Is WordPress the right tool for your Website?
This is a question that often gets asked because of the various options that exists for creating websites. Often people in the business world, real estate space, not for profits and others will wonder what tool they should use to create their site.
It would be a very short article if I just stated that WordPress is the right tool for everyone. Yes, it’s versatile for the everyday blogger, Fortune 500 Companies and Major Universities; but is it right for you? Here are the things to consider.
Custom Content Management System
If you have the resources to hire a development team to work on your behalf building and maintaining your website, then maybe you might want to consider a Custom Content Management System. Note: this would probably cost you in excess of 6 figures per year. Why so much? If you want your websites code to be current and up to date then you need to be in a constant state of development. The security of your website and database that is associated to your site virtually requires you to keep the code current.
WordPress Core is free! Yes Free!
WordPress itself is an Open Source Project that has developers from all over the world contributing to it’s ecosystem. This means the code is being worked on virtually 24 hours per day.
The core of WordPress is free but Themes and Plugins are where website owners tend to focus. You can of course get free themes and plugins which are available on WordPress.org but if you want something unique to your next website then you might want to look into a custom WordPress Theme & Plugins.
What about WordPress Alternatives?
Yes, there are other platforms that are similar to WordPress, such as Drupal, Joomla, Wix, Weebly etc. I won’t go into depth on these other solutions because my experience is Primarily in the WordPress space. I prefer working with WordPress because it is built in the coding languages that I use, is used by everyday bloggers to Fortune 500 Companies and is extremely user friendly for website owners.
What can WordPress do for my site?
What do you need it to do? WordPress is built using PHP, Javascript, HTML & CSS. It also runs on virtually every type of server and with so many developers working on the platform, it can do almost anything.
- ✔ Do you need an image slider?
- ✔ Do you need a Contact Management System?
- ✔ Do you need a Photo Gallery?
- ✔ Do you need a website that is mobile ready?
- ✔ Do you need a website that is SEO Ready?
- ✔ Do you need a Website that can email it’s users and subscribers?
- ✔ Do you need a website for your Eccomerce Solution?
- ✔ Do you need a blog?
I can continue this list but I’m sure you get the point by now.
Is WordPress Secure?
I have written several articles that answer this very question. Feel free to read more about WordPress Security. The short answer is yes it’s secure. But remember, security starts with you. Use strong passwords and be smart about who you allow to have access to your sites backend and server.
Who shouldn’t use WordPress?
Since WordPress can do and be so many things, this question isn’t easy to answer. The only organizations that probably shouldn’t use WordPress are the NSA, CIA, FBI, DOD etc. You get my drift, the organizations that require the ultimate in secrecy.
Who uses WordPress?
- Facebook ( for their newsroom facebook newsroom)
- Google Ventures
- Harvard Business Review
- The Wall Street Journal
- The New Yorker Magazine
- Sony Music
- Ebay
- Best Buy
- ESPN
- Ford
- The New York Times
- The Special Olympics Blog
- DrugFree.org
- and on and on and on…
So only you can answer the question, is WordPress right for you? One thing to consider is WordPress is used by so many different industries which is a testament to its versatility. In my opinion WordPress can work for almost everyone. Interesting fact to leave you with. As of this writing, WordPress powers over 23% of the Web. That’s a lot of people using WordPress.
In Conclusion
As always thanks for reading and feel free to share your thoughts on this article. Also feel free to share this article with your friends and colleagues.