I would always describe myself as a business-marketer first and a tech-geek second. I think this is the right priority. As a result, technology should be the means to the end, not the end itself; so, to effectively use technology, you should be clear about your business reasons and objectives.
This said, these days a website is central to the marketing of virtually all businesses, so having good website tools effectively integrate the technology with your business requirements is a must.
Too often, a website is seen as a technical rather than a business issue and, as a result, the business website gets sidelined as the domain of the techies. Business owners only really take an interest when something in the business (normally the marketing!) is weak and they need a solution. Often this interest comes too late, or at least too late to avoid pain.
Many years ago, I recognised that marketing and technology must work in harmony with the focus on the business. I am a marketer who understands tech. Consequently, I didn’t want to bury myself in coding. I needed practical tools that allow me to deliver and use a website to support a business and help achieve the business goals. Furthermore, most of our work is based on long-term relationships. We don’t just build websites, we support them, evolve them and help make sure they deliver for our client’s businesses. Therefore, we need practical tools that work effectively in the real world.
After extensive investigation and trials, I selected WordPress as my website development platform of choice.
Sitting here now, some 10 years and many websites later, I don’t regret this choice and I still believe that WordPress, coupled with its unbeatable range of plugins and add-ons, is still the best solution for most SME business websites. Perhaps this is why it is (by some margin) the most popular website platform on earth!
Why is WordPress the right tool for your website?
These are my reasons…
1. WordPress is easy to implement
As any piece of technology develops, it gets easier to use. WordPress is easy to install – indeed many ISPs include it as standard in their hosting packages. If you have your content and images prepared before you start, you can have a simple, but effective, website up and running in as little as an hour.
2. WordPress is flexible
Whether you are looking for a simple ‘brochure website’ or a fully integrated ‘secure web portal’ for your customers, WordPress delivers. Even better, you can start simple and then grow and evolve your website as your business needs change. Even if you want a completely new design for your site, you don’t need to start from scratch. Content and layout are kept separate so you can overlay a new site layout onto your existing words and pictures.
3. WordPress delivers unbeatable functionality
There comes a time with most of our clients when they come to me and ask “…can we just…?” with ideas of additional functionality they would like to add to their website. The COVID pandemic had a real impact here as people with ‘face to face’ businesses suddenly faced losing everything if they didn’t take their business online.
Without exception, we were able to help make this happen – cost-effectively and often within a few days. Without the underlying functionality of WordPress, this would not have been possible.
4. WordPress allows effective collaboration
We often get enquiries referred to us because clients are struggling with their existing web hosts. Normally this is about difficulty getting hold of them or any small update to a site costing more money.
WordPress allows us to develop a more collaborative approach. We make it easy for you to do as much (or as little!) updating and site maintenance in-house as you wish. We are then there to support you. You collaborate with the specialists when you want to – and only when you want to.
This collaborative approach lets you to keep your site up to speed with your business easily and cost-effectively.
5. WordPress is cost-effective and sustainable
Allowing website tasks to be done more quickly and easily means these tasks can be done at a lower cost.
WordPress has a huge user and developer base. If you are looking for website functionality to solve a business problem, normally someone has already developed a WordPress solution. We have seen this and helped our clients benefit time and time again.
The huge developer base has another benefit. You aren’t locked in to your web support provider, be it BSA or anyone else. If you aren’t receiving the service you expect, there is always someone else who can do a better job to help you.
We are proud of our WordPress capability and also the many containing, long-term relationships we have with our clients. WordPress continues to prove itself as the right tool for the website job.
Maybe we could help WordPress work for you too. Get in touch for a chat.
