Top 3 Reasons To Build Your Website On WordPress
With all of the various ways teams can go about building their company website or ecommerce store, WordPress is still killing the game as the website platform of choice.
Having been around since 2003, more than 42.8% of the top 10 million websites are currently using WordPress for their website and online sales. With a hugely supportive community and a ton of flexibility with customization and building, it’s no wonder that WordPress is still considered an industry favorite.
When it comes to website design, our goal has always been to create user-friendly, narrative-driven web experiences that expand and elevate the brand vision. Over the years, we’ve had amazing experiences fulfilling that goal with either WordPress or Squarespace for our clients’ websites. While it all comes down to the unique objectives of the website build, there are a ton of benefits to building your company website or store on WordPress. Here are a few that stand out to us:
Full-throttle Customization
Most website platforms sell the ability to “fully customize” your website design however you want it. However, depending on the platform, customization may only go so far—especially when it comes to acceptable file types, handling of or feasibility of custom code, or even limited “out of the box” content blocks and section layouts. Additionally, if you need to build a custom UI within that platform, it may interfere with the functionality of other blocks.
With WordPress, teams can create and implement anything. Period. From more avant-garde and editorial style layouts, to customized UI blocks with specific functionalities, there’s little to no limitations with what WordPress can handle. Additionally, with more updates to WordPress Gutenberg, teams are able to upload their robust block libraries to the Block Editor and build out pages more efficiently than ever.
A Huge, Worldwide Community
From plugins and themes, to developers and hosting platforms, the WordPress community expands across the globe. Nowadays, it’s pretty easy to find troubleshooting support or general answers for just about anything WordPress related.
Popular sites such as ThemeForest by Envato and Themeum offer beautifully designed WordPress themes and Block Library plugins with well-written and clear documentation. Hosting sites such as SiteGround and WPEngine offer secure site hosting at affordable rates. On top of that, you won’t have to look any further than WordPress’ extensive plugin marketplace, with various plugins created by individuals and teams alike (free and paid).
Which leads us to our final reason…
It’s Open Source, and Therefore, Free!
Aside from buying hosting for your website, WordPress is 100% free to use. Because it’s open source and free to the public, any team can use and modify it to their unique needs. It’s possible to continue keeping build costs low with an array of free themes and plugins such as Yoast for SEO purposes or WooCommerce for ecommerce shops, though keep in mind some of these plugins may have additional premium options.
When Should My Team Use WordPress?
With website platforms getting more sophisticated with updates and features, there’s really no true “right or wrong” way to build your company website (assuming of course it has a CMS!). However, here are some scenarios in which WordPress would be the best option:
The entire or part of the website experience will require specific functionality by way of third-party APIs.
The website will have extensive content and product taxonomies (think stores with larger inventories and larger editorial websites). For instance, one of the reasons we used WordPress to build the website for Transhealth Northampton was because of their need for an extensive resource library with a number of different content types.
The website is for an enterprise-level company and will require more global support.
The front-end design is more bespoke and requires more custom CSS or Javascript for interactions like scrolling effects, hovers, lottie animations, and loading screens. For instance, when we designed the website for Fully Human Supplements, we used WordPress in order to create a more brand-unique website which leveraged a robust, custom block library for main pages, articles, and product landing pages.
For even more context, here are some case studies for websites we built using WordPress
Final Thoughts
WordPress is an amazingly flexible platform for anyone and any company to create a beautifully functional website. There’s really no limit to what can be done with it, and it’s absolutely free to start building. So whether you’re gearing up to propel your new start-up into the market, or considering a website overhaul and switching from another platform, rest assured that WordPress can and will handle it.
