Corsza

Why We Are Moving Everything to WordPress

The answer to this isn’t as difficult as you think, but it is important to talk about since there is a new website tool and builder being launched every other day. We are guilty of being distracted by the next shiny thing or Product Hunt launch as well – don’t get us wrong. We have worked and jumped from WordPress, to custom static HTML builders, to Webflow, to Squarespace, to Ghost (one of our favourites to be honest), to whatever crazy custom home-built CMS platform a client got sold and can’t get out of the subscription.

The main thing that always brings WordPress back to the conversation, and the answer to the question in the beginning is purely flexibility. There is no better example of this than a client we were talking to the other day. Lean back and read this:

A client providing B2B consultancy services came to us wanting a new website for a bunch of different reasons. What we nailed down together was the following:

  • Not a redesign – just a modern refresh because it was looking a bit dated
  • They wanted to be able to do some kind of news updates, not full on blogging, but just wanted somewhere for their clients to go for updates.
  • Reactivate their newsletter – this would tie into this short form blogging plan
  • Just breathe a bit more life into their online presence.

Now on the surface this brief is fairly typical if you are in the business we are, and there is absolutely no reason any of the platforms mentioned above would not meet the needs of this brief. However, no business is static, and no business requirements ever stay the same. Think about these scenarios:

  • The newsletter grows and they hire someone to manage it for them one day a week. That person is only skilled in MailChimp, but the firm has been using Campaign Monitor. There is a plugin for that, no dramas.
  • The website the server was on isn’t that fast because they chose a cheaper place to host and their SEO agency tells them they are being hurt for PageSpeed. There is plugins and optimisations we can do for that
  • They start running a small Google Adwords campaign and they need conversion tracking goals setup because the PPC agency won’t run a campaign unless tracking is setup. They don’t have a developer on stand by. That’s ok, WordPress can handle that.
  • They want a client portal but don’t want to purchase a separate SaaS product, they just want it integrated into their website. That’s ok, WordPress can handle that.

After dealing with cases like these over the last couple of years, we just had a massive light bulb moment that whilst there are definitely cases for custom solutions or some of these no-code options – having a solid base with the flexibility to grow without half the amount of headaches. There was a period of time where WordPress wasn’t the right solution – but after coming back to it after 3-4 years, we have decided to work solely with the platform from now on. We also are pretty good at convincing people to join us.

And for those people that have to report to upper management, here are some other facts about WordPress you should know:

  • Availability of Developers – Due to both WordPress being open-source and massive in popularity (WordPress powers over 40% of all websites on the Internet), there are plenty of developers around the world that can work on the platform to get it to do what it needs to do. By doing some homework and auditioning some developers – you will be able to sort through the different abilities.
  • Used by top-tier organisations – Sure it might be customised and bare little resemblance to the configuration you will have setup, but CNN, The New York Times, and Microsoft and others run WordPress.
  • Most software can integrate with it – Most major technology companies offer WordPress plugins that enable you to streamline your content creation. We use a bunch ourselves which we can talk about in another post.
  • Cost Effective – because there is no licensing fee, you website and marketing budget can be used to drive people to the website, rather than creating it. Sure – other platforms charge a relatively small fee, but $50 a month is $600 per year, which could be an extra 1000 visitors a year to the website – for the smaller businesses that makes an impact.

If you haven’t already noticed, we have moved our company website (yep – this very one) to WordPress, after using a combination of flat HTML and Ghost for quite a while. So sign up for the newsletter, sign up to the rss feed to keep up to date on how we use WordPress to deliver results.