Why Choose A Custom Website Over A Wordpress Website?

A custom website with a bespoke content management system {CMS} like ours may not be the right fit for you if you are just starting out but it certainly ticks the box for any business that is serious about their online presence. 

I’ve seen and worked my way around a lot of websites and platforms throughout my career and by far the easiest to manage both solo and as part of a marketing team, a bespoke platform will win hands down every single time.

A custom website will have been built specifically for the business that is going to be using it. Not a one size fits all like 95% of Wordpress templates.

When you need some functionality adding to a Wordpress website it often comes in the shape of a plugin. Wordpress plugins come from many different sources. Some are maintained really well and some aren’t. Some offer basic functionality for free and others charge for premium functionality. The thing I don’t like is that some plugins don’t play nicely with others and this can really mess up a site. Sometimes, because the one size needs to fit all with a plugin any unused parts of the code can weigh a website down and make it sluggish and slow to load. We’ve talked about load times before on the blog as a DIY SEO tip.

Don’t get me wrong I love a great Wordpress site but mostly behind the scenes they have a lot of technical things going on to make them work. Particularly so, if the website designer who created it for you isn’t a  web developer as well.  I know that our Agency Lead, Sharon has bought a couple of Wordpress templates for hobbies and had them up and running within a few hours. That’s not developing or coding and she’ll be the first to admit that. They suit the purpose she needed them for as blogging platforms. What she does know though is how to look after and updateall the plugins. This is where most website owners are left in the dark, Not updating Wordpress plugins  can also leave the site very vulnerable to hackers.

With a custom website there are no plugins to update. It will only use the code you need and it's been crafted to do exactly what you require.

If funds are an issue and you just need to make a start to get an online presence then a Wordpress website will start you on your journey. If you want to grow and need something robust and fit for purpose, then we are your web design and development dream team.

Hiring a web design and development company like The Digital Gene means that we can build anything. If you can dream it we can build it!

With a custom CMS we become your development partner. We are your experts on the entire platform that we create for you. That means you can reach out at any time should an issue occur and have it fixed significantly quicker - often within 24 hours.

We believe in empowerment, too. That you as an individual or a marketing team should have the flexibility to publish and organise your content easily. This can be really difficult to do without a bespoke CMS and I speak to many people frequently that say they are too frightened to make changes themselves. We are all about simplicity. Part of our project always involves a training session once a new website is live to show how simple it is to add and remove content and how to create new pages. AS from 2021 we even create personalised raining videos that we host for you within your CMS . Just ask Samantha Lowe at Concentus. She even tweeted recently that it was so easy to make changes she often makes them on her phone in between meetings. How cool is that?

SEO and social media readiness is built into our websites right from the start. Your website’s code takes account for the factors that influence search rankings; from ease of navigation, through to page loading times and mobile optimisation. What’s more, it’ll provide you with valuable insights and options to enhance your site’s performance.

An off the shelf Wordpress template means that you run the risk of your website blending in, or worse still, even being mistaken for a competitor. Yes! I’ve known that happen on occasion.
A web designer could, of course, take one of these pre-built systems and design something bespoke on-top. However, as these systems are easy to replicate and the code structure is pretty much the same, your design may not remain unique for long. A truly bespoke website is completely unique and scalable. Better still, if it is created by the developer of your custom CMS, a change in design is so much more straightforward. 

If your website has ever been hacked, you’ll know what a nightmare it is to locate and isolate the threat. If you collect and store personal data on your website, a security compromise could be considered a data breach and require you to act in accordance with GDPR. Imagine that? What a nightmare.

With an off the shelf Wordpress website template you are pretty much at the mercy of plugin and theme developers to ensure that your website has no vulnerabilities. As they tend to have a larger user base, they are unfortunately are attractive targets for hackers. We shared this article recently across our socials about attacks on I million websites that were using the using Elementor Pro Wordpress theme.

Plugins and add-ons have the potential to be less secure than a custom platform, so it’s important that they are kept up to date. I’m repeating myself here again because this is something I’ve seen more times than I’d have liked over the years. If a vulnerability is found, it could take quite a while for the plugin or theme developer to patch it.

A bespoke CMS is a much less attractive target for hackers and spammers since the code isn’t readily available to download and explore.

As a website developer I’m passionate about custom CMS solutions and have been for almost twenty years and one of the reasons I’ve joined The Digital Gene team because they are too.  

Contact us if you’d like to find out more information about your business getting to the next level and seriously competing online.