Benefits of a WordPress Website. Why have a CMS?

Are you eager to build a website, but not sure where to start? Don’t worry, this is common for many business owners who are experts in their own field, but new to the world of HTML, CSS and web development in general.

That’s how content management systems came to exist in the first place: to take care of all the technical side of things like coding and formatting, so that users can focus on style, design and content.

We are in a world that’s constantly evolving, and your website is no exception. Once you launch it, you can expect to make constant changes, whether that’s as simple as a change of phone number or a new blog post, or something bigger like updating your product line-up. Calling on your web design agency for every small modification turns expensive and frustrating for both of you. That’s where a WordPress website or other CMS comes into the picture.

What is a CMS, exactly?

CMS is short for Content Management System. Simply put, a CMS gives you control over your website. It’s a software package that makes website management a breeze, letting you add new pages and change images or text on existing pages without touching code.

When you build a website from scratch, you need a professional well-versed in complex programming languages, and you need to register your domain name, choose a hosting provider, design the website, and so on. Needless to say, this is a lot of work, especially if all this jargon is new to you. When you opt for a CMS instead, the professional web developer’s tools are essentially built into the system, along with all the website-building software.

CMS benefits from the back end

Unless you have a very specific and unique layout in mind, most content management systems offer countless design templates to work from. Users can simply drag and drop text, images, video and other media into their chosen template and go from there.

For businesses that plan to make additions and changes to their website over time (or want their own blog, which we recommend), a CMS is the way to go. Your business will likely evolve, and your website will need updating with it, but websites coded entirely from scratch can be difficult and tedious to update and amend. For the same reason, a CMS is much better for previewing and testing new web pages, since it can be done with a click of a button rather than a lengthy development process.

Editing made easy

With a CMS website, you can make changes in just a few clicks, adding, modifying and deleting pages without worrying about breaking the final outcome. You can add or edit text, photos, videos, data and blog posts yourself. Because content editing becomes this simple, you’re not dependent on your web designer for every change, which saves real time, money and frustration.

CMS websites and SEO

Search engines like websites that are evolving and growing. With a CMS, you can make constant changes, whether that’s adding new pages or updating existing ones, and this makes SEO easier too. You can optimise every page on your website without needing any technical knowledge of coding, since features like meta tags, meta descriptions and titles are all built in and editable.

Track performance

You can track the performance of your CMS website with analytics, understanding visitor behaviour, where your traffic is coming from, and how well your site converts. You can use this data to make changes to your website frequently and instantly, rather than waiting on a redesign cycle.

For all these reasons, almost half the web runs on a CMS

Perhaps it’s no surprise that almost half of the trillion+ websites currently live on the internet use a CMS. WordPress is by far the most popularpowering over 40% of all websites on the internet. Wix, Squarespace, Shopify and Joomla! are also solid choices depending on your type of business, but here’s specifically why we build almost everything on WordPress.

Why choose a WordPress website specifically?

A WordPress website costs less.

As open source software, WordPress can be used or modified for free. You only pay for the services of a website designer or developer to customise it for your needs. Because the majority of the functionality is already in place, it reduces the amount of development work required, which keeps costs down. There will still be other expenses, hosting, domain registration, and any paid plugins or themes you choose to use, but in terms of ongoing maintenance, WordPress brings real savings, since you can create and update pages and blog posts yourself without depending on your web designer after launch.

A WordPress website is easy to use.

It doesn’t take extensive coding or design experience to manage one. With some basic training, adding new pages, editing text, and uploading images and videos becomes about as easy as using a word processor. Adding new features is also straightforward thanks to the enormous library of WordPress plugins available.

A WordPress website offers strong security.

As an open-source solution, WordPress is constantly reviewed for vulnerabilities, so security loopholes tend to be discovered and patched quickly. An expert WordPress agency adds real value here too, building a genuinely secure site with functional, well-maintained plugins, authorised access controls, server-security enhancements, and strong password protection. WordPress has plenty of built-in security features, but it takes a professional agency to use the platform to its full potential.

A WordPress website helps create a business edge.

SEO is made easier with WordPress’s simple structure, which allows for easy indexing by search engines. Meta tags, meta descriptions and titles all provide opportunities for keyword inclusion, improving your chances of ranking well. You can also make your existing WordPress website adapt to mobile visitors using the right themes and plugins, without needing an entirely separate mobile site.

Getting the most out of your CMS day to day

Once your WordPress website is up and running, there’s a lot you can do yourself before you need to call in a developer. We build for WordPress specifically so our clients can edit photography, text and a great deal else within their own site.

Imagery.

Nothing freshens up a site like quality photography. Most WordPress builds let you switch out hero graphics, jump points, products and anything placed within a typical post. It helps to know a thing or two about Photoshop, but online editors can often provide the cropping and downsizing tools you need, and many sites include a built-in cropping tool when you insert images. Most screens only display at 1920x1080px, so uploading anything larger creates two problems, your visitors can’t see the extra detail, and your site ends up loading larger files than it needs to. Keep your images appropriately sized for the web.

Text.

With responsive design, the length of a line of text changes depending on the width of the device someone’s using. A single line of 20 words on desktop might wrap to five lines on mobile. It helps to be aware of this when writing content, starting by making the text look right at desktop width, and avoiding sentences that might end with a single word alone on its own line by rewriting them slightly longer or shorter. Avoid manually breaking up text with the return key, this creates problems once it’s viewed on a smaller device, since the break doesn’t adjust with the layout.

In conclusion

For all these reasons, choosing a WordPress website for your business needs is a smart move. Digital Developments can help you create real business value through a well-built WordPress website, from the initial build through to ongoing content management, forms, videos, maps, or entirely new sections down the track. Contact us today for a website that delivers.