WordPress: DIY vs Professional Development

Why WordPress?

No single CMS is the right fit for every project. Back40’s web development team is proficient in many content management systems (CMS), one of which is WordPress. WordPress is a robust CMS. It’s easy to use and flexible. Approximately 19,500,000 websites on the entire web use WordPress. Here are a few top reasons it’s the most popular and well-known content management system:

Cost

It’s free and open source. This allows millions of people around the world to contribute by building plugins and themes. WordPress themes are simple to set up and can be managed with little training.

But, you don’t want to be ‘Just Another WordPress Site’. While WordPress is free and available for anyone to set up, many paid plugins are required to customize and optimize your website. Back40 researches the plugins we use to ensure they function properly and are secure.

SEO & User-friendly

WordPress is more SEO friendly than other common CMS options. WordPress websites generally rank higher in organic search due to their site structure and link structure. There are also a large variety of tools and plugins allowing you to further optimize your site for search engines, such as Yoast SEO.

Content is easily updatable from anywhere, by anyone with access. You don’t need to be a developer or a designer to make updates to a WordPress site.

After the launch of a website, Back40 provides training, hosting, and support for every website we build so our clients can confidently make changes and updates to their website. We also provide support to answer any question or resolve any issue – rest assured, we’ve got your back.

Plugins & Responsive Themes

WordPress has a large repository of free plugins which are constantly updated. This allows you to add functionality with ease and without coding knowledge.

There is also a large number of responsive themes available for free. Responsive themes work well on all screen sizes and devices, another important factor for organic search rankings.

When out-of-the-box solutions don’t work for your business, our team can design unique themes and build custom plugins. 

Back40 WordPress Website Project: Dougherty Forestry Manufacturing

Large Community

WordPress has a massive user base and a large support community. If an issue arises with WordPress, chances are someone else has had the same issue and posted the fix online. If you can’t find a solution to your issue with a simple online search, there are forums available to receive help from other WordPress users.

Or if you don’t have time to spend your day searching user forums, simply call, email, or stop by our office. A Back40 team member will help answer any question you have or solve any problem you are facing.

WordPress Maintenance

While WordPress is flexible and easy to use, keeping up with your website can be time-consuming and a hassle. Our Back40-managed hosting platform has been uniquely crafted to handle the traffic, support and protection your website needs. Here’s why we suggest it for WordPress sites:

Updates

WordPress is constantly updated. This is a good thing; however, it can become overwhelming to keep up with all of the updates. Regular maintenance is required to ensure your site is up to date as there will likely be several updates each month. Most of the time, updates go smoothly. But sometimes, they can cause major problems.

An update could completely break your site if there is a compatibility issue with one of your themes or plugins. You may be forced to roll back to a previous version of WordPress if this happens, which can be a painful process and leave your site at risk.

Back40 will assess your website before implementing any updates to ensure there will be no compatibility issues. We will then take a close look at your site after all update installation to make sure no issues occurred during the update.

Security

Since WordPress is an open source platform, it is a potential target for hackers. This is why it’s important to keep your site up to date and do diligent research on all plugins and themes you install.

Back40 continually monitors and scans all WordPress websites for potential malware. We will also audit any plugins you want to use for security vulnerabilities.

Back40 WordPress Website Project: Shepherd's Field Children's Village

Speed

While plugins and themes can be great for extended functionality, they can sometimes cause your site to be slow due to code bloat and unnecessary features. It’s hard to know what exactly you’re getting when you install a theme or plugin, so it’s important to use caution when selecting plugins and to limit the number that you use.

The custom themes and plugins we build are lightweight and optimized for speed. Since we also control the hosting environment, we can leverage the caching for faster content delivery and site speed.

So, what are you waiting for? Stop by our office or call today to talk about your website project.