Selecting a website platform is one of the many important decisions any start-up business or small business owner needs to make to successfully grow the business or brand.
There are lots of options to select from, but in recent years the most selected platform in nearly all cases is WordPress. It is recommend that start-up business use WordPress as website platform for building basic small start-up business websites. WordPress has a user friendly interface and knowing how to employ a word processor you can include and edit the information on your online site. That includes adding images, graphics, video and more. WordPress makes it an easy task to optimize start up business website for SEO and search engines love the structure and organization.
WordPress has many methods and plugins you should use to boost your SEO rank. WordPress provide thousands of themes and plugins that can be used to boost the design and functionality of start-up business website. WordPress has plug and play functionality for the social networking sites and you can find thousands of plugins to give its ability to boost and improve social networking. WordPress websites on the web have security at the top priority and is continually being updated and maintained. WordPress is supported by a huge online community. WordPress is free; you only pay for your domain name and monthly hosting.
When you are in the development industry you often get the question from friends and family to what would be the easiest way to setup a website for a new non-profit or start-up business. I nearly always direct people to WordPress because it is in almost all cases the better match. Although you get other free platforms they are often very restrictive and a nightmare to customize later.
One of the greatest things about WordPress is that it allows you to publish content. WordPress has a simple user interface. Whether it’s posting new content as previously mentioned above, or handling several other aspect of your site, WordPress has continued to boost on its interface and the current layout is pretty user friendly. WordPress is also a trusted platform. It has a large community of developers, designers, and users. If you can find only a number of users it’s going to be difficult to have support whenever you get stuck. Additionally it is going to be difficult to find people that know how to work with that technology. The technology WordPress uses is pretty standard and is located of all web hosts. Installing it on a hosting server is very straight forward.
One sometimes fail to realize how advantageous WordPress plugins can really be. It can grow you site from a basic website to a magnificent forceful site by just adding a few sometimes even free plugins. Scheduling, eCommerce, invoicing, CRM, almost anything you can think about can be added to your WordPress site making it powerful and professional. It is therefore no wonder that I would almost always choose WordPress as the platform for a small or start up or even larger business. If you want to attend our 25 of June Workshop to create your own WordPress site, then this is your change
I chose a WordPress website. I’m not technical and had some help setting it up but find it pretty easy to make updates and edits. I will look into the plug-ins. I know I have a couple but haven’t made an effort to learn more. Thanks for sharing the information.
Yes plug-ins can be amazing, you can really extend your site in an amazing way but make sure you choose well rated plugins some of the other can be a bit dodgy. You will see the best plugins coming up in posts time and again.
My WordPress site is controlled by the publisher, so I have very limited ability to do much of anything but post new blogs. I love seeing the functionality and some of the plugins on other sites and can see how some of the extra “bells & whistles” can drive conversions.
That must be very frustrating not having control over your website, but yes I can understand that you are in a unique situation with your publisher.
You are so on the money about WordPress. I use a WordPress site. I just need to learn more about plugins. That is where I don’t really know as much. Thanks for this great informative article.
Plug-ins are for the most part very straight forward and installing them and playing around with them quite easy but as in my previous comment go for well used one’s. My favorites and most used on all my websites are
– WordPress SEO plugin from Yoast – A great free SEO plugin
– Contact 7 for custom contact fields
– Google Map shortcode for Google Map integration
– Google Sitemap Creator
I have to say that WordPress is frustrating for me. I built my own site in Dreamweaver, I simply prefer it for customization. However, for many without the technical know-how, WordPress is a easy way to get started, and easy for upkeep.
Blessings, Karen
http://aurorasmessage.com
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I think for me, besides the personal feeling that a DW sites just have a very old fashioned feel to them, it depends on if you have VA or other designers working on your site. You need Dreamweaver installed on every pc or laptop working on it. Where WP is just lying there on the server and any of your staff with access details can easily do updates to design etc. Now if this is not the case and you are very skilled designer happy to work with static html with no staff then it is not a problem, but I do think for most businesses it is something to consider.
I agree, Minette. I been a web designer for 12 years and while I used to use Dreamweaver and frankly, could create a site writing the code in a text editor, I wouldn’t work with anything but WordPress at this point. There’s absolutely no limit to the customization you can create with a WordPress site. I was just doing some yesterday for a client!
Regarding plugins, there are so many that it’s just amazing. Nearly anything a client wants to do on their site can be handled with a plugin. When I sifting through the options, I look for plugins that have been updated within the last 6 months so I know they’ll be kept up to date, ones that have a lot of downloads since popular ones probably work and get updated and supported, and for ones where the author responds to support questions, either within the WordPress.org forum or on their own site. Using these criteria, I’ve rarely been burned by using a “bad” plugin.
Sorry! I meant Anchen.
I’m wondering if you are thinking of WordPress.com blogs vs. a self-hosted WordPress site. Because the .com ones are very templated, pretty frustrating due to limited ability to customize. Whereas a self-hosted WP site is fully customizable and can be very complex (both in a good way and in a way that can challenge the non-techie person).
I’m glad for folks like Anchen, who help make WP sites awesome!
Martha Carnahan
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Thanks for the info on wordpress. I had a web designer set up a wordpress site for me so that I wouldn’t have any trouble posting basic things. The site is very professional and beautiful. I am so pleased with it. Thank you for confirming that I made the right choice!
So glad you are happy with your site, I think it is such an important aspect of your business and that you really need to feel pleased about it. Good choice!
I love WordPress! Thanks for sharing such great details. I am always looking for resources to share with my clients and more reasons why they should wordpress than just that I love it 🙂 Will be sure to bookmark this page and share!
Minette
—-
Minette Riordan, Ph.D.
CEO, MinetteRiordan.com
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Thanks Minette 🙂
I have always used WordPress. It was easy to learn and is so flexible. Themeforest.net is a great place to find templates.
I agree! I also like the Elegant themes to be quite nice and find them easy to work with.
I agree, I think WordPress is a wonderful platform!
🙂
I love WordPress and keep learning new ways to make it better. My last site was on WordPress.org (because I heard it was free) and later I found out the differences between that site and WordPress.com from my daughter. Now I’m on the .com and I think a lot of ‘newbies’ out there might like clarification on the two platforms so they don’t waste too much time on the wrong one.
You are quite right. I think clarification is quite important (Will do post in the future) Even though you can transfer some stuff from the free to hosted site, a lot of the themes are not transferable so you will end up with a new look and lot of changes. Best to start of on a hosted site. Here in South Africa domain registration is almost always free for the first year and from R10-R20 ( $1 – $2) a month for hosting there are no reason not to start out with your own hosted site.
I have a Word Press site that I am working on building but it is a slow process. I have to face my fear of technology 🙂
Warmly,
Jennifer
Dr. Jennifer L. Weinberg, MD, MPH, MBE
Preventive, Lifestyle & Environmental Health Physician,
The Simple | Pure | WholeTM Wellness Method
Website: http://www.JenniferWeinbergMD.com
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I find that to be true with a lot of clients. They do not want to work on it because they have negative connections with technology. I really hope to change that for my clients. I had my first life workshop yesterday going through everything with them step by step. I think that can help a lot and that the workshop was a great success.
Hello,
Yes, blogging was not something that I ever thought I would be involved with. Word press has made the journey easy.
Here is a link to my blog. I will be promoting this blog with the book release in the next couple of weeks.
https://naturemystic.wordpress.com/2014/06/05/lifestyle-transformation-with-the-help-of-author-ecosystem/
You may opt in for my newsletter for a free report and to be informed about how our environment is impacting businesses, consumer spending, and your improved well-being and increased realized wealth. http://www.jazzyeco.com
🙂
I’ve been a die hard WordPress user since 2007 🙂
Best platform out there!!
🙂
I love that you wrote this article about WordPress! I feel the same way and it is the only platform that I recommend for my clients as well.
Angela Mondor
The Geeky Girl
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Thanks Angela
I am using WP.org and seem cannot to set up my profile picture on there. I signed up for a gravatar and my pic shows on probably all sites when I am making comments except on mine lol. Anyone has a WP.org site and similar experience with it?
Ruzica I assume you mean self hosted WordPress. You need to update the user in Users that you are using to log in and comment with to have the right email address for your gravatar. As you can see I’ve changed the admin user that I am currently commenting with to have my email address and not the admin email address and now my gravatar is showing. 🙂
I love wordpress and often tell people about it. The plugins add functionality that I couldn’t pay a developer for.
I have used WordPress exclusively for my sites. The plug ins are amazing, but sometimes I find it challenging to know what all can be done.
I have spent time looking through plugins and being amazed at what functionality is offered, that I did not even know could be done!