I build most of my sites with WordPress these days
WordPress is not perfect, not much is, but I still use it for most of my builds. This may change in time & at present I am playing with Laravel, but for now I am sticking with WordPress for the majority of my builds.
Here is why:
WordPress was launched back in 2003 & for many it was seen (until recently) as a blogging platform, but it’s open source development environment & it’s “low level” entry point have made this CMS the most popular CMS of the time.
So why is WordPress so special?
Simply put: Themes & Plugins. WordPress has a vast selection of plugins & Themes available, OK not all of them are good, but the shear volume is staggering.
The key to everything WordPress is the open source factor, because of the open development environment many coders have invested their time developing plugins to do just about, well, everything. A example of a good plugin for WordPress is “Contact Form 7”, a simple but flexible plug to create contact forms. This on its own doesn’t sound too thrilling, but because of the open development environment many add ons for CF7 have been created, I’m not saying every single plugin in this list is perfect or even worth using, but many are. Obviously scrutinising a plugin before use is advised, high star rating, number of install & customer reviews are a good starting point to find the right plugin for your needs.
Its not just about plugins
The availability of many professionally designed customisable themes has to be a factor. Many people seem to think that a site built on a theme or template is a dirty word & many graphic designers even sell their designs as “Not from a template”. But WordPress themes are now quite evolved & customisable that one theme could be used to create many websites that all not only look completely different, they may have many different purposes as well. Just take a look here to see a small sample of what is available.
Many premium WordPress themes are updateable by the end user & the use of child themes can ensure the website will not be broken on update. This means the website can be easily kept at a modern standard for the life of the theme.
Modern “Blank Themes”
There are a decent amount of blank themes available for WordPress that provide a springboard to rapid bespoke theme development. Until recently I have been using Roots Sage but I have moved from this in favour of lighter frameworks, now moving to my own evolving GULP SASS based “ultra light” start up theme in an effort to improve site speeds & reduce code bloat.
Rapid development & Beyond.
Use of the tools stated above have boosted the rapid build power of WordPress to the stage that a bespoke small brochure site can be produced in just a few days, with only regular short burst development being required to gradually expand the site into whatever the future may hold for the clients ongoing web presence.