Have you ever had this problem of wanting to create a specialized service for your clients and not being able to implement your vision because of the limitations of your website?
Have you ever wished your website was more flexible and more customizable so you can easily differentiate from your competitors?
Let us explore together a way of thinking about this.
When you hire someone to build your website to deliver your products and services, you may be faced with the decision of building on top of a standard WordPress install or creating something totally custom.
So how do you decide what to choose?
To discover the answer you need to consider a few factors:
- What are your business goals
- How will you manage your site
- How will you update your site
- How fast do you need to be ready to go live
If your business goal is to have an online presence via a blog, a newsletter and a store then it may make sense to go with something standard like a WordPress based website.
WordPress was built for blogging. It is a very popular choice, so it has a big community developing plugins and extensions that will allow you to have an online store and a newsletter subscription very quickly.
A big advantage to using WordPress is the ability to apply automatic updates and the user-friendly administrative dashboard. With very little training you can learn to manage your own website and apply the updates yourself.
Another big advantage is the large range of templates and themes that you can use to quickly customize how the website looks, without having to hire a designer.
WordPress looks like an amazing choice. Why not use it all the time?
Paradoxically, WordPress’s strengths are also its biggest weaknesses.
WordPress strives to be useful and easy to use for a broad range of users. And because of that, it has to be very generalist in nature and make a lot of assumptions about how it will be used. And while you can use plugins to add features to it, ultimately WordPress is a blog platform that has been optimized for blogging. It some cases it can feel bloated with features that you may never use.
But if your business adds value through a custom service it provides, then that works against what WordPress was built for. Yes, you can do it by extending the platform, but the performance and flexibility of what you can do will suffer.
This is where a custom solution shines. Like a bespoke suit, a web application built just for your customers will be optimized to deliver that service. The obvious advantage is differentiation. You will be able to offer a user experience that may not be possible with WordPress. If built properly another advantage is performance. Since you know what this web application is supposed to do, very specific optimization strategies can be employed.
What are the disadvantages of a custom web application
Custom web apps shine when it comes to delivering your business goals and the flexibility to implement specific user experiences for your customers. But how do they fare when it comes to managing the website and updating the website?
Since it is custom work, you will have to rely on your developer for updates and maintenance. And the administrative dashboard may also have to be built from scratch to serve your needs and your customers. This adds some risk to your business. If you ever need to change developers the new one has to be comfortable and knowledgeable enough to be able to take over and maintain the website.
A custom solution also adds a higher cost with managing the website. It may not be as user-friendly as WordPress. And if you want to get the administrative backend to be super polished it will add to development time.
Another risk added by a custom solution is the higher probability of unforeseen problems and bugs. WordPress has such a large user base that the problems are likely to be discovered quickly and dealt with. That is not the case when you build a custom solution that only you are using.
It is not all bad news. Most of these risks are mitigated by using time tested frameworks, best practices, and standards when building the custom website. Just like with bespoke suits, you don’t have to reinvent the industry to have something custom-tailored and of very high-quality.
How fast can you go live with a custom website? Not as fast as with WordPress, that is for sure. If you are in a hurry, custom work may not be the way to go.
Conclusions
If you only need an online presence and the ability to blog then just go with WordPress. It is low cost, it is fast and easy to manage. And if you have some free time on your hands you can do it yourself.
If you need to put something up quickly and time is of the essence, stat with WordPress and plan for an upgrade later on.
If your goals are more sophisticated, then we need to talk about value first. How much value will the website bring into your business? The more you base this on data and research the better. If the yearly revenue from the site covers the costs of a custom solution (including development and maintenance) then I would suggest you go with a custom solution because of the flexibility and growth opportunities. Otherwise, go with WordPress and plan for an upgrade later.
A word of caution
There is an advantage to being quick and show up on the market place. A simple but fast website launched quickly is much better than a perfect website launched too late.
That being said, too many times I was hired to fix a website built on a shaking foundation with obsolete technology that was very limiting to the business.
What I suggest is a good practice is to give yourself a deadline. Something like: I need to launch this month, but I know that will have to build something more complex and stable so I will plan and prepare to do it in 12 months.
In 12 months you will have learned a lot about your business and your customers, so when it’s time to “get serious” you will have a much better understanding of what it needs to be done and that will dictate the choice of technology. You will also not be in a hurry, so you can do things right.