WordPress v's Web Designer

[wooz]

Hello,

I was wondering how many of you have built your websites yourselves with WordPress. Also if you did not have an IT background how easy was it to tweak templates?

I'm about to set up a new business but can't decide whether to pay a few hundred out and get it done professionally, or if it would be worth attempting to do it myself.

Any advice appreciated.
Thanks.

[JonSD]

Premium Wordpress templates are awesome. Tricky to set up but easy the update once all the fine tuning has been done. Free templates can be good also, but look no where near as good IMO.

HTML etc sites can be good, but I find unless you learn coding you are always stuck needing a designers help.

Check out sitedandy.com

They did a really good Wordpress site for my friend.

Jon

[wooz]

great, thanks for that. I had a go at wordpress yesterday but have decided without the graphic design background and expert knowledge I can't do my site justice. Having a look at your rec now, thanks

[JDSmith]

My site has been built on WordPress - I purchased a premium theme and then plugged in a Child theme - which is now fully integrated with all social media, it's integrated with SagePay along with a Tumblr blog and allows seamless stock management, order processing and product alterations.

I would have no hesitation in recommending WordPress for websites - I used WooThemes.com for my theme, they have an array of options and plugins. Some great ones on there such as exporting orders as .CSV files into excel - there's not much you can't do on them!

Only thing is - I haven't yet been able to work JavaScript into the site - not that I know how to write it or anything but I have been given a bit of JavaScript to display on my site as an award but I can't integrate it - feel free to comment with any suggestions should anyone know.

Happy to answer any questions you may have!

Josh

[lewisbassett]

I recommend WordPress to everyone, and consider it my mission to get all my customers on WordPress. (I convert "normal" web sites into WordPress sites as one of my front-end services.)

Why?

Web designers design web sites and make them look good. They SHOULD not be in control of what content you put up on your site.

(You know what it's like. You pay for some marketing advice, get some great new copy written. Then, your web designer charges you £50 or so to change it, and add his own "design flair" and completely ruins your work.)

I know a lot of web designers, and a lot of them make their money by charging customers whenever they want to upload new photos, change copy, etc.

This sucks. And it also kills your interest in enhancing your website and making it pay.

As you'd imagine, web designers (apart from the ones that make their money designing great WordPress themes) will come up with many reasons you shouldn't use WordPress. And it's because it's not in their interest.

As an entrepreneur, you need to have full control of what you put on your website. THAT is why you should use WordPress.

[Mogoko]

Originally Posted by wooz

Hello,

I was wondering how many of you have built your websites yourselves with WordPress. Also if you did not have an IT background how easy was it to tweak templates?

I'm about to set up a new business but can't decide whether to pay a few hundred out and get it done professionally, or if it would be worth attempting to do it myself.

Any advice appreciated.
Thanks.

You can get an exclusive theme for about 50 quid for WordPress, or you could use Basekit, which you get free with my web hosting Does the same job, although I wont link you to it, but it's in the marketplace if you want to look.

[skyrokket]

I don't think you can compare Wordpress (a blogging platform / CMS nowadays) to a Designer (professional person).
Wordpress is just the platform and is super, we use it to power our own website, and agree with lewsbassett in that, we would use it on every project where possible.

I think what you need to consider is, themes at $0 or $50 are just that; ready to go templates so you can concentrate on content, with the downside that there will be many others using the same design for their website.

The benefits of using a pro designer and/or developer is you would be getting something bespoke and unique to your business/style/content/service/whatever. The obviously downside for startups is cost, quality = more cost...

... so its really down to you, what you budget is like, would you use a free template to start with, knowing it may not look *as good* so as to save pennies for a more pro look later? Or go pro from the offset?

It's a toughy, I know!

[Combute]

Originally Posted by lewisbassett

I recommend WordPress to everyone, and consider it my mission to get all my customers on WordPress. (I convert "normal" web sites into WordPress sites as one of my front-end services.) .....

It's people like this that damage the Web Design/Development industry by painting everyone with the same brush. Here is my attempt to fight the corner of the corporate Web Developers.

Web designers design web sites and make them look good. They SHOULD not be in control of what content you put up on your site.

What if the customer wants you to be in control of their content? We work with over 40 UK Businesses 70% of them want US to manage their content for them - Why? Because it leaves them to focus on their main business priorities rather than taking on the role of managing a website. However that said if the client wants the ability to control content then provide them with the ability to do so - This can be done using many many Content Management Systems - Not just WordPress.

(You know what it's like. You pay for some marketing advice, get some great new copy written. Then, your web designer charges you £50 or so to change it, and add his own "design flair" and completely ruins your work.)

I know a lot of web designers, and a lot of them make their money by charging customers whenever they want to upload new photos, change copy, etc.

This sucks. And it also kills your interest in enhancing your website and making it pay.

Clearly the designers you know are amateurs - Why would a web designer want to change YOUR copy? - It is not their decision. In addition to that a good web developer/designer be it individual or company would always arrange a fixed monthly fee for all updates and anything that falls outside that agreement are quoted for BEFORE the job is under taken - You will find this same method of "doing business" applies to many industries.

We always arrange a fixed fee up front and we clearly state exactly what it is you will get for that fee - If the customer requests anything that falls outside the agreement we always outline the reasons why it has and the cost for implementing their requests.

As you'd imagine, web designers (apart from the ones that make their money designing great WordPress themes) will come up with many reasons you shouldn't use WordPress. And it's because it's not in their interest.

As an entrepreneur, you need to have full control of what you put on your website. THAT is why you should use WordPress.

^^ This comment is my favourite - OK as mentioned before Combute work with over 40 UK businesses from sole traders to large multination businesses generating millions in income - We also work with celebrities and some of the UK's biggest charities - SO you could say we are good web designers/developers who know what we are talking about? - Now we don't always recommend WordPress - Why? Simple - WordPress is a blogging tool that due to fantastic interface and immense number of extensions has made it possible to create websites from their engine - In addition and as mentioned above - why would you specifically state the use of WordPress? There are many CMS and E-Commerce platforms out their such as; Ubuntu, Joomla, NopCommerce, Drupal etc to name a few.

Finally a good web developer/designer would always analyse what your business does, what your trying to achieve online, the scalability of your business and website, your competitors and much more BEFORE deciding on the best system FOR YOU - What you are suggesting by continually driving home the use of WordPress is that this is what WordPress can do for you - So you would ALWAYS be limited by what WordPress can do.

As a business we analyse many aspects of the client before suggesting the system we will implement - As a result we end up developing truly bespoke websites hand coded from scratch with full CMS integrated or E-commerce etc OR on some occasions we use OpenSource software - This enables us to deliver a website that is right for the customer and not limited by what the CMS can do - For example - We built the Twist and Pulse website - and We built the Gadgets Boy website - The Gadgets Boy website is built using WordPress and it works perfect for the type of site it is - However it would not work for Twist and Pulse because Twist and Pulse require a bespoke system to meet their ever changing requests.

[MontiC]

I simply advise you to hire a professional web designer instead of doing anything with your web.

[Dave4N]

I've learnt word press and it's perfect as a cheap option to set up a basic site for your start up.

Unless your company is internet based then it's a great stepping stone / foundation

word press will give you an understanding of what you want from your site!

I know alot of companies have REAL trouble getting their website developed and communicating with their web developers . Often this is because the MD of the company has no knowledge in making websites so if you can learn wordpress and have a play about you might be able to get your "website vision" slightly closer to reality working with the dev's when you get your site developed.
Might bring you down to their level a bit!!