How to Choose Your Website Platform
One of the biggest questions to answer when you are building your own website is which platform to use. There are a lot of options between WordPress, Showit, Squarespace, Wix, Joomla, Webflow, Shopify, Weebly….and on and on. So how do you know which is best for your business now and to grow into?
Well let’s break it down. The major players are WordPress, Squarespace and Shopify.
WordPress:
One of the original players and over 34% of the websites you see. WordPress is a really powerful platform with tons of plugins to make it even more robust. However, when you are designing your website yourself, or if you want to be able to manage and add content moving forward, I do not recommend WordPress. Why not?
Well the themes look amazing, but the reality is customizing them can get very confusing if you are just getting started in the website space, and they often need custom coding to make them look the way you really want. So, a great option if you’re a savvy coder or want to pay someone to make tweaks. However, most of my clients want to be able to go in and modify their own content and also don’t want to deal with the complex backend. Another complicated element of WordPress? Plugins. They make WordPress really powerful, but can be finicky and require updates often. So, if you want to just plug and play and leave parts of your site on autopilot, WordPress isn’t your best option.
Shopify:
This is an incredible platform if you are solely looking to run an e-commerce business. I have nothing but amazing things to say about Shopify after using it to run an online art store. However, if you aren’t selling products, or selling under ten products and it is a supplemental thing to your main form of income, Shopify isn’t needed. It is an incredibly powerful platform, but if you are more so looking for your site to showcase your business, engage users and get leads, you don’t need the intense e-commerce functionality they have.
One way to think about this is if you are a shop that sells coffee mugs as your main source of revenue, go Shopify. However if you are a coffee shop that sells mugs in a couple of varieties as a form of supplemental income, Squarespace e-commerce will be perfect for your needs.
Squarespace:
This is the platform I use and recommend to most of my clients. The reasons?
It is easy to customize
It is secure
It is mobile friendly
It can integrate with google seamlessly
It has a powerful blogging features
It works with email providers and has its own version as well
Over the past several years, they have also advanced in MAJOR ways with the design capabilities. You can now design within their grid system to achieve almost any look you desire.
It is EXTREMELY easy to manage after the creation.
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If you have specific questions related to these platforms, drop a comment below or email me at sydney@olivewingdesigns.com and I would be happy to answer your questions.