Wordpress or custom built website?
-
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
-
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.
-
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!
-
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.
-
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.
-
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 -
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.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Directory website creation
Hi, I'm in the process of helping a client with a wedding show & supplier directory. Could anyone give me pointers as to the best practice for the architecture? Because the suppliers and shows will be listed geographically is there a possibility for the site to seem keyword stuffed? thanks, MOZ brain, you guys always rock.
Web Design | | Libra_Photographic0 -
Wordpress Tag Organization Tips
Curious if anyone has some good examples of ways to organize your WordPress tags without making your sidebar a football field long and hard to navigate. My blog is https://karmahill.com/blog and I could use some ideas. We have main categories of photo shoot types, for example, "Couples", located on the sidebar. We want to add tags to go with those main categories for further categorization and user experience example: Couples Engagement Proposals Honeymoon Maternity My question is, do I need to make "tag" pages for those posts to reside on or is their another way to get it done with less work, that is much faster? I don't want to have to make 30 tag pages or is that just what you have to do?
Web Design | | photoseo13 -
Switched from Wix to Wordpress dreaded hashtag URL
Recently took over managing a site for a non-profit which was using the dreaded Wix. Switched over to Wordpress but now Google still has the old URL's with the hashtag. Can't forward them in .htaccess and don't want to add javascript for fear of slowing down load time. I found a solution that seems like it will take hours and hours of work. I found the solution at http://www.thedriversgarage.com/web-technology/redirecting-hashbang-urls-wix-urls/ but it seems like it would take hours with all the URL's. I submitted an XML sitemap in Google webmaster tools. My question is, how serious could this effect SEO for my site? Google accepted the new sitemap but still has the old URL's in SERP. How long does this generally take to remove? Will the hashtag URL's penalize the site for duplicate content? If so is there a way to tell Google the homepage without hashtags is the page with original content? Sort of like the rel=canonical tag which I know wont work as the hashtag URL's all redirect to the homepage so they will all have the tag. Does Google ignore the hashtag? Could there even be a benefit to this, possibly the homepage getting more page authority due to the redirects? How serious is this? Thanks in advancing.
Web Design | | limited70 -
Will having two wordpress themes installed hurt seo?
We currently have 3 sites built on WordPress that have little to no blogging capabilities. Currently, all published posts show up on a /category page which does not resemble the traditional blog format and is not aesthetically pleasing. We would like to have a more traditional blog and are considering installing a second wordpress theme on the site which will strictly be used for /blog and all the posts. My question is will having the second WordPress installation on the sites hurt us in any way on the SEO front and if we go this way should we place the install in a subfolder or on a subdomain? Is there anything else we need to worry about with making this transition? Thank you in advance for the advice! Patrick
Web Design | | PlanetDISH0 -
Does Google penalize duplicate website design?
Hello, We are very close to launching five new websites, all in the same business sector. Because we would like to keep our brand intact, we are looking to use the same design on all five websites. My question is, will Google penalize the sites if they have the same design? Thank you! Best regards,
Web Design | | Tiberiu
Tiberiu0 -
Wordpress/ Insert Tables/ SEO
I'm using Wordpress to create websites and blogs. I have limited (non-existent) HTML Coding knowledge. I'm looking to insert tables within my pages with information. Inside of these tables I want certain names to link to another page with more specific information about that name. I'm using a plugin called "WP Tables Reloaded" it simple helps you to create aesthetically pleasing tables without needing to know HTML Code or CSS. The issue is... when you create this table and insert it to the post, the only thing that shows on the sites back-end page is the table I.D. and the only thing that shows in the HTML is the tables I.D. It looks like this... [table id=2 /] I don't think search engines will be able to crawl this table, thus I won't be receiving any credit for the links being used within the table. Am I right about this?
Web Design | | AndySolo0 -
Moving Existing Website to CMS
I had zero experience with design, seo, etc..prior to joining seomoz last year, but have been tweaking my site to get better ranking and leads. I'm at the point now where I have to move my existing 8 year old static html website (lifeinsuranceadvisors.com) to a CMS system but am concerned about the impact this will have on my rankings, and money I currently make from my site selling the leads i generate. I generate leads for life insurance industry, have 150+/- existing pages, and it takes me forever to add new pages, make changes, not to mention the look is worn. What is the best way to make this move? Secondly, what SEO friendly CMS systems do you recommend? Thanks Mike Horbal Thank you all for the quick response and great info...I'm going to put my wishlist together before i make a move..thanks again.
Web Design | | mjhorbal1 -
Best way to develop a WordPress version of your site and then move it?
I have two websites that generate hundreds of organic hits each day. I want to switch both of them to WordPress. What is the best way to go about developing these sites then making them live while still keeping the current ones up?
Web Design | | C-Style0