CHOOSING THE RIGHT PLATFORM SERIES

Part of our collection of practical guides designed to help business owners make informed decisions before investing in a new website.

Is WordPress Right for Every Business?

WordPress gives businesses enormous flexibility, but the right website platform should always start with what your business actually needs.

Lets plan your website

WordPress can work for a huge range of businesses

One of the reasons we choose WordPress is its flexibility. We’ve built websites for businesses with very different needs, from straightforward brochure websites to sites with extensive content, multiple services and more complex functionality.

That flexibility means WordPress can adapt to the business rather than forcing every business into the same structure. But there’s an important point here.

The platform should serve the website — not the other way around.

Start with what your website needs to achieve

Before thinking about WordPress, Divi or any other technology, it’s worth asking a more important question:

What does your website need to do for your business?

Perhaps you need it to:

explain what you do clearly
generate enquiries
showcase your work
introduce your services
build trust with potential customers
provide useful information
attract people through search
support an existing marketing strategy
grow as your business develops

Once you understand what the website needs to achieve, the technology becomes much easier to decide. That’s why we start with the business, not the platform.

Why we think WordPress is such a good fit

For the businesses we work with, WordPress gives us a particularly useful combination of:



Design freedom

We can create a website around your business rather than being restricted to a fixed template.



Flexibility

The website can develop as your requirements change.



Control

We have considerable control over how the website is structured, built and maintained.



Content

WordPress is well suited to businesses that want to publish useful content and develop their website over time.



Functionality

There is a huge range of ways to extend a WordPress website when your business needs something beyond the basics.

That’s why we’ve chosen it as the platform we work with.



A good website doesn’t make your business fit the technology. The technology should fit the business.

You don’t need a complicated website

Flexibility doesn’t mean your website needs to be complicated. In fact, one of the things we believe strongly is that the best websites often feel simple to use. Your visitor shouldn’t have to understand what’s happening behind the scenes. They should be able to arrive, understand what you do, find what they’re looking for and know what to do next.

We can use a very flexible platform to create a very simple experience. Complexity belongs behind the scenes when it’s needed — not in front of the visitor.

Your website can start simple

You don’t need to build every possible feature into your website on day one. A business might begin with:



Home page



About page



A handful of services



A contact page



Some useful content

Then, as the business develops, you might want to add:



Case studies



Guides



New Services



Landing pages



Blog content



Integrations



Additional functionality

WordPress gives us room to develop the website as those needs arise. We can build for where your business is now, without closing off where it might go next.

What about a very straightforward website?

Even if your website doesn’t need lots of functionality, WordPress can still be a good choice. A well-planned business website doesn’t need hundreds of pages or complicated features. Sometimes the most important things are simply:

good structure
clear messaging
professional design
easy navigation
useful content
a clear route to making an enquiry

The technology shouldn’t distract from those things. A simple website can still be a carefully considered website.

WordPress doesn’t replace good website strategy

This is something we’ve talked about throughout our guides. WordPress can’t decide:

Who your customers are.

What they need to know.

What makes them trust you.

Which pages you need.

How your navigation should work.

What should persuade someone to get in touch.

Those decisions come first.

WordPress gives us the tools to turn those decisions into a working website. That’s why we believe: The platform matters, but the thinking matters more.

What about managing the website yourself?

Another reason WordPress can work well for businesses is that you’re not locked into one way of working. We build our websites so that clients can make everyday changes themselves if they want to.

You don’t need to become a WordPress expert. And you don’t have to manage everything yourself either. We can support you with ongoing updates, maintenance and development as your website grows. You decide how involved you want to be.

What happens when your business changes?

This is where we think WordPress really comes into its own. Your business today probably isn’t exactly the same as it was five years ago. And it probably won’t be the same five years from now.

Your services may change.

Your customers may change.

You may introduce new products.

You may expand your team.

You may start publishing more content.

Your website needs to be able to respond.

We don’t want to build you a website that works only on the day it launches. We want to build something that can continue to work for your business.

So, is WordPress right for your business?

For many businesses, yes.

If you want a professional website that can be designed around your business, developed over time and supported as your needs change, we think WordPress is an excellent platform.

It’s the platform we’ve chosen to work with because it gives us the freedom and control we want when building websites for our clients.

And because we’ve worked with it for many years, we know how to use that flexibility without making things unnecessarily complicated.

Our approach

We don’t begin a website project by asking:

“Which platform should we use?”

We begin by asking:

“What does your business need from its website?”

Then we work out the structure, content, customer journey and design. Once we understand those things, we can use WordPress and Divi to bring everything together.

The technology supports the strategy.

l

Continue learning

Understanding platform options gives you a more informed choice. Explore more practical guides to help you make the right decisions before you build.

Why We Choose WordPress for Small Business Websites