We Recommend WordPress: A summary and briefing points
WordPress is a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time. We believe it’s the flagship of usable web publishing. WordPress makes content managed websites affordable and easy for the common public. With a basic knowledge of the web, anyone can now become the master of their own domain. SafeHouse Web uses WordPress as the platform for a majority of our projects. And with the new release of WordPress 3.0, it’s better than ever. Here are just a few of the things that WordPress can do for you:
Content Management
WordPress is easily content managed. There is a small learning curve like with any new software, but after a very short time it’s easy to use. Rather than paying a firm or freelancer to constantly update your site, you can now make many changes instantly yourself. That saves you a great deal of time and money.
Search Engine Optimization
WordPress is designed to be very search engine friendly. Meaning, your Google rankings will generally be higher than many other types of websites. The more people that find your website, the more traffic and exposure you will gain. In addition, plugins such as the “All in One SEO Pack” can greatly help your search engine optimization as well. Speaking of expandable features…
Plugins
If you want any kind of feature for your site, a WordPress plugin probably exists for it. There are plugins for web advertising, flickr, facebook, twitter, e-commerce, newsletters, weather, surf reports, cowboy poetry, RSS feeds, SEO, Google Analytics and so many more it’s boggling. Yes, cowboy poetry. Many of these plugins are developed as “widgets” that can easily be added to your site using a drag and drop system with the WordPress content management system.
Themes
Many grow tired of their website designs over time, but changing the design has always been such a hassle — until now. With WordPress themes you can change the design like you would change a suit. Meanwhile, all of the content remains the same. There’s no hassle of copying and pasting all of your content to a new site. SafeHouse Web utilizes the best quality themes/framework from trusted sources and developers.
Blogs
Until recently, WordPress was most widely known as a blogging platform. However, it’s ease of use and updates to the WordPress engine have made it the perfect tool for managing entire websites, not just blogs. That being said, blogs are naturally integrated in to WordPress powered websites and a great way to attract visitors to your website. We advocate blogs as a “must have” for ease of adding fresh content to your site on a regular basis. By the way, ask about our Fresh Content Advocacy and how you can save (and earn) money by being a good steward of your own website!
Cost Effective
WordPress can be downloaded for free, as can hundreds of themes and plugins; this saves a lot of money. Additionally, the support community for WordPress is huge. No-cost and low-cost solutions to tech questions that arise are to be had. Conversely, you will find many, many CMS products and “canned” solutions that have price tags in the hundreds and even in the thousands of dollars range; and they require proprietary tech support. The work of installing the WordPress framework, setting up hosting, designing and developing a theme and installing plugins can sometimes be very time consuming to those unfamiliar with the process. SafeHouse Web offers premium quality WordPress websites and services for a fraction of the cost of a typical content managed website. But you do not get a fraction of the service – you get the full equation.
These are only a few of the advantages to owning a WordPress powered website. To learn more about the exciting developments of WordPress, check out wordpress.org and also consider talking with us about how WordPress can help carry out the vital mission of your business. We offer a free initial consultation.