Will I Be Able To Easily Update My Website If You Build Me One?

We develop the majority of our websites in one of two content management systems (CMS); WordPress or Joomla. Why? Because they provide a robust system that can have functionality easily added and they allow you to keep them updated yourself without getting bogged down in technical stuff. You still need to know a little bit (and we can help teach you – or someone else in your business – through training and documentation) but it takes a whole lot of stress out of what used to be a pain for most people. Remember – for any website to be a successful part of your business strategy – it must be kept up-to-date.

How much does it cost to use WordPress or Joomla? Both of these products are ‘open source’ meaning that they are licensed with an open source license in which the copyright holder provides the rights to study, change and distribute the software to anyone and for any purpose. The maintenance of the software is generally done voluntarily and collaboratively. The software itself is ‘free’ to download however, some of the better ‘add-ons’ and ‘templates’ for them can come at a small cost. In addition, there will be the usual design, development, hosting and domain costs that you would be charged by any web design business.

Before you start concerning yourself about using ‘free’ software, take heart in knowing that organisations such as Harvard University, The New York Observer, eBay, General Electric, IKEA, Pizza Hut, Adobe Blogs, The Rolling Stones and Sylvester Stallone just to name a few.

Another great advantage of using a CMS like WordPress or Joomla is that you can access it to do updates right from your Internet browser so you don’t need any other software on your client (PC, Mac, etc.) and most importantly, you can access your CMS (which is hosted on your webserver) pretty well anywhere in the world and from any device (eg. PC, Mac, iPad, etc.) (assuming you are hosting in the ‘cloud’ which is what most businesses do).

Builtwith.com show that, at the time of writing, at least 8,386,650 websites used WordPress and 2,173,236 use Joomla. WordPress originated as a pure blogging tool but in recent years has expanded its core functionality. Joomla has always been a software product with significant functionality from the start. Which one is better will depend entirely on your requirements and what future functionality you might need from your website. Sometimes your requirements may dictate a solution other than WordPress or Joomla and we are happy to work through that with you.

Acknowledgements

• Builtwith.com, (2013, January), “WordPress Usage Trends“.