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WordPress - CRM without the headache
June 24, 2013

WordPress - CRM without the headache

Donald Edwards | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

3.5.1

Modules Used

  • Headway
  • Akismet
  • WordPress Editorial Calendar
  • Sidebar Login
  • bbPress
  • BuddyPress
  • Ajax Event Calendar
  • Bowe Codes
  • WordPress Access Control
  • WP eMember
  • WP eStore

Overall Satisfaction

  • WordPress is normally thought of as a blogging platform, but through the use of plugins and sophisticated themes, such as Headway, it can be used as an excellent content management platform as well.
  • Many content links are stored as fully qualified URLs. As a result, re-naming and re-structuring a WordPress site is extremely difficult and requires direct data manipulation in the database.
  • I can put up a professional-looking website in just a few hours without messing with HTML, CSS, or any type of programming language.
WordPress has only improved in the last few years, and the user community is extremely helpful.
Take the time to write down your requirements. WordPress has so many features and plug-ins, you'll be overwhelmed if you don't have a clear idea of what you want.

Product Usage

40 - Chapter Members
  • Membership portal for the Austin chapter of (ISC)² (Information Security Consortium).
  • My personal technology and security blog.

Evaluation and Selection

No - N/A
I considered using Drupal and Blogger, but I found the flexibility and ease-of-use was better in WordPress.

Implementation

Know what you want from your website before you load WordPress. Start simple, customize bit by bit.
  • Vendor implemented
I've done self-hosting as well as professional hosting. I highly recommend going with a hosting provider that is familiar with WordPress! I use HostGator (www.hostgator.com), and they're excellent. Once you get DNS set up, there's almost no technical work necessary. I've never used WordPress.com, but I do know that many professional themes won't install on their hosting service.

Training

  • Self-taught
I found it easy to learn. If you have a fair amount of experience running websites, it's pretty straightforward.

Configuration

I have a large number of features that my users expect, so I spent a lot of time making sure that the integration was seamless.

Support

Headway support is great. The documentation is very good.
Yes - I pay for Headway support, but not for Wordpress.

Usability

WordPress itself is extremely easy to use. Unfortunately, the quality of some of the plug-ins varies, so you have to do a lot of trial-and-error to get the results you require. I have found that paid, professional themes and plug-ins are much more reliable - worth every penny if you want to get a website up without a lot of tinkering.

Reliability

I've never had it crash, even after an upgrade.
Honestly, I've never had enough traffic to make a reasonable assessment of its performance.

Integration

  • BuddyPress (open source social networking for WordPress).
Using the Headway plug-ins and extensions, implementing BuddyPress was amazingly easy.
  • I would like to integrate with Google's calendar and hangouts.
No.