After helping a few clients build their websites on WordPress I have come to appreciate how empowering it can be for the small business owner.
I can remember back in 2007 when I started my consulting business and created my own website using Adobe contribute. It was a lot of work and after about two weeks it was launched. Unfortunately as I made changes to how I marketed my business it became difficult to maintain and update my website. More importantly, it didn’t do a great job of representing my brand.
So it dawned on me that maybe I should have a professional design my website for me. I checked with my trusted advisors and contacted a reputable website developer. We met to discuss my requirements based on my experiences developing my own website.
After working with the developers over the next month and about $5000 later I had a site that looked better and had better functionality.
Again my business changed and I needed new features and a new design for my website. That wound up costing me more money to have the developers build it. They were very good and did a great job I realized that I cannot afford to keep my website up to date.
With the emergence of Web 2.0 my website became woefully underequipped to support a brave-new world of blogging, social media and SEO. I needed social media capabilities, integration into e-mail marketing landing pages newsletter subscriptions, link to social media platforms and to my blog. Last but not least, it had to be SEO friendly so that my website would rank well on search.
Which brings me to WordPress. There are many reasons I decided to switch to WordPress. First I knew it was designed for Web 2.0 and would give me the functionality I needed. First, most of the functionality I needed was built-in. Second, I knew that it would integrate my blogs with my website. Third and maybe most important, it was an affordable alternative for me versus the route of doing it myself or developing a custom website. You don’t have to be an expert in HTML, .net, or SEO optimization to use WordPress.
I can appreciate now the freedom that WordPress gives me but more importantly it gives me control and access to a world of templates, plug-ins and widgets that makes my website a better experience for my potential clients and for myself.
The exciting part for me now is that I can help my customers get their websites up and going. We can collaborate and experiment without having to know all of our requirements up front. We can experiment and change things very easily. It is rewarding to see the joy on my customers faces as their website starts to evolve and take shape. They gain the same sense of empowerment that I felt. When they need to extend the website capabilities, there are hundreds of applications available and knowledgeable WordPress resources available to help them.
That’s why I think WordPress really is the best choice for small business owners who don’t have the resources or time to create a highly customized site.
Is your website using WordPress? If so, what do you think about it?