The majority of the projects we touch involve WordPress in one way or another. As an open source platform that is free to use and with so many quality themes and plugins to choose from, it is clear why WordPress is the one of the gold standards for running a website.
What is WordPress?
NOTE: We use the open source content management system found at WordPress.org, not to be confused with the proprietary service found at WordPress.com.
WordPress is what is called a content management system, or CMS for short. This means any web user with nominal web experience can log into the back-end of the website and control all of the content. At Webables, we really appreciate the WordPress platform because it offers an inexpensive, secure and professional method of establishing an online presence. To boot, it is extremely easy to integrate with all of the commonly needed third party services. It can be used for small start-up companies, as well as larger enterprise level companies.
Each WordPress site is composed of three (3) main elements; the WordPress Core engine, a theme and various plugins.
Themes
The WordPress themes repository has plenty of free themes to pick from. A theme is what is responsible for the website layout, colors, fonts and overall organization. Most themes allow the web admin to change colors, fonts and other basic elements, however the layouts are mostly fixed and unable to be changed. To achieve a different layout, a web-admin is usually tasked with picking a different theme from the repository. The free themes are a nice option for smaller budgets, however they do come with their challenges.
Free and inexpensive themes are burdened with most or all of the following
- Bloat – The “one size fits all” themes have a massive amount of options and settings. All of these files and functionalities are loaded by the web server each time the website is accessed. This causes a slowdown in page speeds and user experience. It also makes managing the site more difficult as you have to sort through dozens of settings to find the few you actually use.
- SEO – Though many of the themes come with url and keyword options, they are poorly implemented and/or limit your ability to customize them. There are valid plugins to use for SEO efforts and a theme can get in the way if the code was written poorly.
- Security – The free and inexpensive themes can get abandoned by their authoring developers. This means that security patches and updates will not take place, putting your website at risk of being hacked. The more time that goes on without security updates the greater the risk.
- Cookie cutter – You’re limited to where you can place images, banners, navigations, forms and other important features of a website. Where one feature may be a good fit for representing your entity, the other features may cloud your message and presentation.
Custom theme development
Custom WordPress theme development is another strong point at Webables. We build so many custom themes and plugins for WordPress that we have a large inventory of boiler-plate starting points to save our Clients time and money. Though the boiler-plates are time savers, we also build plenty of themes from scratch after creating a complete website design. We prefer to work with our Clients starting from the design phase; this allows for a truly unique digital presence with one-of-a-kind features and functions that compliment the authenticity of the entity, product or service.
WordPress Plugins
Much like themes, WordPress has a repository of free and paid plugins. Plugins allow the web admin to implement certain functions or features that the theme does not come with by default. A good example of a useful WordPress plugin is Contact Form 7, which is used for adding a simple contact form to your website. It allows the web admin to specify the fields of the form, the email address submissions get sent to as well as the placement of the form in the website.
Custom Plugins
Free and paid out-of-the-box plugins are useful if your needs are simple and standard. But what if your website functionalities require light to heavy sophistication that existing plugins cannot satisfy? This is where entities and web admins can benefit from a custom coded WordPress plugin.
Examples of scenarios where a custom plugin is necessary
- E-commerce integration where the merchant service provider does not provide a WordPress plugin.
- Service request forms that integrate with a third party operations program.
- Sales orders that get sent to a fulfillment process.
- Customer or asset data that needs to be imported or otherwise synced.
- Inventory data from custom or non-standard third party sources.
- Etc…
WordPress Consultations
If you own a WordPress website or are planning to start a website, we would love to hear from you. Wether you hire us for the job or not, we want to arm you with the correct information before you begin making commitments. We rescue a good number of websites from security vulnerabilities and performance issues, so it doesn’t hurt to learn about some common pit-falls before making any investments. Reach out to us and we’ll help guide you through the following, free of cost:
- Web Server / Hosting, who owns it and how do the costs break down.
- Domain Name, who owns it and are you paying too much.
- Content, are there third party copyrights on any of your images or content?
- Strong-Arming, are you free to take your website to someone else to manage? Or is your website held hostage by a company?
- Security, is your website protected from the barrage of attacks it will face? Is it vulnerable to getting hijacked?
- Updates, is your website receiving regular updates as code packages become obsolete?
These are just a few examples of important concepts that need to be discussed before engaging in a website commitment. While the other guys hope you don’t bring these topics up, we thrive on these discussions and the confidence they provide you with.