WordPress web development approaches — which one to choose?
There are many methods for WordPress website development…
It probably won’t surprise you, that each software house has its own way of doing things — their favorite technologies, processes designed by themselves, customized tools and standards. WordPress is a rather popular solution and it has been on the market for almost two decades now. Thousands of web developers have tested it, and come up with some efficient ways of building websites. In this article, we explain the most often leveraged WordPress web development approaches, their advantages and disadvantages. Keep reading, to learn more about creating high quality websites for business in WordPress.
Development based on available templates
It would seem that the easiest and the fastest way to provide customer with
a website is to select and buy a template. Of course it is a solution for those who don’t care a lot about custom design. It simply means that designers and developers are working with WordPress designs created by somebody else and (likely) leveraged also by other companies for building their websites.
You may observe such an approach in smaller web development agencies. Such WordPress website development cost is low, because it doesn’t require
a lot of time, skill or experience. Of course there are thousands of themes
and templates from which a company can choose the one that has the desired style and features. It is highly probable that some developer has come up with a project that will fit your expectations.
This approach is among those most common, still, we certainly don’t recommend it in case of complex projects. There are some obvious disadvantages to it, like for example non-concise or extensive code.
The more features and solutions have been used in a certain template,
the more complex the code is. It also means that the weight of the final digital product (WordPress website) increases. Once the website is ready, the code still has to be managed by your in-house team (updated, modified, improved in time). If you base your website on ready-to-use template, you may find yourself forced to handle the code for the futures you don’t use. In a long run, such an approach is inefficient.
Advantages
To the main advantages of non-custom WordPress web development are:
- Fast delivery and deployment — as developers work with template, they don’t have to design and develop features from scratch. They can provide customer with a functional website in a short period.
- Low costs of development — such a development doesn’t require high skill or a vast experience from developers, so building of the website is not expensive.
Disadvantages
As we already mentioned, such an approach may be the right solution for small projects, but it has a lot of disadvantages:
- Complex code — the picked template may fit the customers needs, but also consist of additional features, which are not necessary In the particular project. That can increase the costs of maintenance in the future.
- Limited customization options — making significant changes in the chosen template may not be cost-effective, which affects the ability to customize the project.
Custom WordPress development
The complexity of the project depends heavily on the requirements. Custom wordpress website development gives software houses the most flexibility to make their customers’ visions come true, but it requires a lot of skills and experience from designers and developers. It takes significantly more time, than other methods and it generates bigger expenses.
WordPress web development companies that offer creating custom digital products use ACF (Advanced Custom Fields plugin). It is a solution that allows adding custom fields to WordPress websites, so developers can build page templates with editable fields.
Custom website development results in creating fully-featured website without unnecessary pieces of code and functionalities that a customer doesn’t want. It is well-optimized in terms of SEO and load fast, which ensures great user experience and business success. It can also be easily modified and scaled, which is important for the companies that expect to grow in the future.
Advantages
The most important advantages of this website development approach are:
- Exquisite website’s speed — the site will load in no time, which is essential for user experience.
- Good SEO results — properly SEO optimized, custom WordPress website will be ranked higher on Google.
- Seamless maintenance — website with simple code, free of bugs is easier to maintain, scale and improve in the future.
Disadvantages
Custom website development is selected more often by medium and big companies with bigger budget and specific requirements. Here are the reasons, why small companies usually choose software houses that follow first and second approaches:
- Complex website development process — all custom designs have to be created from scratch and later accepted by a customer before the production begins. That requires intense work on both customer’s and software house’s sides.
- Higher costs — creating custom solutions is more expensive, because it requires involving experienced professionals with unique skills and leveraging advanced tools.
Time-consuming development — creating custom designs, coding features and ensuring digital product quality takes time.
Which WordPress web development approach is the best for your company?
We usually recommend customers to leverage some customization, to increase the chances of the projects’s success. Of course, we understand that there are some time and budgetary constrains that have to be taken under consideration when developing business website. In Software Gorillas we invite you to contact us and tell us about your ideas, requirements and resources. We can advise you on the best solutions and help you make your vision a reality. Let us know what do you need.
