To Wordpress, or not to Wordpress?

We design and build professional websites... not amateur blogs or hobby sites.

“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 tinkering with code and PHP.

So why do so many people favour Wordpress over other CMS platforms?

Benefits? Let's look at the keywords from that first statement.

Free Software

Yes, Wordpress is 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.
If you’re happy to work within the rules and boundaries of the system, or have the skills navigate the requirements and avoid the pitfalls involved, then you shouldn’t have too many issues. That said, no software platform is perfect.

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.
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 too?

Run Your Own Website

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 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 keeping your customers happy.

Quick

Yes, you can create content for your site relatively quickly and easily using Wordpress; and it’s simple to add more in time as well.
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 when using plugins. In fact it can be a major pain in the backside and far more complicated than it needs to be (in our opinion)! 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. But why would you need to install software updates?
Probably because Wordpress is 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 which CMS does IC360 recommend?

We’re all about professional websites; not amateur ones. We want to give businesses and organisations a real chance to succeed online - and this requires website management and development for life. Unless they’re coders themselves, not many business owners will want to step anywhere near website code, so keeping things as simple as possible is often the key for long term success and flexibility, with minimal headaches.

We love the ExpressionEngine CMS 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 all the websites we build. And here’s why…

It’s Very Easy…

to integrate any HTML we throw at it - meaning that we can custom-design a website to look exactly how we please, knowing that the CMS can drive perfectly, it with zero hassles.

It’s Open Source And Free

While it is owned and developed by a commercial business, it’s also contributed to by the tight-knit ExpressionEngine development community, for the benefit of all web designers and developers who use ExpressionEngine to drive their own businesses.
This means plenty of help on hand, should it be required, and lots of professional and community support.

It’s Simple

There is no PHP involved.
If we need to do anything more advanced, and get our hands dirty, we can easily use PHP in the templates if necessary. But 99% of the time, everything we need can be done using the standard ExpressionEngine tags.

It’s Solid And Secure

We know that the software 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 Add-Ons available to expand the functionality.
These can cover anything from nice little extras for the Control Panel, right up to full Ecommerce Shopping Basket and Order Management modules.

In summary…

Wordpress is okay… it does a good job… but it’s not our bag - and we think the world deserves better! Which is why we have selected ExpressionEngine as CMS of choice.

We enjoy the power and flexibility of ExpressionEngine, without being overly complicated. It’s very capable tool, whether you’re looking to create a small brochure site, single-pager landing site, fully featured ecommerce site, back office job management system or anything in between.

If you’d like to talk about designing and building a website for your business or organisation - or need your existing ExpressionEngine CMS updated - we’ll be happy to help.