Stress Less with WordPress
January 05, 2015
Stress Less with WordPress
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Software Version
4.1
Overall Satisfaction with WordPress
WordPress is currently being used by 100% of my clients that I have had the pleasure of doing business with recreating their business websites. WordPress addresses many different business problems, but the problems that it addresses the most are ease of use for an average user to update content on their website without the help of a webmaster, or hiring of a programmer or developer each time something needs to be changed on their website. Many business owners want the ability to update their own content without worrying about delegating the service to someone else, especially if content is ever changing or expanding, hiring a separate person for that can be cost effective and some businesses are going through tough times and need to be able to rely on themselves more these days to do some of the web work.
The second problem it addresses is the ability to insert a wide variety of different functionality into the site at any given time with the use of easy to install plugins. The variety of various types of plugins can address a lot of coding from scratch during the website building phase, which cuts costs for the business owners by only having to pay a fraction of the cost for the plugin than it would cost if a programmer was hired to do it from scratch for them. Plugins can be activated, and deactivated for use on the site without any coding knowledge necessary for most of them. I must state though that it does require grasping the systems user mechanics to a fair degree. Some plugins do require some knowledge of PHP, HTML5, CSS3 but most of it has been taken care of with the implementing of shortcodes that require only the knowledge of what the shortcode is used for and the ability to insert the shortcode in the proper areas of the website. Instead of writing out code, users can use something similar to: [large_image]http://example.com/largeimage.jpg[/large_image] instead, which is very user friendly to understand and implement.
Another problem WordPress addresses is cost. Since WordPress is a free to use platform with open source coding to the frame, anyone who uses WordPress can install it onto their website's host server for free, and they can also choose from a vast amount of free WordPress themes that give the user a head start on their project when the choose the right template for their site. In the WordPress depository, there are a wide variety of free plugins to use as well that cover almost anything you will need to get your site up and running efficiently. As for some of the better plugins out there, you can purchase a paid version of some of the plugins you find in the depository, or you can find them on other specific websites that sole purpose is to provide premium plugins, and themes to help with building your business' website.
The second problem it addresses is the ability to insert a wide variety of different functionality into the site at any given time with the use of easy to install plugins. The variety of various types of plugins can address a lot of coding from scratch during the website building phase, which cuts costs for the business owners by only having to pay a fraction of the cost for the plugin than it would cost if a programmer was hired to do it from scratch for them. Plugins can be activated, and deactivated for use on the site without any coding knowledge necessary for most of them. I must state though that it does require grasping the systems user mechanics to a fair degree. Some plugins do require some knowledge of PHP, HTML5, CSS3 but most of it has been taken care of with the implementing of shortcodes that require only the knowledge of what the shortcode is used for and the ability to insert the shortcode in the proper areas of the website. Instead of writing out code, users can use something similar to: [large_image]http://example.com/largeimage.jpg[/large_image] instead, which is very user friendly to understand and implement.
![http://example.com/largeimage.jpg[/large_image]](http://example.com/largeimage.jpg[/large_image]){kind=link}
Another problem WordPress addresses is cost. Since WordPress is a free to use platform with open source coding to the frame, anyone who uses WordPress can install it onto their website's host server for free, and they can also choose from a vast amount of free WordPress themes that give the user a head start on their project when the choose the right template for their site. In the WordPress depository, there are a wide variety of free plugins to use as well that cover almost anything you will need to get your site up and running efficiently. As for some of the better plugins out there, you can purchase a paid version of some of the plugins you find in the depository, or you can find them on other specific websites that sole purpose is to provide premium plugins, and themes to help with building your business' website.
- WordPress is a free to use, continuously updated with new features, quality product maintained, framework that can be easily installed on almost any server in the matter of minutes. This feature alone gives you the type of service that most paid systems would give you, but instead, it's absolutely free.
- WordPress and third party companies offer many WordPress themes that are perfect for almost every type of website that you can think of making as a business or for personal use. The cost of these themes varies from Free - to upwards of $150 as the highest priced theme that I have personally seen on the market. You can also hire a developer to create your own custom theme with the needed requirements you would like as well, and that can range anywhere from $800 - $5,000 or more depending on the developer and the requirements of your site.
- WordPress and third parties also offer many WordPress plugins that provide the business/user's website with specific functionality that the Wordpress framework and possibly their currently installed WordPress theme may not offer. Plugins can range from Free - $200 or more from my own personal experience looking across the internet on all the different websites that offer their plugin products. You can also hire a developer to create a custom WordPress plugin that meets your specific requirements as well. This can cost anywhere from $100 - $1,500 or more depending on the specific needs of the plugin you are looking to have created.
- Wordpress offers ease of use for updating content for people who may not be so website savvy when it comes to the structure, lingo, or code layout. There are many options to customize your website with content using a visual composer plugin, or built in feature of a theme, or the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) that's built into the WordPress framework already.
- WordPress has been improving their framework since the beginning of development. If I would say that WordPress has room for improvement, it would be giving itself the ability to host plugins on a remote location to call functions from so that the use of many plugins won't disrupt the site's load speed times, which effects the overall experience of the site's users.
- I think that WordPress can expand on some of their customization features to allow a simpler, faster way of getting your brand in the framework. Though this is capable through plugins that are out there, I think WordPress could alleviate the use of a lot of plugins if they incorporate some of the major used plugins features within the framework itself.
- I think that WordPress can improve on the ease of use in connecting their members management functionality with outside source software that companies may be offering as a SaaS to their customers, and using WordPress as their main site that stores the sales information and sign-up features.
- A positive impact is that it can create a great customer to business communication system by implementing live chat, help desks, support ticket functionality, contact forms, etc... If you want your customers to know they have your support, you can easily do this within WordPress without any issues.
- Another positive impact can be your ROI (return on investment) by using WordPress. With the framework being free to use for anyone that right there cuts the cost of creating the frame of your website and the basic functionality needed. Themes and plugins are cost effective as they are nowhere near the pricing you would pay if you hire a developer to do your website from the ground up because it saves on time by utilizing all the tools WordPress has to offer that's already created and easily can be plugged into almost any theme that's out there today.
- A positive impact that would also help cut costs for businesses would be the ease of use for employees to update the site with content, or provide any type of customer to business type of work utilizing the themes and plugins that give user interface experiences that are tailored for anyone without coding or development work to be able to use.
- Magento,Drupal,Joomla!
When it comes down to it, WordPress has a larger library of Themes and Plugins that are circulated around the community than any other CMS on the market today. Magento would come second in terms of quality and use out of the other CMS products that are out there on the market today, however, the ease of install, cost of themes, and development work are priced a lot higher than WordPress, and you won't get anywhere near the variety of custom plugins that are created for WordPress. Drupal and Joomla have systems that are similar to WordPress but again, there's nothing that beats the WordPress community.
Using WordPress
20 - The business functions that are represented are varied on a wide scale varying from newsletter implementation to automated social media posting across multiple platforms. To get into detail about the functionality being used would cover too much of a variety, which that being said, shows the versatility of WordPress as a CMS.
1 - I currently support WordPress in-house myself, and for 14 different client websites. One feature that i'm currently using to manage these sites in a timely, organized manner is a WordPress third party product called MainWP. It is a plugin system that installs onto a regular WordPress site you can have running, and it connects websites to the system that allows me to remote control each site, and automate a lot of the maintenance work as well, thus saving me time, and getting the work done accordingly.
- Content information on the website, and the ability to edit and add content without the need of knowing programming.
- Lead generation is also an important functionality that's being used within the websites.
- Customer support is the third important function that's also being used in the majority of the sites.
- We have been able to integrate separate SaaS applications with it to share the data from one source to another.
- We have been able to create a excellent SEO structure within the framework that helps websites with their SEO performance without the hassle of hiring a major company to do the same services.
- We have been able to create a successful LMS system with the use of themes and plugins to help education projects
- WordPress can also be used for paid advertisement landing pages, making them interactive and easy to implement while connecting them with Google Analytics.
- WordPress could be used to service a chain of major companies that require the use of e-commerce functionality by using multi-site functionality that WordPress offers.
WordPress Support
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Quick Resolution Good followup Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed No escalation required Support understands my problem Support cares about my success | None |
No - There's no premium support for WordPress as a platform, but you can find it within the third party products with themes and plugins, which is a fairly common service offered within the WordPress community. There are forums at wordpress.org that can be used for support. Many of the community members there are happy to help with any questions regarding issues with the site you're having problems with.
Again, I cannot give credit to those who work on the development of WordPress personally because I usually go to the source of a theme or plugin that I am currently using if I run into any problems that I cannot ascertain on my own using my own knowledge of the system and the coding structure that surrounds it.
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 | None |
- Managing content is particularly easy using the WYSIWYG functionality and general framework.
- Installing certain functionality by installing plugins with an easy interface system that is just uploading the plugin, installing it, and activating it.
- Connecting with customers is easy to do with the proper functionality put into your site by the use of plugins, and now, sometimes a functionality that a theme may provide.
- Some functionality that would be difficult to perform would be purely theme based. Some of them require the knowledge of HTML and CSS, however if you choose the right one that works for you, then you won't run into this problem.
- The use of shortcode could get difficult to perform, however, most of the difficulty again would be based on the theme and plugins you choose to use on your site.
Yes - The mobile interface works as well as the theme that you're using which would mean that the theme would have to be what is called "responsive". That means that it adapts to the platform the person viewing it is using without the need of creating 2-3 different versions of your site for usability. There are also some plugins out there that provide a mobile interface functionality option to your site, however, these are not going to be anywhere near as reliable as a responsive theme being used.