To Wordpress, or not to Wordpress?

We do professional websites... not amateur blogs.

On the whole, Wordpress looks like a great piece of free software to set up and run your own website, both quickly and without fuss.

If you want to do it all yourself… then this statement can be true - depending on how involved you want to get with tinkering with code (or not).
But at IC360, we’re all about professional websites; not amateur ones. We want to give your business real online success.

Benefits? Let's look at some keywords from that first sentence.

Free
Yes, it’s free to download and install. But ‘free’ doesn’t usually mean ‘better’ or ‘best’. Neither does it usually mean ‘fit for purpose’, but we realise this can be a matter of opinion.

Set up
Yes, it takes less than 5 minutes to install Wordpress and it’s very quick to get started using one of the many free Themes available to download from the web. But how many thousands of other businesses will also be using the same Theme for their website design? What about your company’s branding & identity? Isn’t that important to you?

Run
Yes, you can run your own website completely on your own terms using Wordpress. That is, as long as you are happy working within its own comfort zone; using plugins which may or may not work as you want them to; using Themes which don’t quite fit in with your company’s brand. And what happens if you want more? Or if you need to tinker with the site code itself? Are you prepared to learn HTML, CSS, Javascript and PHP? Probably best to leave that to the professionals, while you focus on getting more sales and running your business.

Quick
Yes, you can create content for your site relatively quickly and easily using Wordpress. But then most CMS systems (should) make it easy to add/edit site content. Expanding the features and functionality of your website beyond what Wordpress can achieve out-of-the-box isn’t so simple - even by using plugins. In fact it can be a major pain in the backside and far more complicated than it needs to be. This means longer development times, more cost to you and more things that can go wrong. We say… “Why overcomplicate the issue?!”

Without fuss
It’s even easy to install software updates. And why would you need to install software updates? Probably because Wordpress is now one of the most frequently targeted pieces of web software by hackers and suchlike. Security is a major concern with websites today… so maybe it would be safer (and much less hassle) to use a platform which is more secure and less targeted.

So what CMS do IC360 recommend?

We love Expression Engine and we know you will too.
Just like Wordpress, it too started life predominantly as a blogging engine, but it has since become so much more.

We use it to provide CMS functionality to as many of the websites we build as possible. And here’s why…

It’s very easy…
to integrate any HTML templates we throw at it - meaning that we can custom design a website look exactly how we please, knowing that the CMS can drive it with no hassles.

It’s a paid-for commercial product.
This means we know the software developers are serious about the product and we know they are constantly improving it all the time, to make it slicker and even more flexible.

It’s simple.
There is no PHP involved. If we need to do anything more advanced, we can easily use PHP in the templates if necessary. But 99% of the time, everything we need can be done using standard Expression Engine tags.

It’s solid and secure.
We know that updates will just work, as they will have been thoroughly tested. And it doesn’t get targeted by hackers and other less scrupulous characters… unlike Wordpress.

It’s flexible.
There are hundreds of Modules, Extensions, Accessories and Plugins available to expand the functionality. These can cover anything from nice little extras for the Control Panel, right up to full Shopping Basket and Order Management modules.

Have a look at our Brochure Websites portfolio