Our Favorite WordPress Tools

Today (2016) small business owners have a wide variety of solutions available to construct and maintain their digital presence.  There are almost too many options.  We are partial to WordPress for several reasons:

1. WordPress Allows You to Retain Full Ownership of Your Website.
2. WordPress Gives You Greater Customization, Control & Functionality
3. WordPress is Easy to Use.
4. WordPress is Budget Friendly.

Full Website Ownership

While costing a bit more than a site hosted on WordPress.com, a self-hosted WordPress installation allows you to retain full ownership of your website.  We have seen that proprietary systems from companies like SquareSpace (Wix, Web.com, and many others) do have certain appeal (e.g. performance metrics), but you become locked into their system.  You will not be able to move your website somewhere else very easily should the need arise.  An open source content management system (CMS) is a much more flexible option and, in the long term, gives you the ability to move to various resources as you wish.

Customization

If it’s functionality you’re looking for, WordPress is for you.  There’s a plugin for just about any functionality you may desire.  On the off chance there isn’t one, you can always hire a developer to build one.  The theme frameworks for WordPress also give you almost infinite possibilities for how your site looks, too.  WordPress is very Search Engine Optimization (SEO) friendly, too.  Finally, you’re completely free to monetize your web site in whatever manner you like.  Membership sites, multiuser sites, online stores, blogs, message boards, interactive portfolios, WordPress has a way to handle them all.  And, eCommerce is easy, too, with plenty of room to expand with the right  theme and plugins.

Easy to Use

While there is a bit of a learning curve, most people can learn to use WordPress without having to learn a lot of coding.  Of course, the more customization you want, the more coding you’re likely to need to know.  The best part is that WordPress is so incredibly modular.  For the most part, the most common site administration tasks — adding content, creating and publishing new pages, sharing new images and video — are fairly straightforward in WordPress.  With the large, robust, and very generous community of WordPress users and developers, you’ll easily find an answer to just about any question you might have.  Allow us to set up and manage your WordPress site such that you can handle the content creation and leave the technical stuff to us.  We always recommend that our clients generate most of their content because you know your business far better than we do.  Let us help optimize that content so that users are driven to your site by the search engines.

Budget Friendly

WordPress is Open Source, so the basic components are free.  You do still have to purchase hosting and register your domain name (we can help with that, too).  If you have a shoestring budget, you can get set up and running for minimal cost.  Functionality typically comes with a price, but premium plugins and themes are often quite affordable.  Once you have your site up and running, you can always add on more functionality as your budget allows.  Since you are able to add content on your own, you don’t have to hire us to do it.  Unless, of course, you want our expertise in SEO, security, backup, email marketing, etc.

WordPress has a lot to offer. it is endlessly flexible, and it can support great design and awesome functionality.  Some of the country’s biggest companies rely on WordPress, too, including TechCrunch, The New Yorker, BBC America, Fortune and The New York Times among many others.  Contact us if you’d like to chat about setting up a WordPress web site to fit your needs.  Now, on to our Favorite WordPress Tools…