Advantages of wordpress over dreamweaver
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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?
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Is it OK to put a Blog Post and a Page within the same folder on a Wordpress hosted website?
Our education company website (hosted on wordpress) has evolved into having content on key topics distributed across both blog posts and pages. For example, "top-pharmaceutical-companies" lends itself to being published as a page. However other content "top-pharmaceutical-companies-usa-2016" lends itself to being published as a blog post as it's more temporal in nature. Now we'd like to establish topical domain relevance for the root keyword "pharmaceutical companies" and build a folder www./ourcompany/pharmaceutical-companies/ But when we look through our blog content, we notice we have "Blog Posts" that would be an excellent fit for certain folders within our "Page" url structure. So would it be OK to amend these blogs post urls addresses to place them within the folder structure of the pages.
On-Page Optimization | | GetReskilled0 -
How does Google handle read more tags in Wordpress
Hi Everyone I am wondering how Google handles the read more tag in Wordpress. I pasted the link to a blog post on Google and found nothing (domain.com/post#readmore). Then I paste the version without #readmore (domain.com/post) and found that Google indexed the page but with the option to click "read more" to read it. The full blog post is not in their index, just the version asking you to read more. Is this because Google hasn't gotten to it or is Google ignoring it. I am not sure but ideally I rather have the full blog post indexed, not the read more version. I am curious to whether this will cause duplicate content issues. What are your experience with this and is it advisable to use an alternate method for read more. Maybe with a Wordpress plugin. Thanks in advance.
On-Page Optimization | | gaben0 -
Wordpress GD Star Rating Not Showing In SERPS
I've installed the GD Star Rating plugin on my site for example this page: http://www.top-10-dating-reviews.com/up-for-it/ (this links to an adult site) and have tested it with the rich snippet testing tool and the results show the stars as I want them. However in search results google is not displaying the stars? Has anyone come across this before? When I check webmaster tools structured data it is finding 1 type on 15 pages. I have two types, star ratings and google authorship so it appears google is not picking up on the star ratings in webmaster tools but it works on the rich snippet testing tool? Very confusing! Any help much appreciated!
On-Page Optimization | | SamCUK0 -
Wordpress pages URL's redirection.
I was checking W3C Markup Validation and in report it was shown that that pages (not post or any other URL's just PAGES) at investmentcontrarians.com are 301 redirected. e.g. original URL "http://www.investmentcontrarians.com/debt-crisis" which is redirected to "http://www.investmentcontrarians.com/debt-crisis/" I know that its not that serious issue, but still want to know why only pages are being redirected and how can we avoid it.
On-Page Optimization | | NumeroUnoWebSolutions0 -
Home Page Optimization For Wordpress Blog
Hi, I'm developing a wordpress site and currently confused over home page optimization. I'm planning to use excerpts of posts on home page so that users can glance over all recent posts and at same time avoid content duplication. But I'm not sure how to optimize the home page for couple of targeted keywords . How can i make sure that there is enough content, proper H1, title tag etc on home page for target keywords even by using excerpts of different posts on home page with Read more links to complete posts? Should i use some sticky post on home page to take care of all onpage requirements for required keywords or there are some other better ways to do it? Regards, shaz
On-Page Optimization | | shaz_lhr0 -
What is the best out-of-the-box optimized WordPress Theme?
I've reviewed other answers on this forum and searched the web. Still looking for a good answer that's actually specific and can explain why. I've looked at studiopress.com themes, pagelines.com which I love but doesn't appear to have much optimization out of the box, http://themeforest.net/item/udesign-wordpress-theme/253220 http://www.vklabx.com/wordpress-themes/wordpress-theme-ad-flex-niche.php PS - not looking for answers that involve the use of SEO plugins, but if there's a theme you know of that takes minimal editing to improve optimization I'd be interested as well. Thanks in advance, hope this can help someone else as well
On-Page Optimization | | Aqua0 -
Impact of website redesign when changing to wordpress
Agency designed website and not sure what platform was used. Are now working minor redesign of site but wants to do so in word press. I don't have any problem with word press but don't want to start over ranking for key phrases. I don't want to change URL from mysite.com for the home page. What is the right way to make sure this is done correctly. I could not find a resource on the site. I don't mind researching this but am not sure what to search for to find info. Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | arainey0070 -
WordPress (.com) and SEO
I am in my 30 day trial and very interested in my results. I think I am probably in a small minority in having the same web site up and running for approaching 17 years (registered in January 1995 :)) but only now am I looking at SEO seriously (to the extent that I want to learn more myself, as opposed to having others promise great fortune!)). Anyway, before committing to SEOMoz on an ongoing basis I want to understand just how actionable the information on my dashboard is. With that in mind, here's the first of what is (hopefully) a series questions that about low-hanging fruit I might be able to check off quickly. I recently brought up a new blog on WordPress.com (note - hosted by WordPress, not a self-hosted implementation). I have had this blog running for less than a month and have just 18 posts. And I am being overwhelmed with thoudands of errors/warnings from SEOMoz. These fall into a few categories: Duplicate content: As I understand it, each TAG I associate with a single blog post creates a unique URL. For example, if I have a single post with tags for "flowers", "wine" and "cakes", I get URLs generated such as <blog url="">/flowers, <blog url="">/wines and <blog url="">/cakes. Obviously, tagging posts is a common scenario. Must I just accept these duplicate content warnings?</blog></blog></blog> Title element too long: These are self generated by WordPress.com and the default format includes the date the post was submitted (which takes a bunch of characters followed by the title used). Many of the posts are well over 70 and this seems really easy to do. Missing meta-description: As far as I can tell, Wordpress.com doesn't give me an option to specify these. So, must I just accept these issues if I use WordPress.com (which, again, seems like a very common scenario) and how negative is this to me? Thanks. Mark
On-Page Optimization | | MarkWill0