Think of any type of website: from your online retailers to your news sites, memberships and communities, knowledge bases and directories, photography portfolios and professional services sites. Despite their varying functions, most websites are built on WordPress. Big names such as Disney, Renault, Evernote, Time Magazine and Vogue are all run on WordPress.

WordPress is the big one. It is the dominant player with 42% market share globally and 30+ million live websites all run on WordPress.

But why is WordPress the most popular CMS? Is it the best choice for you?

We build all our websites on WordPress and we are often asked why. In this blog we address common qualms and explain why we feel this is the best platform for your website to live on.

Misconceptions about WordPress

We often get asked, “Will the design look ‘WordPressy’?” Yikes. Thankfully no, it won’t.

When people think of WordPress, they often conjure up the blogging websites they were reading a decade or more ago. Or they may be referring to off-the-shelf websites available by the likes of Wix or Squarespace. Whilst WordPress began life as a blogging platform, it’s now the CMS of choice for every type of professional website you could imagine.

There’s still a template version of WordPress: WordPress.com, where you can get a standard design which suits personal websites, blog sites and micro-businesses. This is not what we use. We use WordPress.org which exists for developers to design tailor-made websites which fit the exact needs of the business they were built for.

We are a design and developer duo who build websites based on the goals of our clients and their audiences. Our method is a mixture of creative flare paired with iterative research-led design, focussed on the user experience.

Each new project starts with getting to know your business and website users through various research methods. We’ll analyse stats, discuss business objectives, conduct stakeholder and user interviews. Only once we’ve understood both your wider business objectives and your customers, their motivations and what they’re hoping to get out of your website do we plan out the design phase.

Consequently, the end result is a bespoke website which performs well for its intended purpose, is unique and a genuine asset to your business.

But, is a WordPress website secure?

Yes, if all the proper precautions are taken, WordPress websites can be very secure. WordPress, like other popular platforms, is targeted by hackers. But regular updates mean it is continually addressing any vulnerabilities. Often what lets hackers in is the failure to use simple security measures.

By following general security methods in WordPress your website kept safe.

  • Choose reliable web hosting – we can look after your hosting and maintenance for you
  • Good developers will do certain things to protect aspects of your website such as disallowing file editing and protecting your wp-config.php file.
  • Use two-factor authentication for WordPress security so a code is sent to your phone to verify it is you trying to log in to your website.
  • Get an SSL (secure sockets layer) certificate for your website. Often this is provided by your hosting company for free. SSL ensures secure data transfer between user browsers and the server, making it difficult for hackers to breach the connection or spoof your information.

Benefits of using WordPress

Easy editing for ongoing content updates

Clients often want to know: can I update content myself when we get the new website?

With a WordPress website there is no need for coding. Editing is easy. You can publish, review and update blogs and pages with ease. WordPress lets you preview your page before you publish, and for time sensitive launches, you can even choose to set a publish date and time.

WordPress supports multimedia well, so you can bring your topic to life with videos, images and audio within your webpages, making your content more engaging.

We can always help you with ongoing support and updates. If you host your website with us, we will ensure updates are always implemented so your site is secure and current. If you need new functionality or a new page style, you can always give us a call.

Complete control of design

Developers pick WordPress so they have complete control of design. If you want the very latest trends, you can with an able developer and the freedom of WordPress. This means we can design as a responsive website which is bespoke to your business needs.

This is especially important to have this freedom when designing websites which are focused on user experience. We design each new iteration based on the performance in testing, running with the elements that were a success and casting off things which didn’t work for your audience.

Custom functionality

WordPress is open source (free to download and use) and so developers around the world create new features and functions for WordPress users every day. Every day the platform is getting exponentially better.

Plugins – often we’ll custom build plugins or functionality in favour of installing clunky plugins as this keeps our sites fast and easier to maintain and develop. When we do install plugins though, we opt for official, well-supported and well-rated plugins that suit your website’s requirements. WordPress has a whole universe of plugins. A current check (February 2022) shows there are more than 54,000 plugins to choose from, with new design features and functionality being created all the time.

Integrations

The benefit of using the world’s most popular CMS is that all the popular services have integrations with WordPress. So your e-commerce, email marketing, CRMs (customer relationship management) etc all will have the ability to connect and speak to your website. If you aren’t sure if your systems talk to WordPress, an easy way is to look at Zapier for APIs (application programming interface) – basically a tool which gets one service to ‘talk’ to another and automate repetitive jobs for you.

SEO

Our clients often ask us: “Will our new website be top of Google?”

Your website’s visibility on search engines is key to its success. If you have a beautiful website that no one comes to or knows about, was it worth the investment?

Search engines are always updating their algorithms to serve users with the most relevant results. But one of the main features for performing well in search engines such as Google and Bing is site performance. These search engines favour semantic, well written code, an intuitive and well-structured navigation, and good usability. They will also assess whether the website is optimised for mobile devices and how fast the pages load.

WordPress is written largely in PHP, with semantic HTML markup, so it can be easily understood and crawled by search engines.

WordPress makes it easy for the user to optimise images for searches via alt tags, and its content editor allows you to easily use heading and subheading tags and publish quality long-form content for your audience. Users are prompted to include meta descriptions and titles, so pages are described and easily understood by people and search engines.

Ecommerce

Are WordPress websites good for e-commerce?

WordPress can be extended by installing its native e-commerce platform WooCommerce when e-commerce is required. Plenty of online retailers opt for WooCommerce – it’s one of the biggest ecommerce platforms on the market, with its ease of use and multitude of integrations with third party platforms and services.

If you want to take your business online, or redevelop your e-commerce website, talk to us.

More on e-commerce websites:

WordPress websites with CobwebMedia

We offer a research-led, analytical and iterative creative design process which ensures we craft beautiful websites, apps and digital experiences that engage.

Talk to us about

  • UX-focused website design
  • Latest design trends including motion and animation
  • UX and optimisation motion graphics and animation
  • WordPress maintenance and ongoing support for your website