First a little info – WordPress started as a blogging platform back in 2003. We used our own Content Management System (CMS – a way of managing your website quickly and easily without code) back then and it was pretty awesome. The only problem for us was the time it took to develop new features, taking time away from developing our client websites.
WordPress began to introduce features that allowed website developers to use it as more than just a CMS, providing basic but useful website tools, taking it beyond it’s blogging origins.
Fast forward to 2022, WordPress is now behind 43% of all websites. Almost every other website over the whole internet is powered by WordPress. Indeed, our own website is running on WordPress right now and 9/10 websites we create are built on WordPress as a CMS.
Why use WordPress for your Website?
A CMS provides use for the website developers (us) and the website owner (you). From our point of view, a typical CMS runs on a templating engine, this means that we can create a set of templates that form the basis of your entire website. If your website features 30 pages for example, instead of creating 30 pages, we may need to create just 4 templates, as many of those pages will follow the same layout and use the same template.
For the website owner, a CMS means you can manage and update the website very easily. This of course is dependant upon the web agency you use to design and build your website, assuming they integrate WordPress into the website. If they do, you should be able to log in to a secure area and add/edit/remove pages/images/files without needing to know a single line of code.
Should you use WordPress?
We would definitely recommend using a CMS of some sort, but whether to use WordPress versus another website CMS depends on your use case. WordPress can easily manage small to medium e-commerce websites, but if you have many thousands of products, dedicated e-commerce CMS such as Magento are better suited.
If you require a company intranet, Sharepoint may be a better option, or if you have very specific needs, a niche CMS may be better catered for you. But for the vast majority of projects, WordPress is a superb CMS to use.
Cons to Using WordPress
It’s not all rosy however, there are some downsides to using WordPress. As we mentioned earlier, 43% of al websites are using WordPress, that means almost half of all websites share the same back end code system. Should a bug creep in or a vulnerability found, all of these websites are subject to the same problems.
Your website developer can combat this weakness however. For example, when we build WordPress based websites, we make subtle changes that allow you to take full advantage of WordPress’ awesome features, but prevent hackers from being able to gain access to your website.
Our green website hosting also boasts WordPress enhanced features, ensuring we can prevent anyone trying to break in to your website. We can even speed up WordPress to make pages load faster.
This is just a very basic intro into WordPress for your website, if you need a website, contact us for a quick chat and we’ll work out your best CMS to use.