WordPress is just about right for us
Updated September 02, 2014
WordPress is just about right for us
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Software Version
3.6.1 v
Modules Used
- 55 modules/widgets employed, not all active at present. Main elements are sliders, sidebars, easy social, events and pages/posts
- Website is in transition to better navigation, enhanced functionality. WordPress is more than powerful and able enough for out needs. Training myself and my team on usage is key issue, especially with a migration effort planned for early 2014.
Overall Satisfaction with WordPress
WP is used by sales and marketing and to some degree, admin. As we populate it with more content, its value to the company will increase. One of the challenges is training new users on how to work in WordPress.
- Drag and drop functionality for adding new widgets is very productive. Downloading or adding new widgets is easy. Enabling, disabling them is also fast and easy.
- Newer theme instances do this much better and more simply than older ones. We just updated our theme and this makes changes in widgets and menus much faster, easier.
- Edits to content are fast, immediate. The preview function is especially helpful for page layout changes. Absence of coding requirements makes adding new pages/posts very fast, simple. We are changing site content every week. This is especially helpful for edits to widgets that can be previewed before launching.
- Library/media functionality makes uploads new images, art, doc files much faster and easier than other solutions. The viewer enables you to clearly see what you are uploading before you do. Pretty self explanatory. Limitations in file size that existed in older themes have been resolved, but you must upgrade to newer versions of your theme(s) to take advantage of this, otherwise you have to manually code the file size limitation in your WP theme.
- Creating new pages is exceptionally easy, fast and does not requires coding skills. This means we can stand up landing pages, download pages and others on almost a moment's notice for new product launches, marketing campaigns and other uses. Very useful for creating new landing pages for programs, launches and other marketing and sales tasks. We can password protect these pages, or requires registration (through the built in Pardot widget).
- A WYSIWYG type page/post editor would be highly desirable but possibly outside the limits of WP. Ability to save page/posts as templates (not in the WP sense but as in the MAP sense) would be better. Newer instances of WP themes have largely resolved this, however, if you really want/need to see what's going you must use the text editor. Simple HTML skills are required
- Could be limitations of our unique apps/widgets but understanding how the various apps interact is difficult at time. This is a limitation of our site design and the theme that was chosen and ultimately adapted for our site.
- Prefer a better list management function than what is presently available for things like partner listings, channel, office locations etc. Again, this was/is a custom adaptation of WP for our site. Not recommended for everyone. A native WP app should be used for things like partner lists, office locations and the like.
- Major one is improved employee efficiency. We are able to effect quick changes immediately such as phone no changes, employee changes, job postings, HR changes.
- Do not yet use the Pardot plug-in which will be very helpful for standing up landing pages much faster even than Pardot can do this.
- We have eliminated the need for dedicated fractional FTE. We are able to effect most changes ourselves with minimal effort.
Sharepoint has some limitations in terms of page layout and adaptability to different page layouts. WordPress beats Sharepoint hands down in that area.
Evaluating WordPress and Competitors
- Price
- Product Usability
- Vendor Reputation
You can't beat WordPress on cost. Other CMS systems tie you up in huge fees and don't offer enough additional value for the cost.
More hands on participation in the process. I was new to the Company, my predecessor was gone and a third party more or less did the evaluation and implementation.
WordPress Implementation
- Vendor implemented
Yes - Initial migration from a hard coded environment with individually built pages, limited functionality to WP with predefined page layouts. Next phase was training and turning on the admin section of the WP implementation. Third phase, where we are now, is turning on full admin panel while adding more widgets and custom programmed feature sets.
Change management was minimal - Change was invisible to organization beyond what I communicated. Issues were with expectations we set with the vendor, which were subsequently changed due to change of control in our company. We desired to manage more ourselves.
- No clearly defined or communicated roadmap was ever created.
- Phases of implementation were likewise not clearly organized or discussed in advance. I inherited control after change in leadership in our company
- Developer notes were not available. Understanding functionality of things like widgets was a conversation with a developer.
Using WordPress
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using Familiar | None |
- The menu feature is really great - allows rebuilding and adding of menus on the fly.
- Web page changes are simple, effective unless the pages call a PHP file from the server. For that I have to get an IT resource involved.
- Built in CSS informs page layout, coloration, font structure etc. This is a plus, it's also a minus if you want to change any of the style sheet elements.
- Finding the referenced PHP files that the menu item is calling for. Even our IT guys have to dig around and scratch their heads on this one. Perhaps if we had built it ourselves the process would be easier
- Limitations of CSS constrain things like font, coloration etc. I can hard code changes into the page but that means these have to be done one at a time.
- SEO is not fully optimized...guess I need to spend a few $$ to get the full SEO story from WordPress.
Yes - Yes, but our theme is not mobile optimized. We are standing up a new theme that is. Be sure you understand this before you select the theme.