
Should I use WordPress for my home builder website? This is a question that we are often asked at Blue Tangerine. Of course, like many intelligent questions, the short answer is, “It depends.”
WordPress is an extremely popular website CMS (content management system) platform that has a large community of website developers and designers creating plugins and themes that are very affordable, and often free. Being able to take advantage of this large development community may allow you to accelerate the design and development of your site, and possibly include more advanced features and functions.
However, just because everyone is using it, doesn’t automatically make it the right choice for your project. Here are a few thoughts to consider when evaluating WordPress as a solution for your new home builder website.
Complexity
WordPress includes a lot of flexibility with its ability to let different developers create themes and plugins independently. However, there is a cost of added complexity and code redundancy that can impact site performance and increase maintenance and support costs. While many popular plugins are typically well tested, it is impossible for anyone to test all the different combinations of plugins and themes that can be implemented.
The stories we have of clients updating a plugin or installing a WordPress security update, only to suddenly break their site, are too many to include here. There are so many different types of plugins that it is impossible to fully test all the different configuration options to ensure that they work well together.
If your site is mission-critical, consider upgrading to a paid support plan if the developer offers it, so that you have a source for help should something go wrong. Always make a current website backup before doing updates, and ideally, you should have a separate development site.
The complexity also applies to the WordPress CMS admin area. As the number of plugins you use increases, the ability to quickly find and edit portions of your site content is reduced. It can often be quite confusing as you try to figure out where to edit a piece of site content or add a new image to the right place. The content and feature settings become siloed among the different plugins, and keeping up to date with the configuration is a challenge.