WordPress vs Alternatives: Why It’s Still Best in 2024
When it comes to building your own website in 2024, brands can choose between a CMS (Content Management System) and a dedicated website builder. The most popular CMS remains WordPress, which is an excellent place to start when creating and maintaining content for a website.
WordPress offers the most flexibility for your Business
We think WordPress is the superior option in many cases for brands that are just starting their own websites, or trying to take an old single-page website to the next level by upgrading it with a blog, news, and other content. Several reasons we prefer WordPress for our in-depth web development services include:
Open-source
WordPress is open-source and compatible with all sorts of hosting platforms, which makes hosting a site far more flexible, able to fit a business’s current online strategy without boxing it in.
Completely customizable
WordPress is incredibly customizable, offering tools to build all kinds of websites in the ways that work best. Experience with PHP, JavaScript, and CSS allows developers to provide exactly what functionality a brand wants using WordPress.
Many rich and varied themes
One benefit to WordPress being so popular is that there is a rich and always-growing catalogue of themes to explore and tweak for your website. Mobile optimization is also a simple process!
Easy task division
In WordPress, content is created through the WordPress editor, which can also be customized in a wide variety of ways based on content goals. Design is managed via the templating image to help control multiple aspects of the site’s appearance. Add-ons and extensions, meanwhile, are managed via a Plugin system, like downloading apps onto your WordPress platform. This can make task assignment easier when maintaining the site.
Excellent compatibility with add-ons
WordPress has an enormous list of compatible Plugins that can bring in pretty much any tool you want for managing your website. From tying a product to an Amazon product page to monitoring your SEO through Yoast, the Plugin system allows for many specific solutions. However, note that managing plugins requires experienced developers, as too many can create slowdown, bloat, and buggy interactions. We can also help brands ensure that the Plugins their site is using are consistently updated for security, as well as discuss any premium Plugin features that may be worth the cost.
Continuously Improving
The community of WordPress users and developers is always at work fixing issues, making important updates, adding new Plugins, and much more. We can keep track of these improvements and make sure your website benefits in return.
Why the Other Options Don’t Quite Stack Up
The primary alternative to WordPress is using a website builder, such as Wix, Shopify, or Weebly. While CMS and website builder are sometimes used interchangeably (even WordPress calls itself a website builder sometimes), a website builder is more of a creation suite – that usually includes uses a specific hosting platform – filled with a set of proprietary tools.
These builders have their limitations and generally aren’t the best starting point for a new site. Here are a few of the most important reasons why.
Limited options
Many website builders bind a business to their hosting platform. Their tools tend to be proprietary and won’t be associated with any other platform if a business decides it’s time to move to a new hosting situation. The tools themselves aren’t bad, and can be useful for businesses that want to put something together quickly, but they don’t usually have the customization of WordPress, and users will have to learn a new interface when they move on.
Training is still required
While website builders provide tools, a brand trying to build a website from scratch will often need a working understanding of CSS, JavaScript, and similar web code if they want to fully customize how the site functions. This requires time, training, or outside services.
Harder to arrange or assign content
Many website builders struggle to offer the varied workflow options that the WordPress editor supports.
You can often get the benefits of web builders on WordPress
If you really the analytics or online shopping cart support for a certain builder, take a look a WordPress: There’s a good chance that the builder also has a WordPress Plugin you can directly integrate. Shopify and others offer this option to make things easier.
Planning a Website Redesign?
If your brand is planning a new site or significant website redesign, always start with specific goals. How do you want your home page to look and function? Do you need product pages? Do you need to use animations or 360-degree views for products? As you consider just what your new site needs to be, contact Blue Atlas Marketing so we can discuss the details. Our web strategists have the necessary experience to build out the site you need and help you connect it with other important systems that your business depends on!
Start planning your website redesign with free resources offered in our redesign planning kit!
