Wordpress
WordPress powers over 40% of the world's websites, and offers a cost-effective, flexible and easy to use platform for creating an online presense. WordPress can be further enhanced through it's extensive ecosystem of plugs-ins; and third-party tools. RobotPixel can help you design & build a custom WordPress website that's easy to maintain and matches your brand identity.
WordPress Site Set-Up
One of the greatest benefits of the WordPress platform is the ability to quicky create an attractive website for a relatively low cost. RobotPixel has extensive experience with the entire process of creating and launching a WordPress site, including design & development (either with a custom theme or a site-builder tool), server set-up, and user training. We work with a number of hosting providers to offer affordable, mananged hosting solutions.
Custom Theme Development
You've worked hard to establish your company's visual identity and key aspect of that is your online presense. RobotPixel can help you develop a custom WordPress theme that will set your site apart, fulfill your online business goals and work across the widest possible range of screens & devices. Much of a WordPress theme falls into what is commonly known as front-end development, and uses standard technologies (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) to create the visual presentation. It does, however require a specific file structure to work properly, as well as specific hooks and functions to get the most out of the back-end Content Management System (CMS).
E-Commerce Tools
WooCommerce is a free plug-in that adds all the necessary tools to create a basic online storefront. This includes the product database, categorization tools and checkout/payment functionaliy. Paired with a service like Stripe, it can be one of the fastest ways to get up and running.
Downside to WordPress
While WordPress is a genuinely impressive technology platform, it is not without its drawbacks. Here are a few things to be aware of when condsidering a WordPress site:
- Ongoing Costs: WordPress is an open source platform and the core software is free to use (not including hosting fees), but site-owners almost always need additional functionality that is not part of the core offering. Plug-ins are small, self-contained, code moduals that can add functionaliy to a site. Like WordPress, many of these plug-ins are free (or have free versions) but many have monthly or yearly subsciption fees that can add up to hundreds of dollars a year.
- Security Concerns: Because WordPress is open source, it has a large community of developers identifying and fixing bugs and vulnerabilities. However, because of it's scale, WordPress is also a prime target for hackers and other bad actors. A vast majority of WordPress exploits happen through third-party plug-ins making it important to monitor and update WordPress sites on a regular basis.
- Performance Issues: WordPress at it's core is a blogging platform, meaning any functionality beyond simple posts and pages often requires a plug-in. Due the the self-contained nature of most plug-ins, they all require their own support files and assets. Plug-in bloat can degrade a site's performace, increase load times and create a negative user experience.