What’s so wonderful about WordPress, anyway?

WordPress is the most popular open source content management system (CMS) used for building and managing websites of all sizes. Over 40% of all the sites online are created with WordPress, largely because the software platform has made it much easier for web developers to build, launch and scale high-performing websites. 

WordPress was launched in 2003, aimed at people wanting to create online blogs. But it quickly became the most popular content management system on the planet for all types of websites. 

At Studio Kick, WordPress is our CMS of choice and the foundation for the majority of the websites we create.

1. Flexibility – Almost every kind of website imaginable can be created on WordPress, which makes it an ideal starting point to help a very diverse range of organisations achieve their unique goals. You name it, we’ve built it on WordPress, from business services and e-commerce sites (online stores) to membership sites, subscriptions sites, portals, blogs, live feeds and loads more. 
2. Scalability – It’s possible to start with a basic one-page WordPress website and expand it as an organisation evolves. A skilled web developer can keep content/products so well organised on WordPress that over time, the simplest site can grow up to become an ecommerce giant, a vast educational resource or pretty much anything it needs to be.
3. Community – WordPress is an open-source software. The collaborative community around it is vast and consistently proactive in making the platform even better, so it’s easy to find solutions and troubleshoot any issues that may arise.
4. SEO friendly – WordPress has loads of built-in features that help to improve search engine optimization and give a site the best chance of ranking well in Google search results when configured correctly.
5. Integration – WordPress plays nicely with others. It integrates with lots of the most useful third-party software, making it easy to add extra capabilities and functionality to a website. Choosing the right integrations can improve both the user experience on the front end and streamline business processes for owners and employees on the back end.

WordPress is a brilliant tool, but no software is perfect. There are potential pitfalls within every CMS, and it’s important to be aware of them so they can be avoided. Fortunately, an experienced website developer should be able to effectively navigate all of the below and more:

1. Security vulnerabilities – WordPress is the largest of the content management systems out there. Because of its widespread usage, it’s also the most targeted by cyber attacks. But keeping on top of updates to plugins, themes and WordPress versions along with good security tools is key to keeping hackers at bay.
2. Performance issues with large sites – large WordPress sites have been known to become unwieldy and encounter performance issues if scalability has not been planned out correctly. It’s important for a web developer to have a medium/long term plan from the outset to expand a WordPress site optimally over time.
3. Hosting incompatibility issues – not all hosting companies optimise their servers for WordPress, and this can negatively affect performance. Choosing a provider that does prioritise WordPress almost always delivers better results.
4. Dependency on third-party developers – WordPress allows web developers to add pre-built tools to sites to extend their functionality. But it’s important to choose reliable plugins from reputable providers to reduce the risk of encountering problems.

You can view more information on how we host and manage WordPress websites on an ongoing basis in our blog – ‘What is WordPress hosting and maintenance?‘. This will give you a better understanding on how we keep websites safe, secure, fast and optimised.

Ultimately, what we care about most at Studio Kick is creating the best websites for our clients that we can. For us, this means building websites that:

• Reflect a brand’s image, message and values to a tee
• Provide a captivating user experience
• Integrate perfectly on the back end with a client’s existing business processes
• Are scalable, and play an active role in delivering tangible results and business growth

We have experience of using many different content management systems including Joomla, Drupal, Shopify, SquareSpace, and Wix – and we’ve consistently found that WordPress allows us to do the best job of this. It all comes down to flexibility and scalability. 

It’s also important to mention that we’re not affiliated with WordPress in any way, so nobody is throwing huge wedges of cash at us to sing its praises (unfortunately 😢).

At Studio Kick, we’ve honed our WordPress skills over a ten year period, building and optimising websites that have helped our clients’ organisations to grow, develop and flourish online. You can check out some of our recent success stories here. 

We’d love to do the same for you. To get started, you can book a free consultation by clicking below: