Website in WordPress
Will WordPress work for me?
WordPress was first released in 2003 and was then mainly a blogging tool. Over time, this has evolved into a relatively sophisticated CMS – Content Management System. It is also the most popular CMS on the market.
What really distinguishes a CMS is that all content can be managed via a web interface. The content handled this way is usually database driven. This means that you do not have to manually go in and edit directly in the file system when a change is to be made.
Sounds good? So what are the disadvantages of this? A direct disadvantage is that a relatively simple website built in WordPress takes up large resources way to computer capacity (at server level). For each page call, WordPress needs to make a variety of calls to the database to retrieve the content to be presented to the visitor in the browser. In addition, WordPress code base consists of a lot of code written in the programming language PHP. By default, all this code that needs to be executed will do so with each page call. We can tackle this “concern” with a strategically implemented cache (on several levels).
Can anyone use WordPress?
The answer to that question will be both Yes and No. Without any prior knowledge in either programming, server administration or design, the probability that your website will not be so bad is good, neither in terms of performance nor appearance.
However, there are ready-made themes to download (created by another developer). It allows you to get a decent look purely in terms of design but when it comes to performance and security and SEO above all, there will be flaws.
What distinguishes WordPress is that there are a variety of themes and plugins that can be downloaded to expand the basic functionality of WordPress. So we do not always have to reinvent the wheel when any new functionality is to be implemented. However, each plugin you install will make WordPress even heavier to run, in addition, security holes may occur (which they do to a large extent in WordPress). WordPress is probably the most vulnerable when it comes to security holes and “hacked” websites. This is not WordPress’ fault in itself, it is the lack of knowledge on the part of the user that opens up security holes. Even if a plugin or theme would have security holes, it is important that the environment where the WordPress website is located is configured in a way that makes it impossible for the security hole to be exploited and do damage.
This is done, among other things, by correct handling of file rights and other restrictions on what the code itself can do (what PHP can do in this case).
We never use third party themes, we develop our themes from the ground up with the intention of having 100% control over how things look. In other words, we can make the website look exactly the way you want it. If you use a ready-made theme from a third party, you will be limited to how that theme works. The same applies to functionality where it is sometimes appropriate to download a ready-made plugin that expands the basic functionality.
As a base, we use up to 10 selected plugins when we build new websites in WordPress. Sometimes we tailor from scratch, sometimes we modify a finished plugin. It all depends on what you as a customer require.
What we focus on is to develop a website that is well optimized and fast!
If you are on the track to build a website in WordPress yourself, we definitely think you should give it a try.
Other popular CMS
WordPress is probably the CMS that is the fastest for a developer to get acquainted with (if prior knowledge of CSS, Javascript and PHP exists).
An advantage of using WordPress and then letting a competent web agency develop the product for you is that there are very many web agencies that know WordPress. This means that if you happen to get a worse web agency on the hook that you then want to break the collaboration with, there are a number of other web agencies that can continue to develop your product – we are one of them!
Today, there are alternative ways for the ignorant to create a website with a few mouse clicks, so-called Pagebuilders. If you just want a simple website and are not in need of tailor-made functionality or need a well-optimized website that can grow over time, this can be an alternative way to go. However, this is not something we can recommend. Pagebuilders are limited and create a lot of junk code, which is a disadvantage if you want good visibility in the search engines.
In addition to WordPress, there is another popular CMS written in the same language as WordPress – Drupal. Another popular CMS is Umbraco – which is written in the programming language C # and, unlike Drupal and WordPress, requires a “Microsoft environment” .