Wordpress or custom built website?

[JonathanRolande]

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

[digitalgriffin]

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.

[Marcus_Miller]

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

[JonathanRolande]

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.

[digitalgriffin]

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.

[NiallSmith]

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!

[Marcus_Miller]

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.