Advantages of wordpress over dreamweaver

[ayetti]

I have a site that I have built with dreamweaver (local service business not a lot of new content needing to be added) and I am curious how much of an advantage for me converting it to wordpresss would be.  I see that cs5 works with wordpress and that lynda.com has a tutorial on integrating the two.  I would like to integrate a blog into my site, but it is not totally critical that I do so.  I would just like to hear what some of you experienced users have to say about the advantages of wordpress vs dreamweaver from an SEO prospective.

[ayetti]

GREAT answer, I think you clarified it for me.  The only advantage would be that I could add content to a blog easily but I would lose a lot of the functionality I get with DW.  I think for now I will stick with DW for my site and worry about a blog down the road (if I have trouble ranking).  In the future I think I will create WP site using DW's GUI.  I see there is a Lynda.com tutorial on it and it doesn't look terribly complicated. I will definitely check it out in the future (must be a reason everyone loves it) but for now I will go with what I know.

[icecarats]

Argh, sorry for the delay I wrote up a great response but the Moz system ate it and then I was in client meetings. I'll try to summarize it from memory.

It sounds like you want to know if WordPress is worth replacing DW with. From what I can see you've got 3 choices:

1. Do it all manually in DW as you are now. Pros: Familiarity, total control. Cons: Time of maintenance, time of creation. Also less functionality for moderation, comments, etc.

2. Do normal site in DW, blog in WP. Pros: WP will automate posting dates, categorization, comments, trackbacks. Cons: You have to learn WP. You have make a WP template in DW that matches your current site. Two systems to maintain.

3. Convert entire site to WP. Pros: All in one solution. WP will probably help automate mundane site tasks you do manually now. Cons: Loss of total control, WP run-up learning time, WP template creation time, possible SEO implications if sitemap/linking structure changes (positively or negatively)

If you know you're in this for the long haul, and the blog is going to be fairly active I'd suggest #2, with an eye to going to #3 when you're comfortable, or deciding on something else if you decide you hate WP. WP is very easy to maintain and create content for, but it's not a fit for everyone (see my final note). The hybrid approach of #2 lets you get familiar with WP, make a template for it, and see how Google indexes content published in it, without having to commit to having your entire site on it like #3.

Final note: Speaking personally I'm not super comfortable with WordPress because it feels like every 3 months or so there's an exploit that hits nearly everyone. I've worked with it and maintain current installs, but that's always at the back of my mind when considering it for a new project.

[ayetti]

I understand exactly what you mean.  I love that i can edit certain aspects of my site with ease on Dreamweaver.  I also like that i can integrate certain things easier. I doubt I would ever leave DW all together, I am just to used to it.  I would like to ad a blog to the site and for whatever reason I get the impression (here and every forum I participate in) that wordpress is the only way to go.

I guess when using WP i could do something like a blogroll where the content exists on the main landing pages of the site?  I feel like i have seen this work for people in the past.   I hate when service business do blogs that outrank there intended landing pages.  You click on these search results and are faced with their header, then a bunch of spammy nonsense.

Is there a way using WP or DW that i could actually add content without sacrificing the look of the page returned on search?

[icecarats]

It's kind of an apples to oranges thing; Dream Weaver is an authoring tool that has a lot of CMS like extensions. WordPress is a full on CMS that makes authoring very easy. I'll restrict my comments to SEO and general practicability:

The main difference really is going to be that with Dream Weaver you theoretically have total control over every page you make. If you want to edit page (x) way down in the sub-hierarchy to have meta keywords/canonical you can do that very easily. Want to make a unique page totally outside the template? You can do that too. The downside is that it's mostly manual and you spend more time on development.

WordPress automates many of the publication/management processes but loses the granularity Dream Weaver is capable of. It's possible to hand-tweak specific WordPress pages/properties, but it's not easy (nor feels as easy!) as just opening up the file and editing it. I'm saying this as someone who still handcodes HTML in Notepad sometimes, so your mileage may vary.

I think in the end it depends on what you want the system to accomplish. If your page and content turnover is low either will probably suit your needs. If you feel you need that granularity Dream Weaver. If you want to spend less time managing the site WordPress.

[ayetti]

I totally agree that wordpress is now definitely king of the hill so to speak, when it comes to CMS.  I just wonder how much of an advantage it would be for someone like me, without a lot of new content, and who is comfortable with dreamweaver.

[KJ-Rodgers]

I have been thinking a lot about WP too. We currently use DNN, but I wouldn't hang up the Dreamweaver yet. A lot of CMSs can add unneeded code and can jumble up the source code. I often will find myself using dreamweaver to clean up some stuff or to zoom in to see the code in full screen.

I have been trying to find out some advantages of different CMSs as well, But if you search here on SEOMoz you will find a lot of people recommending WordPress.

http://www.seomoz.org/q/open-source-cms is one I started the otherday.