If you’re a business owner or have a need to get your message online, you know a website is essential to your success. But what type of website do you need? One of the growing trends happening more and more lately is website owners moving to WordPress. It’s not surprising. 43% of the world’s websites are built on WordPress.
WordPress provides so many benefits and features that help with everything from easy content creation to an abundance of free themes. And don’t forget the ease with building SEO and integrating with your CRM.
Before you make the move, there are a few things you should consider.
Where Will You Host It?
There are a variety of hosting solutions out there. It’s hard to decide which way to go if you just have a simple WordPress site. And, the temptation would be to go with the cheapest shared hosting solution available. But, you get what you pay for, as the old adage goes. Due to the way WordPress loads plugins and files during page load, you really need a faster web hosting option. Here are a couple of options that you should consider:
Option 1: Cloudways
Cloudways is a growing favorite of Gidds Media because of the flexibility, tools and abundant options for scaling as your business grows. You’ve likely heard of other hosting providers like DigitalOcean, Amazon and Google Cloud, and Cloudways lets you pick which one of these provides you want to use and then adds their tools on top of it.
It’s going to be faster and more reliable to host with Cloudways than on a shared hosting server, and the price is pretty comparable to the other providers out there. Plus, Google and other search engines need a website to be fast and perform well if you want it to show up on the first couple of pages in the search results.
Option 2: Flywheel (WP Engine)
Flywheel is another great option for hosting your website and runs on the ever popular WP Engine platform. Flywheel provides a simple user interface for beginners and has a great support team for any questions or issues that may arise. It’s built on the Google Cloud platform, just like one of the options available with Cloudways.
Before moving on to the next section, here are independent reviews of Cloudways and Flywheel that we found and agree with all of the results, findings, pros and cons they shared.
Who Will Maintain It?
WordPress is a wonderful, open-source content management system (CMS) platform. However, because it’s so widely used, it is vulnerable to attacks. The best way to keep your website safe is to start with keeping it up to date. Updating WordPress on a regular schedule is the ideal process. So, think about who will manage that. Of course, we offer a WordPress maintenance solution.
What Features Will You Lose/Gain?
WordPress offers a lot of flexibility and features driven by plugins. However, your website might have a functionality that isn’t available via a plugin. Or, at least, the plugin might not have exactly all the features and capabilities you need. Our team can develop custom WordPress plugins for you if there’s a key functionality missing from your move to WordPress.
It’s easy to think about what you might lose moving to WordPress but the benefits are even greater. Here are some of the typical reasons for migrating to WordPress:
- The ability to make updates to a website, easily, without being afraid you’ll break something.
- The access to plugins that will extend your website’s functionality and work with other tools like your company’s CRM, payment software and more.
- The SEO benefits available through plugins like Yoast SEO to get your website on the 1st or 2nd page of Google
Who Will Do The Migration?
It’s very important to choose a reputable, experienced company to migrate your website to WordPress. Migrating to WordPress isn’t as straightforward as you might think. It’s not just build a new WordPress website and copy/paste the content over. Sure, that’s part of it. But, the most crucial part of the migration is what happens right before launch.
If you simply build a new site and push it live, you’re going to find yourself with some real SEO headaches later. Things like 301 redirects, meta tags, and more need to be put in place before you push live. That’s why when we move websites to WordPress or do major updates, it includes a “go live” plan as well as a 30-day warranty after your new website is live.
Thinking Of Migrating Your Website To WordPress?
We’d be happy to help you figure out the best options, whether you’re considering moving to WordPress or preparing for a major update to your existing WordPress site. Simply drop us a note, and let’s setup a free consultation.
