One of the first questions many of our clients ask is “should I use WordPress to build my website?”. Our answer is simply, “YES!”

There are many different web platforms out there for you to choose from, but only WordPress stands out above the rest. Over 30% of the world’s websites are powered by WordPress. That is a huge number of WP websites!

Common Myths About WordPress

WordPress is for blogs only.
WordPress is free, so you do not need professional help from a web designer.
WordPress is a drag ‘n’ drop system, so it is not as good as a website coded by a developer.

These are just three common myths about WordPress, which are just that – myths. WordPress is way more than a blogging system. Why would giants like CNN and Coca-Cola use WordPress for their corporate websites if WordPress were just a blogging platform? yes, WordPress core is free, but if you want to create a knock-out website, you will need professional help, unless you are a web design genius yourself, of course! WordPress is also not just drag ‘n’ drop and there is much more to it. That said, going down the bespoke, custom-coded website route with a developer is asking for trouble and will end up costing you dearly down the line.

Why You Should Use WordPress To Build Your Website

1.

It Is Easy To Make Changes To Your WordPress Website Yourself

WordPress is for blogs only.
WordPress is free, so you do not need professional help from a web designer.
WordPress is a drag ‘n’ drop system, so it is not as good as a website coded by a developer.

These are just three common myths about WordPress, which are just that – myths. WordPress is way more than a blogging system. Why would giants like CNN and Coca-Cola use WordPress for their corporate websites if WordPress were just a blogging platform? yes, WordPress core is free, but if you want to create a knock-out website, you will need professional help, unless you are a web design genius yourself, of course! WordPress is also not just drag ‘n’ drop and there is much more to it. That said, going down the bespoke, custom-coded website route with a developer is asking for trouble and will end up costing you dearly down the line.

Use the WordPress Text Editor To Edit or Add Text

2.

You Have Total Control Over Your WordPress Website’s Design & Layout

WordPress is not a drag ‘n’ drop website builder like Squarespace, Wix or any of the other platforms. You have full control over how the website looks. Your website can look exactly as you want it to, without having to compromise on functionality.

The important thing to get right with WordPress is to have the right theme in place to build the website. Themes are the building blocks of your WordPress website and there are good themes and bad themes out there. The one we invariably choose above all others in the Pro theme by Themeco. You will be able to have a world-beating website using this theme, which is why we use it.

The control you have over the layout of your WordPress website is incredible. You can control the layout right down to the very last pixel, so there are no compromises. To find out more, ask us how this can be done.

3.

Additional Functionality – Plugins

When you use WordPress for your website, you are not just limited to the capabilities of the WordPress core and the theme you have chosen. Being open source, there is a massive community of dedicated developers who provide additional functionality through things called “plugins”. there are thousands of plugins available to give you the ability to add pretty much any functionality you can think of to your WordPress website!

There are both free and paid-for premium plugins. In many cases, the premium plugin adds extra functionality over the free (taster) version. Plugins you are likely to come across and use include contact forms, sliders, galleries, security plugins, online shop, testimonial rotators, social media buttons, the list is almost endless!

Plugins can be installed in a matter of seconds through the WordPress admin area.

Get Additional Functionality With WordPress Plugins

4.

Should I Use A Free or Premium WordPress Theme?

We briefly touched upon WordPress themes in section 2. As mentioned, themes are the building blocks for your WordPress website. there are thousands of themes available, but they are not all equal!

Free WordPress themes are perfectly usable, but they are not feature-rich and will usually have more advanced features locked down. Free themes will also often have 3^rd party branding imposed on key features, such as the theme’s developer’s link and logo in the footer. This can make your website look spammy and unprofessional. If your website is just for a hobby and control of your branding and features is not important, then a free theme is great!

However, if you need more advanced features, total control of your branding and the freedom to do what you want – with support from the theme’s developer, then you will want a premium theme. As web designers, we can not praise Themeco’s Pro theme highly enough. It is so flexible and advanced, that you can achieve almost anything with it. Using a professional web designer such as ourselves means you can have the design of the website created for you, leaving you to easily add content as and when needed.

Pro Theme By Themeco - Advanced Page Builder

Pro theme is suitable for professionals and self-designers, though some features are quite advanced. That said, their support is exceptional and will help guide you through any difficulties. there are, of course, many other good themes available to buy – Divi is our second favourite.

Word of Warning: When looking for a WordPress theme, we always caution our clients. With so many themes available through WordPress, the developers have to try and make their theme stand out above the rest. This is usually done by having stunning screenshots of a website built using that theme. Be careful! More often than not, this is smoke and mirrors. The developers are selling the theme based on beautiful images. What you need to ensure is that the theme actually has all the nuts and bolts you need, along with good support and forward development. this is a primary reason we stick with themes such as Pro and Divi. They are in it for the long haul and you know you are not going to find their theme suddenly becoming unsupported and no longer being developed.

5.

WordPress Ranks Well With Google

5.1.

Well Designed URL Structure

Using WordPress’s permalink structure, you can determine how your URLs are shown. Under normal circumstances, you will use a human-friendly structure, which can be deciphered by search engines too. For example, the URL of this post is https://www.cotswoldwebsites.co.uk/should-i-use-wordpress-to-build-my-website/. You can see that the second half of the URL, which is unique to this post, tells you exactly what the post is about! Google makes use of this too, in combination with content on the page itself. You will hopefully rank well for your keywords as a result!

5.2.

SEO Plugins

There are WordPress plugins available that purely help with SEO. Our favourite SEO plugin is Yoast SEO. Yoast has both free and premium versions, but the free one is good enough for most websites. Yoast allows you to set the meta title and description for every page and post, as well as a load of other functions which happen unseen in the background. Getting your Yoast entries right is a fast way to help your website rank well.

6.

Responsive Websites – Mobile-Friendly

With WordPress, you have a mobile-friendly straight out of the box! In 2020 your website must be mobile-friendly, or it is dead in the water before it has even gone live. Google and the other search engines prioritise a mobile-first dictat.

Over 50% of all online searches are now made from mobile devices – tablets or smartphones. Google has therefore decided that because the majority of searches are on mobile devices, therefore the end user deserves to see a good, legible and easy-to-use website on their mobile device. All websites are crawled by Google and if they find that it does not meet their minimum requirements for mobile-friendliness, then that website will suffer penalties – usually through bad ranking.

Thankfully, WordPress has mobile-first sorted! WordPress uses a responsive web design. This means that for every screen size breakpoint, the page or post flows to a different layout, which is best suited to that screen size being used. the standard WordPress responsive design is great, but with themes such as Pro, you can take this a whole step further!

Pro theme’s page builder allows you to actually create up to five completely different age designs, based upon the five main screen types:

Desktop
Laptop
Tablet – Landscape
Tablet – Portrait
Smartphone

You can really make sure that every page on your WordPress website is optimised for each screen size. For example, a slider may look great on a desktop and laptop, but not on a smaller screen. therefore, your design may show the slider on the two bigger screens, but for the mobile screens, you replace the slider with a static image.

Get in touch with us to find out more about responsive websites and how we can help you!

7.

Support

When you hit a problem, you will need support of some kind or other. Support for WordPress is easily available in so many different forms.

7.1.

Community Support

There is a huge WordPress community on many different online platforms – forums, community websites, specialist websites, and YouTube. this list is endless. Google your problem and you will find many free resources available to help you resolve the problem.

7.2.

Theme Support

All good themes provide excellent support, which covers the full extent of WordPress and the theme. In some cases, they will also help on periphery support topics too.

7.3.

Specialist Support

We offer specialist WordPress support to our clients and anyone needing help. Get in contact to find out how we can help you with your WordPress problem!

7.4.

Plugin Support

All good plugin developers provide support too. Some support is better than others, but for all major plugins, you can expect the help you need.

Summary

We have had a quick look at whether you should use WordPress for your website. In our opinion, the answer is a resounding, YES, you should use WordPress for your website!

WordPress is flexible, versatile, scaleable and as future-proof as anything in the digital age. It is perfect for almost any website and definitely for any small to medium business or hobby user.

Do you want to start your own WordPress website? We offer web design services and also WordPress training!

Free Website & SEO Review

Free Website Review

Frequently Asked Questions About Web Design

Web design is the process of designing and building a new website. The web design process starts with us working with you to establish what the primary goals of the website are, find out if you have a specific look the website should have, understand the levels of functionality you need it to have and any other details about the website.

We then get going on the design of the website, working closely with you at every step to make sure the website's design is exactly as you expect.

The length of time it takes to complete a web design project depends upon a number of factors. Main factors which affect the time it takes to create a website include, the size of the website and the level of functionality which needs to be incorporated into the website.

The other key area which affects how long a web design project lasts is your input. The sooner you can get the content for each page (text, images, videos,...) to us, the better. One of the biggest delays to a web design project is when the client does not have the content ready or the specifications are substantially changed mid-project.

We hate delays as much as you do and so right at the start of the web design process we work with you to encourage you to provide us with the content in advance of any stage of work beginning.

Absolutely, 100%! This is your website which is being designed and created, so your say in the design is paramount. Each website we build is a bespoke project just for the client. We therefore build the website to your specifications.

However, sometimes clients aren't able to visualise exactly what they want. This is where we can step in to help with our web design genius! We are close to hand for any help you need throughout the web design project.

The cost of web design comes down to the specifications of the website you have asked us to create for you. As each website is created bespoke for you, there is no generic cost. The cost of a new website depends upon the size the website will be, the level of functionality you need the website to have, whether you supply the content, or we have to create it for you and more.

To get an accurate estimate of the cost of your web design project, request a free consultation today.

All websites that we build are created using the WordPress platform. WordPress is a highly versatile platform, which performs well in search results. WordPress powers over 30% of all websites in the world, including giant organisations, such as CNN, Sony Music, BBC America, Microsoft News Center and even the Official Star Wars Blog! This website is also created using WordPress.

For all new websites, we use Themeco's amazing Pro Theme, which provides exceptional tools and features, allowing areas of WordPress to be designed in ways which would usually have required bespoke customisation.

In addition, WordPress has a huge variety of plugins available to add most types of functionality to your website, meaning it is the ideal platform for most businesses.

Yes. Unlike some other web design agencies, we give you full administrative access to all aspects of your website, once it has gone live. In some cases you may need some WordPress training to understand how to make changes. We can offer you as much training as you need to manage the website.

Alternatively, if you find it all too much, we offer website maintenance packages to help you maintain and update, as well as add or remove content.

Absolutely. We offer comprehensive website maintenance packages, which start at £97 per month. For this, we will update your website to make sure it is using the latest version of WordPress, keep your WordPress theme updated, update plugins on a regular basis and make monthly off-site back-ups of your website in case disaster strikes for any reason.

If you need fuller support or help with adding or modifying content, please contact us with your requirements and we will agree a price based upon the necessary workload you would like us to manage for you.

Yes. Usually, the addition of a feature such as an email signup form would be dealt with during the initial specification discussions and incorporated into the overall project. However, sometimes a new feature, like a signup form may be needed later on.

To integrate an email signup form into your website, we need access to your Mailchimp, Aweber, or whichever mailing platform you use's account. From there we either embed the form, or integrate it using API keys. Either way, your email signup form will be integrated to help you capture leads.

That depends entirely upon what you need your website to do. Aside from the home, about, contact and privacy pages, we recommend that you have one page dedicated to each service or product you wish to promote. This way, the content and SEO of each page can be optimised for the service or product being presented. If you have several service or product pages, these can be organised into submenus to keep the main menu uncluttered.

Some simple websites may just have half a dozen pages or so. Other websites we have built contain well over 150 pages.

Yes. Every website we design and build is 100% mobile-friendly. Our web design is mobile-first in its attitude. Over 60% of website views are on mobile devices these days. This means that the majority of your visitors will want to have content which is easily read or watched on their smartphones or tablets.

All our websites are built to be optimal when viewed on five different screen breakpoint sizes - mobile, portrait tablet, landscape tablet, laptop and desktop.

Your input can be as much as you like. However, there are minimum requirements to get the web design project underway:

Access to your web hosting account and cPanel.
Images for the website's pages. If you are not able to supply them yourself, we can help source them, but will need precise descriptions of the types of images you want.
Content for each web page (text, videos, PDF downloads, etc.). If you are unable to supply text, or are not a confident writer, we will ask you for a full list of bulletpoints relevant to each page, so we can create the text for you.
Later in the web design project, we will need access to your Google account to set-up and integrate Google services, such as Search Console, Analytics, Tag Manager and reCaptcha.

Should I Use WordPress To Build My Website?