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Wordpress developers perth

WIX vs WordPress – Choosing the right platform for your business

A common question for businesses and individuals looking to build a website is which platform to use. Both WordPress and WIX are front-runners in a sea of website building and publishing options and both are popular choices. For us there is one clear winner. But before we let you know our conclusion we’re going to look at both of these website builder platforms.

There is no one size fits all approach. The decision of which one to use comes down to a number of different factors, like who is using it and who they are using it for. Is it business or a personal blog? Will it sell products or will it be service or information driven? For the purposes of this article, we’re going to assume that you need a website for your business.

Just of note before we get down to the nitty-gritty, we are talking about WordPress.org, not WordPress.com. This is important as although they share a name they are very different platforms.

The History of WordPress

WordPress is a Content Management System (CMS) that began back in 2003 as a spin-off from two other blogging software companies. Back then there was an alternative leading blogging software company. At the same time WordPress was launching this other company changed their licensing terms. The change wasn’t taken well by their users and caused many bloggers to look elsewhere. As a consequence, WordPress’s popularity shot up. With the support and help of its community WordPress continued to develop and grow.

In 2010 the ownership of WordPress trademark and logo was given to the WordPress foundation. This meant it was not dependent on a single company or group of developers. By 2013 WordPress was the most popular CMS in the world. It continues to be at the top of the food chain of CMS systems. It was behind 22% of all websites in 2014 and today it accounts for 27.5 % of the top 10 million websites and 58.7 % of all the websites known to use CSM. The future developments of WordPress depend very much on its users.

Because of the way it has come about, WordPress differs from any other CMS platform. This is reflected in the way it provides its customer support. Unlike other CMS and platforms, WordPress support isn’t centralised, instead, it is run through the WordPress community.

The History of WIX

WIX was founded in 2006 by two brothers and a friend, who wanted an easier way to create websites. Initially, they developed the platform based on Adobe Flash technology. In 2012 WIX announced their new HTML5 site builder which took over the Adobe Flash-based technology. They based their technology around the concept of WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get). In 2014 the company reported 50 million users. Today it reports having over 90 million users.

The most obvious benefit with WIX is the ease of use. Although you don’t need to know code to use WordPress, the drag and drop nature of WYSIWYG  and WIX means that building a website is accessible to anyone of any ability. It is not a typical CMS in that it is design driven. This might sound great on the outside, but it has a knock-on effect with its capabilities and functionality.

The head-to-head

Website developers tend to prefer WordPress and that’s not without reason. There are endless site building capabilities and functionalities within WordPress that WIX simply doesn’t have. You don’t need to be a developer to use WordPress, but it does take more time to learn and even longer to master. The ease and popularity of the drag and drop and WYSIWYG concepts, has led to the development of themes and plugins for WordPress that also offer this feature. This has increased WordPress’s usability and decreased It’s barrier entry.

Both platforms have plugins. The WordPress plugin library is limitless there is a plugin for everything and anything you want to do with your website. In fact there’s a plugin called ‘Visual Composer’ which emulates the Wix ‘drag and drop’ interface.

One big advantage that WordPress has over WIX is that WordPress code is easier for Google to navigate, read and judge. You also have more control over the content including all the SEO elements such as Alt and meta tags, HTML and CSS code. Then there is the bonus of WordPress plugins that can boost your site visibility. Although this is only the beginning for SEO, its one that can get you off on a good footing.

The downside to WordPress (of which there aren’t many), is that it is open source. This means that less experienced developers may produce less than brilliant plugins that can be a security risk. Note ‘can be’, because if you update plugins regularly and choose plugins that have good reviews and are maintained, then you’ll find you get little or no problems. For the record we extensively test any third party plugins we use.

The winner is…

WIX is a fine solution for smaller or one-man business. The ease of use makes it a good option for some people. However, it is a fully hosted service and with that comes limitations. In our article why you shouldn’t use a DIY website builder we share several reason why you’re better off with WordPress.

Okay, so we said we were going to wait to the end before exposing our winner. You can probably tell that we think WordPress is by far the better option. The design elements are extensive if not limitless. WordPress is undoubtably the most flexible and robust CMS available and it’s platform can be applied to sites that are fun and creative through to large corporate sites with layers of functionality.  Importantly the WordPress SEO options are far superior to anything else on the market and will help take your business to the next level.

If you’re a West Australian business that would like to learn more about WordPress and it’s ability to help grow your digital profile talk to Start Digital today.

startdig

We are a collective of designers, coders, producers and technologists from around the world who collaborate on a shared passion for innovative websites. Based in Perth, Western Australia, we bring style and innovation to the projects we undertake. Taking time to understand our clients requirements we strive to produce quality web design work for an affordable price. We then leverage our years of experience to make sure that our websites are responsive, SEO friendly and meet the clients requirements.

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Thoroughly professional and well communicated. Thanks Neil
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I am from Brisbane, my name is Craig, I have a dog training company, it was my first time attempting on page SEO, after calling nearly all SEO companies in Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne, this was the only place that gave me some time to help me out. 5 star from me, well done in being a human and not worrying about what you could have got from me. hats off to you !. from dogtrainingbegins.com.au
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Neil & The Team at Start Digital are fantastic to work with. Our new website is exceptional. The guys here have fresh, modern ideas and the process from start to finish was flawless. Highly recommended.
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Neil and the team at Start Digital provide such an excellent service and have been a massive help for us since we launched late 2018. Their attention to detail is unmatched compared to other digital agencies we've dealt with, and the team go out of their way to ensure the best result is achieved in the most time & cost efficient way. Thanks again Start Digital
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A huge thank you to Neil and the Start Digital team! We engaged them to redesign our Move Homes website to take our brand to the next level. Not only does the website look fantastic, but throughout the website build we received frequent and transparent communication- we knew exactly what was happening and why. Start Digital listened to what we needed and would offer their advice on how to achieve our goals. Aside from their expertise, they’re also great people and really easy to deal with. We look forward to working on more projects over the coming years!
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Neil Mason and the Start Digital team have done a tremendous job with the design and implementation of Interstaff’s new website. Our brief to Neil was for a clean, modern website which visually communicated our brand values, ‘sharp, dependable, expert and human’ to both business and individual clients, and importantly to offer an engaging and easy-to-navigate online experience optimised for SEO. We are delighted with the design as well as the level of consideration and attention to detail Neil and his team put into shaping the online experience of our brand. Start Digital have been very flexible and easy to collaborate with and nothing was ever too difficult. They went above and beyond – even working over the weekend to help us have our website ready to launch ahead of one of our key business seminars. We look forward to continuing to work with Neil and his team in the future and would definitely recommend their services.
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Neil and his team at Start Digital go above and beyond expectations. Having worked with many web agencies I can honestly say that Start have been one of the most open and cost effective agency I have worked with . They come highly recommeded
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After years of tolerating our old website, we are now proud owners of a sleek, responsive and easy to use new site, thanks to Start Digital. Professional, practical, affordable and easy to work with-Neil and his stellar team delivered our site along with 22 additional sites for some of our congregations. Our organisation is complex and this project was massive. Throughout the project, Start Digital were flexible and patient with us. They responded quickly to emails and phone calls, kept us in the loop and always made time to touch base in their cool office. We can’t thank the team enough for their tremendous effort. It’s only been a month, but we have received plenty of positive feedback since launching the new site. We look forward to working with Start Digital for future digital projects and highly recommend anyone who needs a new website to give them a call.
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Neil and the team created an AMAZING website for Inventium. We have received so much positive feedback since launch. I highly recommend Start Digital - they are awesome!
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03:54 16 Nov 17
Fantastic Service, Really Knowledgeable in all areas of Website and Marketing strategies, they built us a fantastic looking site and nothing was too much for them throughout the process, We also found them to be very reasonably priced compared to other quotes we had, highly recommended.
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Start Digital have built 3 websites for The Highways Group. We've been impressed with their attention to detail and quality of design every time. They're a friendly, professional agency and our go to web team.
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07:45 19 May 17
We highly recommend Start Digital service, their efficient , personnel approach and professional skills gave us great results thanks .
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Knowledgeable and excellent service at a great price I highly recommend Start Digital. We engaged them to redesign our website and manage our online presence. Previously we were a few pages back on a google search, however after only a few months we are in and around the top 5 on the first page. The guys at Start were great to deal with providing straight forward easy to understand information without the typical sales pitch that we have experienced many times before from other providers in the industry. We continue to receive updates on the progress of our website and their SEO service all for a very reasonable rate (ie. much cheaper than we were previously paying for a lesser service)
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Neil and his team was responsible for the design and re-branding of our website, business cards and marketing material. They quickly understood our business, they identified the market we needed to target and delivered an excellent solution to match. We would highly recommend Start Digital.
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E: info@startdigital.com.au
P: (08) 6144 3710

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