Wordpress or custom built website?
-
Hello fellow mozzers,
Hope you are all well.
I am looking to get a website done and I am struggling to decide whether to get a custom build website site done or a website built on the WordPress platform.
Would you be able to share your experiences and advice/suggestions on what you would use, and why? (pros and cons, etc.)
Thanks in advance.
Kind Regards
-
Hey, I like Drupal, but I tend to use it as a base for much heavier bespoke projects rather than as a starting point for something small like a personal blog.
Each to their own I guess.
-
Personally, I would hop on Drupal. Although the learning curve is much steeper, once you get the hang of it you will have much better insight into a much greater expanse of web development (CSS, design, server-level stuff, etc.)
Although in the short run, such a transition can be very frustrating, it is an easily adaptable platform and looks like it's going to remain a top choice amongst devs for some time.
Not to mention, there's lots of great SEO opportunities if you set it up correctly!
-
That's probably the case Jazy.
Also, it may be the designer is just upselling to the other business in order to get more work as I have seen this done before.
-
Thank you so much for both your quick responses, they are great
WordPress is a lot quicker to set up, and has all the functions that we need. Plus millions of plugins that will be extremely helpful, not to mention the quote for a WordPress site we got was about £2000 cheaper!
The only worry I had was that the guy who gave us a quote for the custom build was building a website for a similar company to ours and they were moving away from WordPress. But I guess every website is different and they must need functionality that WordPress can't offer.
-
Hey Jazy
As Daniel points out, this really depends on what you want from a site. If you are looking to put out regular content and share your knowledge and experience via a blog and have a few service type pages then WordPress is ideal.
If you want a solid SEO platform then WordPress + the Yoast WordPress SEO plugin is pretty damn good (with some savvy configuration).
**Pro's of WordPress **
- Free
- Good for SEO
- Loads of free and premium plugins and themes
- Turnkey solution that can be up in no time
- lots of great backup and security plugins (wordfence and vaultpress for starters)
Cons of wordpress
- It is what it is so if that is not what you want then... you need a bespoke site
Pros of Bespoke
- You can have exactly what you want
Con's of bespoke
- Price
- maintenance
- adding new functionality can be costly
Ultimately, we always look to see if there is a reason not to use WordPress for a project and in most cases it is a perfect solution. This is especially true if you are looking to do a lot of blogging or set up a personal brand as it is just such a strong, scalable and flexible tool that has a low barrier to entry in terms of technical knowledge.
Happy to answer any specific questions if you have any!
Maybe check out WP101 as well, they have a bunch of WordPress videos so you can get a better idea of how everything works and what you will be getting.
Hope that helps!
Marcus -
Hi Jazy,
It all depends on what you want from a website!
Wordpress is easy to set up - has lots of options to customise and add new functionality, it has a wide community that supports it if you trip up and it doesn't hamper SEO (as long as you have brought the domain, there is no point going with the free Wordpress system if you want to optimise your websites SEO). However, there are a few limitations to the system in terms of what functionality you can ad for free and there are some security issues if you dont know what you are doing.
A custom build however can look and act exactly as you want it to but takes time and expertise to that for free. If you have that time and expertise though it means you get the website that you want at little cost. The downsides are that you lack the community and free developers.
Just my opinions.
Cheers,
Dan.
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
-
Move To a full new Website
Hey everyone, I'm going to change my website's Domain, Server, CMS and Theme I can't find any full & detailed answer to how to do that without losing anything, is anybody here has a full resource or could tell me a how-to checklist for doing that. Thanks in advance,
Web Design | | Mahmoud.ahmad.taha0 -
Community Discussion - How do you sync your marketing with your customers' experience?
Hi everyone! This week's Community Discussion comes from Tuesday's Moz Blog post by Mackenzie Fogelson, "Why Content Strategy Isn't Enough." Mackenzie says: "What you stand for as a company and a brand drives your products, your actions as a company, and also your marketing. More importantly, it will be the spark that ignites a connection with the people in your community. When it comes down to it, people will continue to have access to more: more content, more products, and more choice. The need to build meaningful relationships with your customers is not an optional approach, but a requirement. Identifying and communicating your purpose as a brand is just one part of making this happen. The rest is delivering a seamless, authentic experience." It's becoming more and more important to be aware of all aspects of your brand and your customers' experience. When you think of your content strategy, does it include all the potential customer touchpoints in their journey? Is this something you've already been doing, or is it a new idea to you? What's your strategy for making sure your online marketing efforts sync up with a visitor's or customer's experience?
Web Design | | MattRoney5 -
Wordpress Theme is blocking alt tags. Does anybody know of any special plugins?
We have a special wordpress theme for nataliecass.com. Unfortunately the theme is blocking all the alt tags (this is a photography website...alt tags are very important). Does anybody know of any special WP plugins for alt tags? Thanks
Web Design | | VanguardCommunications0 -
Best techniques for trying to rank a single page website?
I am new to SEO and am currently trying to market a single page website. Its proving to be hard. I have managed to get the site to page one for a few keywords and it is improving (upto page 2 for some desired keywords) but it seems to have stuck there for a few weeks now - with no movement. I am able to develop it if required. However I thought that I would just ask if there was anything that could give it a nudge without this? I have done on-site optimisation. As far as I'm aware that's about as good as it can be. So any advice?
Web Design | | Chstphrjohn0 -
Creating Multiple Sub-Directories in Wordpress
Hi fellow Mozzers, I'm currently in the process of planning/building a website for e-commerce and have stumbled on a bit of a hurdle with sub-directories. I want to use a piece of software called SellerDeck to generate my e-commerce store and also my homepage (index.html). This element of the build is fine as the e-commerce store will sit in a sub-directory of .co.uk/store/. What I'm struggling with is the rest of the site architecture. I want to use Wordpress to manage content for the rest of the site. I want to have sub-directories .co.uk/help/ and .co.uk/blog/, all managed from one Wordpress installation. Is this possible? If not, does having two separate installations of Wordpress create any speed issues? Additional question for bonus points from me; lets say I wanted to do away with sub-directories for the /help/ and /blog/ elements (but keep the /store/), could I have a Wordpress installation that doesn't generate a homepage (index.php) so I can utilise the e-commerce software version instead. Essentially I'd be installing Wordpress at the root folder, but wouldn't have an index.php made by Wordpress. Many thanks in advance
Web Design | | BlueTree_Sean0 -
Does Google penalize duplicate website design?
Hello, We are very close to launching five new websites, all in the same business sector. Because we would like to keep our brand intact, we are looking to use the same design on all five websites. My question is, will Google penalize the sites if they have the same design? Thank you! Best regards,
Web Design | | Tiberiu
Tiberiu0 -
Redirect From .aspx to .html if already indexed - Website Redesign
Hi Guys I would like to know if somebody could possibly shed some light on this for me. We are in the process of re-designing our site, but we are keeping all of our content in terms of site structure, internal linking etc. the same. Now we were wondering if it would be a SEO best practice for us to change our pages' extension from .aspx to .html and just put a re-direct from the aspx to the html pages. Or should we keep everything as is, and maybe just revise our on-page seo efforts as well as do some more link-building. I just have to note that we are currently ranking very well for top positions and obviously all these pages are already nicely indexed. And then another question I have is with regards to our mobi site of this same website.Our dev team created it using Responsive Web Design, but they decided to implement techniques that show and hide content based on what device you are viewing it on. So when viewing it on your desktop, it will show content as per normal, but when viewing it on a mobile device it will hide this content and show the content formatted for that specific mobile device. So we are obviously sitting with a case of dup content here.Is this technique acceptable, or is there a workaround/different way of implementing this? Thanks In Advance Dave
Web Design | | DavidZA10 -
Tons of 404 errors - wordpress permalink structure
hi all, noticed my crawl report is showing a ton of 404 errors. my site is running on wordpress, and i believe this is related to a change in my permalink structure (all of the pages do exist, but the url is slightly different). how does the crawl report find these 404s? When navigating around my site, the correct pages are accessible, but the report is seeing the old URL structure for some reason. Do these live in the sitemap? How can this be corrected? thanks so much for your help!
Web Design | | lsat0