These days, I don’t have to convince many people that they need a website (although that does happen sometimes). However, I do often find myself explaining to prospective clients why we build exclusively on WordPress.
The question of “Why WordPress?” is often asked in light of the alternatives: Wix, Squarespace, etc. And when you dig down into it, the question is usually driven by cost. This is understandable, but we’d like to help folks understand why WordPress is the better option and how going with another option might end up costing you more in the long run. 😅
Why WordPress?
We would never use a website platform if we didn’t believe it was truly the best option for our clients. In fact, our own website is built on WordPress, using the same builder that we use for clients. Here’s the breakdown of why we chose WordPress for our website and believe it’s the best choice for your business as well.
Your content should belong to you
If you’ve ever known a fellow business owner who lost their social media account for any reason, you already know the importance of owning your content. While social media is a powerful tool for businesses, it’s also inherently risky because anything you post on those platforms belongs to the platform and not to you because your own account really doesn’t belong to you. 😬
That’s one of the reasons we say that every business should have a website, even if it’s just a short single page. But what about the website platform? Wouldn’t you own everything regardless of which platform you choose?
Yes and no. Your data is a hot commodity to many companies out there, so whenever you begin using a new service, you should pay close attention to the way they let you manage your data. WordPress excels in this area, allowing their users to have full control over their data. And beyond your own concerns, you also need to prioritize using a platform that your clients and customers can trust.
The open-source advantage 🌐
Innovation is at the core of good business, and that’s true for website platforms as well. Things change quickly on the web; just think back to how different websites looked in the 90s or early 2000s. 🤯 Things that used to look cutting-edge back then look almost comedic now. And even websites that were built within the last decade can end up looking dated really quickly. (That’s why we say that websites are never really “done.”)
As standards and design preferences shift and change, platforms have to keep up with changes to allow websites that live on their platform to follow the trends and continue to impress. It’s absolutely possible to do this within a company, but the open-source model is often more successful in this respect. Open-source software is one in which the code is publicly available and folks can make changes to it and distribute it as they wish, often building their own software to work in tandem with the original.
WordPress is open-source, and you can tell in the pace of innovation that happens on the platform and all the other software and tools built to work with WordPress. When more brilliant minds are working on the same problem, the possible solutions tend to be higher quality and available more quickly. People are also incentivized to work collaboratively to be among those at the forefront, and continued improvement is almost guaranteed.
There’s no shortage of WordPress developers
While this can be a marketing pain point for us personally as web developers who work on WordPress, it’s a great thing for businesses who need a website! Many developers specialize in WordPress, and their skills are honed to build beautiful websites on the platform.
Although we believe in sticking with our customers through the entire website process—especially since a lot of our customers come to us from failed projects 😞—we also know that sometimes life throws you a curveball. If there were some reason why you’d need to take your website elsewhere, it’s easy to find another developer who could pick up where we left off.
The possibilities are [nearly] endless 🤩
WordPress is designed to support any kind of website. That means that no matter your industry or niche, WordPress likely fits all your needs. You don’t have to worry that there won’t be options for your particular needs, and if those needs change in the future, your website will be able to pivot right along with your business.
On top of that kind of flexibility, there are extensive themes and plugins available for WordPress (another perk of open-source software). These themes and plugins allow us to build necessary elements into your website to meet the specific needs of your business.
Building on other platforms can often result in a cookie-cutter kind of end product because there is such a lack of customization available when you really get into development. 😐 That will never be an issue with a WordPress website.
Powering over 40% of the Internet
Did you know that 810,000,000 (yes, that’s 810 million 🤯) websites are built using WordPress? That’s an astounding number of sites, and it illustrates the point we’re hoping to make: WordPress is a clear favorite. And that’s with good reason! (See above 😉)
Why is WordPress dominating so much of the market? Beyond everything we’ve already mentioned, there’s the reliability factor: people know they can trust WordPress. The company itself monitors security issues and attends to issues quickly, and the open-source aspect means that a bunch of other developers are keeping an eye out for things too. Updates happen regularly, meaning your website stays ahead of the threat most of the time.
The software itself is also robust, meaning that you can do a lot within it and not have to worry that it’s going to go catastrophically wrong. 🙃 That’s important to developers, and it should be important to you as a business owner as well.
Why doing it yourself doesn’t work out
Business owners and entrepreneurs often tend to be self-sufficient to a fault, thinking that just because they could do it themself means that they should. A lot of times, this mentality works out, but when it comes to websites, we’ve seen a lot of DIYers meet their match.
Where Wix and Squarespace fall short
In terms of DIY, there is a certain friendly accessibility that platforms like Wix and Squarespace have really figured out. Folks looking to build their own website often take a look around, watch some tutorial videos, and think, “I could do that!” And they’re probably right.
It’s actually in that DIY friendliness that you find the flaw: because it’s accessible to anyone, the design has to be simplified enough to remain accessible. This comes down to taking out a lot of the impressive customization options that people really want in their website. The cookie-cutter effect is a direct result of this: you have to use a template to build a site yourself, and there aren’t that many major changes you can make, so all the websites built using the same template come out looking similar. 🥱
You’ll likely need a developer to build your WordPress site, but when you come up with some exciting idea like having sparkles rain down from the top of the screen or a little mascot dragging a window into view, it’s more likely that they’ll be able to pull it off.
Where you can DIY in WordPress
It might sound like WordPress is entirely inaccessible to the average person. That’s not the case at all! It just usually takes an experienced developer to be able to build from the ground up. But once the website is built, there’s often a ton of space for folks to continue to modify and grow their site without necessarily having to have a developer involved in every step.
At Valerian, we use Elementor Page Builder to create our websites. This page builder is a product created by another company, not WordPress (yay, open-source! 🎉), and it allows you to design your web pages in a drag-and-drop approach. That means that you don’t need to understand the nitty-gritty of web development to use it.
When we launch a site, we also give our clients training on how to use their site, and that includes using Elementor to edit existing pages and even add new ones, all on their own. We also have an extensive and ever-growing Website Guide that has helpful how-to articles.
Our recommendation? A WordPress website built with Elementor! 🥳
At this point, our recommendation probably doesn’t shock you. But I do hope that you have a better understanding of why we make this recommendation. WordPress is the go-to for so many businesses because of its perks and strengths, and those positives far outweigh any of the negatives.
When it’s coupled with Elementor, your WordPress website becomes the kind of easily editable dream you always wanted it to be. You get a beautiful website that can continue to grow with your business, and that’s the dream. 😌
Ready to build your dream website?
If you’re in the market for a website, we’d love to be your website partner! Visit our websites page to learn more about our plans, and if you aren’t sure what plan fits your business best, we have a quiz that will help you decide. We hope to hear from you soon!
