Do you need a CMS?
WordPress is a Content Management System (CMS), which as you may have guessed allows you to manage your content through an easy to use backend. Not every website needs a CMS and it’s important to know whether you actually need one before building your website. Content Management System’s and WordPress in particular are great for websites that will continually have fresh content added to it such as a blog, eCommerce site or news site.
If your website will continually have new content added to it or it has content that continually needs to be changed, it’s probably a good idea to use a CMS. It makes life a lot easier when updating the website and if set up correctly you should be able to update the content without looking at the code. So if you’ve decided you’re going to use WordPress, you’re next question will most likely be .com or .org?
.com vs .org
If you’ve ever looked into WordPress, you’ve probably noticed that there’re two websites out there, wordpress.com and wordpress.org, but you may be wondering what the difference is? Are they the same product? Do they do the same thing?
A quick run down is basically that wordpress.com is fully hosted and is geared towards getting you setup to create your content as quickly and easily as possible, whereas wordpress.org is where anyone can download the WordPress software and develop their own websites, which allows for far greater customisation when it comes to the functionality and design of your website.
This table from WordPress outlines the differences between the two.
If all you want to do is start creating content as quickly as possible and start pushing it to your audience wordpress.com will be the better solution for you, however, if you’d like to customise the look of your website and add custom functionality wordpress.org is the product to choose.
Conclusion
WordPress is a suitable option for you if you’ve got a website that has continually changing content and you want a system that is easy to manage and maintain.
WordPress.com may be the best option for you if you have simple content that doesn’t need a custom layout and you want to get setup and present your content to your audience as quickly as possible with minimal customisation.
WordPress.org is the better option for you if your content is more complex, you want to add custom features to your site or you want more control over the look, feel and function of your website.
If you’re not sure where to start and you’d like someone else to set it up for you, you can always send me a message and we can get started on making your ideas a reality.
