Weekly Platform Updates
There are many differing opinions about what, specifically, defines a website platform. For the purpose of our services, a website platform is the Content Management System (CMS) and theme (if applicable) your website is built on. The most popular website platforms are:
- WordPress
- Shopify
- Squarespace
- Wix
- Weebly
- Drupal
- Joomla
Each platform has different strengths and weaknesses. Some of them, such as Shopify and Squarespace, are subscription-based platforms that offer pre-built designs, automatic updates, and easy drag-and-drop interfaces. This makes it possible for even the least tech-savvy person to craft a reasonably functional website that looks nice.
In fact, it’s what we’d recommend for those who don’t have a significant budget for web development. Their biggest drawback, however, is that they’re generally too limited to become a substantial tool your business can really leverage because they don’t allow you to configure the server the website is on. They’re also less likely to rank well in the search engines because you’ll miss out on SEO optimizations a professional team would incorporate.
The truly unlimited platforms are WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal. These options require a bit more technical knowledge – with WordPress being the most user-friendly and Drupal being the least – but they offer complete freedom and control over every aspect of the site. We find WordPress to be the best compromise between ease-of-use and flexibility, which is why we recommend it for virtually every web design project.
WordPress is the most popular website platform in the world (by far) and it powers almost 35% of all websites on the web. Indeed, if you’re reading this, you’ve used a website powered by WordPress. Once the site is built, it’s a great solution for our clients because the WordPress Admin Panel is capable enough to use in the regular course of business. Admins can easily fulfill online orders, publish blog posts, or do something completely custom!
Beyond the core capabilities of WordPress, it has the largest community of third-party developers in the world. There are thousands of themes and plugins that allow you dramatically change your website’s appearance and capabilities in a short amount of time. This makes it so your website can truly do what you want it to and look how you want in a lot less time than you might think.
When this task is included in your active service package, it means that we will be checking for updates to your platform (e.g. WordPress) and theme every week. If an update is available, it’ll be applied and then we’ll review your site for any errors it might’ve introduced.