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Building a Business Website – should you use WordPress?

I have built many a website in a variety of ways – from hand coding html, wysiwyg (What you See is what you Get), DreamWeaver (still my favorite), Joomla and many WordPress blogs and websites.

WordPress websites?  What do you mean?  IS not WordPress a blogging software / platform?

Well yes, WordPress was originally set up to create blogs – and does a remarkable job.  It is easy to set up and maintain, easy to update, add new posts, have comments, etc.  It has a multitude of themes and plugins so you can modify and customize it any way you feel like it.

So with all these great features – it also can be used to create a regular website.  And business owners may make an excellent decision to use WordPress to create their business website.

You see WordPress added the static page feature – allows you to create pages that are static (yes you can update them, but they stay the same once updated – not like a blog – always changing).  And WordPress allows you to use a static page as your main page – your front door to the world.

So now you can install WordPress (with a simple click if you have cpanel and Fantastico), then create a few static pages.  Declare which is your front page.  And Voilla – you are done your website – simple as that.

And the advantage is you can edit it any time you like, from anywhere in the world.  And you can assign various people to edit the website and create new content – all very easy to do.  It is super easy to add new pages.  You can sub-link pages down as far as you want.  You can change the look by changing the them – and all your pages are changed immediately.  What a brilliant and easy way to create a business website.

But there are drawbacks – like any good thing. (even icecream has a few drawbacks – like the fact that it melts).

First off is that it is not quite a flexible as a static html website.  Every page has to be the same theme.  If for some reason you want customized pages that suit your unique content – then it is tough to do with WordPress.

Second is that if you want to create it and forget it.  (not advisable for any website, but many business just need a ‘placeholder’ website for location, hours, etc) then WordPress is not as good.  As it is a php coded site, it has updates coming out all the time, and also hackers love to try to crack in to sites.  So you must continually keep the code updated, as well as any themes, plugins etc.

Finally, even though WordPress does allow links and sub-links to pages – they don’t allow fully customizable linking structure.  So for example you have a product that you create a page for.  And you want it linked under 4 or 5 different product categories.  Well WordPress just doesn’t handle that type of thing very well.

So – in summary – if you are building a Business Website – my advice is to take a good look at WordPress – if it will work for your situation then go ahead with it – I am sure you will be very happy.  But if you need a customized html site – then that is still an alternative (be sure to shop around and get a good deal – basic sites should not be overly expensive).

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