Still not convinced by WordPress?

Interesting article Lee - particularly handy htaccess snippet in the comments.

Can't think of a single issue on the list that isn't easily solved either with custom functions or plugins, but it does seem especially weird that they don't adopt a page tree structure.

With all its short comings Wordpress is still the best basis for a site build IMHO

 

 

Why?

Ok I am perhaps one of those people installing a theme and charging £500 for it that you web designers despise. The thing is, my clients tend to be startups, charitable organisations and small businesses with very little budget who know they need an online presence but can't afford and/or justify the £1500+ quotes they've got from web designers. Using Wordpress and a decent theme I can put together a site that they can afford, that they can update and change themselves and that they can grow as their business grows - and I am always more than happy to refer them to "proper" web designers when they outgrow the WP site and need something bigger, better or shinier.

However, I don't ever describe myself as a web designer or a web developer - because I'm not. I tend to say I build websites - that works for me and works for my clients, and WordPress does everything I need it to do to make my clients happy.

No offence Allison, but I sort start up companies with a start up package for £399 and they're completely bespoke designs that helps develop a brand, you're doing your customers a dis-service by charging that amount for what is essentially going to be a completely non-unique and non fit for purpose design.

What justifies the £500 price tag? Even the most expensive themes run at around $30 so you're essentially fleecing them.

Andy: I'm not sure why you think that a free Wordpress theme will be "non fit for purpose". There are lots out there and, like every other web design aspect, there are good and bad designs.

Having looked at Alison's pricing page, it's not over the top in my opinion.

Not going to get into a turf war of Wordpress vs the world. Just saying there are lots of options for websites - there's no one-size-fits-all answer but Wordpress has several advantages including a wide user base which means that if something goes wrong, you're not likely to be stuck.

Just my 2p worth

I think this comes down to people's opinion of the web in general and the advantages it can bring a business to create a truly unique brand and also have a site that suits their business and their product set.

While there are some great templates out there, the popular templates are more widely used meaning there could be hundreds, if not thousands, of other sites on the web that look exactly the same. Would you buy from a company that is clearly using a template? Doesn't it just say "I threw this up for $5" if you see it more than once?

For example, two companies on 4N use the same template --> http://www.1clickwebsite.com/ and http://www.thelaptopmedics.co.uk

Also - you think £500 is good value for a template that costs maximum £20?

Templates work well for some people. Custom designs for others.

Hadn't spotted that Liam and Jon are both using the same theme.

And personally I don't think Alison is charging £500 for the theme. From what I read on her site, she's charging that amount for umpteen things including setting up the site, hosting it for a year, getting the content onto the site in an acceptable format, a fair degree of hand-holding including a beginners guide to Wordpress and quite a lot more.

The template is fairly incidental in the cost scheme of things (obviously not in the look-and-feel side) and is down to the customer - free templates are included, chargeable ones are charged.

Having met people at 4N who've paid a lot more for a lot less, I'd say it's fair value from an honest supplier (I've met Alison at a couple of breakfast meetings).

I don't doubt that Alison is a nice person but ultimately I find myself filled with bile over the value for money aspect of the proposition. Taking account of the additional services she offers as part of that package still doesn't justify the cost.

Your average true web designer worth his/her salt (who would also do a custom and bespoke design) would include those aspects in their offering as well without charging extra.

Andy, surely it comes down to if the client is happy? Someone may be prepared to pay £500 to set up and install WP for them as they don't want to and have better things to be doing (like making money).

I build all my WP sites from scratch, custom design and theme and would charge around the £500 mark but I don't get involved in the marketing of the website, and the words where Alison being primarily a copywriter, would and can charge accordingly for this.

In the end it's down to the clients needs and if they are happy with the end product.

Hi Andy,

For us Wordpress is great because of Speed, Simplicity and Flexibility:

From the client's point of view the editor is easy to learn and use and media uploader with drag and drop functionality is great - particularly as we configure it to resize pictures to fit the spaces we have built into the template.

From our point of view as developers we like the speed Wordpress offers us to get a project off the ground. Most sites wil require a few page templates - index, about, sales landing page, article/post etc and maybe a couple of categories. Once these are designed and developed we can build the site out fast by simply adding pages of each template type and flowing content in.

Clearly this can be done by lots of CMS system so why choose WordPress? In short - the flexibility offered by hooks and filters. Worpdress has no end of hooks you can add functions to so you can create whichever functionality you need without having to code up a custom CMS. (This is why it is so popular with PlugIn developers). So you have all the great CMS and User management out of the box, then you can mod the hell out of it without touching the core.

Wordpress loads fast and offers options for altering priorities to work as required, it has built in javascript management to avoid conflicts, a great admin area which again can be easity modified to suit the client, solid user management etc etc

To this we normally add the excellent CMS Page Tree View plugin (why the core doesn't offer better page management is a mystery to me, but, it is easily fixed) and the simply brilliant Front End Editor plugin which clients love as it allows fast editing, correction of typos etc form the front end of the site.

We also tend to mod the htaccess file to sort some of the stranger URLs and URL priorities (or lack of) Wordpress produces.

So, it isn't a perfect system (what is) and there is a learning curve as a developer - I also love the freedom and control of writing pure HTML / CSS and Java Script - but, once you get your head around the flexibility offered by hooks and you start to see the elegance of the code it is quite hard to go back.

Having had a quick glance at Drupal it also looks a great CMS, but I can't see anything you can do with Drupal that you can't do with Wordpress and I think it is best to specialise - how many systems can you learn in one lifetime ;-)

So to be fair I am sure you could do just as well with other CMS systems if you learned them, but Wordpress seems the most user friendly, this is probably why it has become so popular and more widely used the Drupal or Joomla:

Some stats: http://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/content_management/all (bit out of date but the trend is clear)

This also offers a competitive advantage to agencies developing on Wordpress as many clients are now requesting wordpress based sites as they are familiar with it.

I could go on and on but that's a few reasons why

 

 

 

Just for reference, I can and do indeed create Wordpress stuff and don't find it a massive deal, but in terms of development, the freedom offered by simpler CMS's allowing for true customisation of designs can't be matched by Wordpress.

I agree with your points regarding Drupal, like Joomla it's uber bloated and over complicated, I played with it locally for a while and gave up because it isn't straight forward. In a race between WP, Joomla and Drupal, Wordpress definitely comes out on top. However, while it's the best of those, I don't think it's the best available.

I think there's a bit of a self fulfilling propogation of the myth that everyone is asking for Wordpress. Of all the clients I've had around 5% have probably asked for Wordpress and only 2 have actually decided on using it over a simpler CMS I use. However I think there are a lot of people asking for it without actually understanding what it is or what it really does, so a bit of re-education takes place and bam! different CMS with awesomer website.

That being said, I've had multiple discussions with Rickles about WP and I think there are some developers indeed doing amazing things with it. In fact I'm visiting Rickels at Point and Stare Towers tomorrow for a coffee and hopefully cake, at which point I'm assured I'll come out obeying the Wordpress, so I will post back my results!

EDIT - Simon, The front-end editor plugin looks pretty ace, hadn't spotted that before.

Front end editor is awesome!

I don't really understand what you mean by: "the freedom offered by simpler CMS's allowing for true customisation of designs can't be matched by Wordpress."  - there isn't a design which can be rendered by a browser that can't be built with Wordpress - it outputs html styled with css and optionally spiced up with javascript just like everything else does.

With all that said the platform choice of the developer is really pretty much unimportant - the only thing that really matters is does the finished website have a design which is unique and meets the client's brief, does it offer good usability and is it stable and I would encourage any developer to use the platform they feel best delivers that for their clients.

Good luck with the cake!

Freedom wise I mean for my development cycle rather than the customer facing result/experience.

Don't worry Andy, we've got the 'Clockwork orange' style WP suite set-up just for you.

Fair point - building a theme is certainly going to take a fair bit longer than building an HTML page. 

I still think you'll be a convert if Mr Rickler plies you with enough cake - and then there's no going back ;-)