Page sites to very complex websites.
It is supported by a dynamic international community of developers and users.
Extra measures must be taken for safety issues. Being popular comes at a cost…
Credit to the creator of the photo
The following photo was used in this article.
Image by Dok Sev from Pixabay
