Ten Advantages of WordPress Websites
Wordpress has become the Internet’s leading Content Management System (CMS). Web designers are moving to the WordPress CMS design methodology. The advantages of WordPress sites are overwhelming. One huge advantage is web content can be updated easily without having to FTP. If you need to make a change to your site you are empowered to do so. There is no middleman. Here are ten advantages of WordPress. These are the reasons why I recommend you create your next site using WordPress:
1. Desktop, Tablet, and Phone Compatibility
The big advancement on the Web is the additional formats. For years it was all about the desktop. Now clients want their sites to look good on phones and tablets too. If you take a traditional site and try to retrofit it to look good on a phone, you’re in for an almost impossible task.
Technically there are CSS commands that can detect and apply different CSS depending upon the device your viewing with. While the capability is there, getting it to do something practical is hard, if not impossible.
A better approach is to select a Desktop-Tablet-Phone compatible theme in the first place. This way all the ultra complicated CSS and HTML programming is handled automatically. As a designer you don’t have to worry about formatting the site specifically for a phone. When you view a phone compatible site on a phone, all the elements reorganize themselves on the page and present a phone specific layout automatically.
There is a lot going on under the hood with these sites. It’s hard to create a design that is really three designs (desktop, tablet, and phone) in one but it doesn’t matter. We don’t need to know how it works, only that it does work. If you want you site to look good on phones as well as desktops, WordPress is the only way to go.
2. Search Engine Friendliness
Wordpress designed web search are search engine friendly right out of the box. WordPress sites use a technology called htacess to display the pages in searh engine friendly URLs. Everyone knows Google gice preferential treatment to web pages that contain the keyword in the URL. WordPress gives the designer (you) the ability to name that page (URL) whatever you want. All you have to do is click edit, type in what you want the URL to be, and click enter.
So what you wind up with is a site that has keyword rich URLs. These WordPress sites perform far better than sites witj arbitrary file names. It gives the designer the ability to target keywords. When you rename your page to a keyword URL the main menu is automatically updated.
The other search engine aspect of WordPress sites is they do not use font or table tags. This presents a much clearer picture to Google. WordPress sites have an advantage over traditional sites with search engines.
3. Animation Without Flash
Five years ago flash was all the rage. Now it is the opposite. Sites that use flash are woefully outdated. However, the animation was cool then and it is cool now. WordPress sites use HTML5 and Javascipt to create animation without resorting to flash. Flash doesn’t work with phones. Design-wise it is frowned upon. It’s a heavy, resource intensive technology that is basically dying. The animation on WordPress sites is just as cool, is light, and looks good on phones.
4. User Editing Backend
Traditional sites use a design, FTP methodology. First you design your web page offline using a web design program (like Dreamweaver) then FTP it to the web. This design methodology requires obtaining the software and the knowledge to use it. WordPress, on the other hand, has a backend. You just log in and begin working on the site. No software, or uploading, is required.
Using WordPress can be daunting. It takes some getting used to. However there is no software to buy and you never have to FTP. If you want to get involved with your siteWordpress is a good way to go. You can make minor changes easily without involving the web designer.
5. Access to Plug-ins, and Widgets
When you have an IPhone you have access Apps. There are tens of thousands of apps available. It’s become a standard and a community of developers have sprung up around that standard. It is the same with WordPress. WordPress has become a standard on the web now. There are thousands of developers that create plug-ins and widgets for it. When you need a capability for your site (a calendar for example) you just search the web for a calendar widget and install it into your WordPress site.
The importance of having become a standard on the Internet cannot be overstated. WordPress sites can be enhanced and extended using plug-ins and widgets. Many of these would take days or months to develop in code. Yet they can be added to your site sidestepping the development.
6. Weekly Site Backup
Behind every WordPress site is a database. The WordPress pages are essentially templates that load the data from your database on the fly. The nice thing about building a site this way is that the site can be backed up (entirely) by merely backing up the database.
On the WordPress sites we develop and host, we back up the database every Sunday night. Backing up is a small thing and you may not need it but it’s nice to know it’s there. If you make a mistake while working the site you always have a copy to go back to.
7. No Need To Buy Software
Sites have traditionally been designed with Adobe Studio. This is a collection of programs including Dreamwever, Fireworks, and Flash. This is professional software in the $1000 range. This is more than many people want to pay.
Wordpress eliminates the need for all that. Because it has a backend, it is the design software. WordPress is basically like having a copy of Dreamweaver online and attached to you site. WordPress is public domain meaning you don’t have to pay for it. WordPress is full-blown design software residing on the web that allows you to make cool web sites without having to purchase web design software.
8. Theme Based Design
Traditional web sites are designed from scratch. We typically started out in Fireworks doing a full scale, static design of the site. Then, upon approval from the client, we would slice it up and begin laying in the buttons, text, and links.
This is a time consuming and expensive way to create a site. Web site elements, like CSS, take tons of time to develop. Most clients are not interestd in spending thousands to develop a site this way.
By contrast, WordPress uses a theme based design methodology. What you do is carefully select a theme that has 90 percent of the look and feel you want. Then you buy the theme, usually for $30 to $65. Then you install the theme on the WordPress platform.
What this does is give you all the layout, CSS, and javascript that would take weeks to develop. The correct theme is literally like getting a $40,000 site for $50. This is not an exaggeration. The time involved in developing a top end theme is in that price range. It is feasible because a theme designer can sell the theme hundreds of times. They can make 40 to 50 thousand dollars on a theme if it becomes popular. Maybe more.
Theme designers stand on each other’s shoulders. If a designer develops something cool, other designers pick up on it. What you get is a collective knowledge that goes far beyond what an individual designer can do. I personally, will gladly pay the designer the money they want because I know what’s involved in designing a site and its well worth the price.
9. Modern, Contemporary Look
One thing I can say about WordPress sites is they always look good. The choice of color, fonts, and layout is attractive. Everyone seems to like these sites. I think that designing in CSS, as WordPress sites are, yields a better looking final product. I’m not sure why this is but CSS fonts and layout just appears to be more attractive. It is also more forgiving between browsers. CSS and WordPress is just a cool technology.
10. All CSS Design
Google doesn’t like font tags. They also don’t like table tags. What Google wants is clean code. They aren’t interested in adding tons of unnecessary code into their index that provides no research value. It annoys them to havc to store and maintain font and table tags that add no value to their index.
CSS is a separate file that contains all the formatting commands. Placing the site’s formatting in a separate file like this remocves the garbage from your HTML and provides clean, concise information to Google. They can index your site quicker because the don’t have to crunch unnecessary tags. They can store your data and keywords in less space. WordPress creates Google friendly sites right out of the box.