WordPress Development – Advantages & Features

The demand for WordPress developers has increased dramatically in 2012. That the WordPress CMS is the most leading and most popular content management software is no longer a question, but the question is if the platform is being used to its full potential, which relies on the knowledge of the WordPress developer.

Most Used CMS

First, let's bust some myths about WordPress being comparable to Joomla, Drupal or other CMS Frameworks. A common rumor is that WordPrss and Joomla are the top choices for content management, and sometimes even Drupal is mixed into this comparison - but that these frameworks are even comparable to WordPress in terms of capacity, functionality and popularity is unjustified and actually deserves a better analysis.

wordpress-topmillion-sites

Content Management System Distribution by trends.builtwith.com - last updated on April 28

As you can see in the above statistics, Joomla nor Drupal are even close to WordPress' usage, therefor are incomparable when it comes down to choosing the most popular system for your website.

WordPress Development

When choosing WordPress for your current or next web development one should predetermine the requirements before hand. The WordPress platform will be suitable for almost all types of websites, especially those that require maintenance, consistent updates and customer management. But unlike other content management systems, WordPress comes with many more features that will require experience and expertise for web developers to take advantage of - Plugins, WP PHP template files, RSS Pinging & general blog knowledge. If all these tools are understood and incorporated correctly, only then will the true advantages of using WordPress be recognizable.

WordPress Developers - Requirements

Before WordPress development begins, make sure that it will be including these features regardless of the website type in order to maximize its potential:

WordPress SEO

This is a whole other topic in itself, yet is critical, therefore I highly suggest reading and understanding Yoast's WordPress SEO article.

Permalinks

Although this is explained in the Yoast's WP SEO Article, it should be noted one more time, because changing the permalinks after launch may cause loss of rankings if not addressed. This is a basic setting that can be done via WordPress' admin - Settings - Permalinks, yet is often overlooked.

RSS, Subscriptions & Pinging

This is more for those expecting continuous updates on their website, subscribers or just general bloggers. Subscription features can be done in many ways, via social media, third party tools or via WP itself. Pinging the website after every post is also (or should be) basic practice, yet these two sections are not being used to their potential.

All the above features are important and will be broken down further in upcoming posts (subscribe to get notified). All the above features (and many of the best ones) are open source and free to use. There will be a set of different features depending on the type of your website or its goals, which brings us to our next topic.

Website Types we Don't Recommend WordPress For

Now, WordPress may be great for many type of sites but instead of breaking down what type of websites it's good for, we'll take look at what we wouldn't recommend it for:

E-Commerce

Although there are many plugins for this, WordPress is not what you should use if you are creating a website focused in selling products. For E-Commerce website development, we recommend Magento, which we will discuss in an upcoming article.

Customer, Sales and Task Management

Inquiries of this type have been common for us but to get to the point, no, WordPress is not intended for client/customer management, sales and/or tasks management and developing this from WordPress would require a lot of reverse developing and on the long run, may not be worth it. For this we would recommend Sugar CRM, Custom Development wit frameworks such as CodeIgniter, or a third-party software if applicable.

WordPress Development Summary

If all the above is understood, there should be no problem to determine your platform during your next web development project. If you still have a hard time figuring out which CMS to use or are unsure whether your site applies to WordPress, feel free to subscribe to our newsletter, contact us or consult with a WordPress Development Company.