I'm sure many of you reading this have already heard of WordPress. It's a great tool, if you're planning to DIY your website. WordPress provides the user with templates and plugins to make a nice looking website. From my understanding, it is fairly simple to use, in contrast to coding your own website. However, at Amanda Elizabeth Design, we don't use WordPress or any program like it. And here are a few reasons why.

wordpress dashboard

Templates

Templates for website are essentially pre-made websites that a user can input their content into. I can tell when I see a website that comes from a WordPress or the like's templates rather than a custom designer. They end up looking very generic, because many people use the templates that are currently popular. While this makes web designing easy (since it's done for you) and will give you a pretty looking website, it doesn't help you stand out from the crowd, like a custom design would.

Customization

The templates are able to be customized, I'm told. But I knew a designer who told me that she worked with WordPress and completely overrode the templates. Even so, I can still tell that her websites are made with templates. The templates limit the customization that can be done with a site. Amanda Elizabeth Design would rather put in the effort to have a fully customized website that stands out. I've had customers ask me if this or that is possible, and I can only image they are asking because past WordPress experience has limited what they think can be customized on a website. I'm always happy to tell them, "Yes, we can absolutely do that!"

Functionality

WordPress is loaded with plugins, which allow you to add things like contact forms and image slideshows, but adjusting the functionality of them seems to be rather difficult. I've been in countless groups for designers and there never fails to be questions on how to adjust WordPress plugins - things that would be just a line of code in an AE Design site turn out to be super complicated to adjust in a WordPress plugin.

As I said earlier, WordPress can be a great tool. The purpose of this article is to explain that when you're paying someone else to develop your website, you should be able to get everything you want, however you want it - and from my experience, WordPress doesn't allow that.

If you're interested in a fully custom, fully functional, non-templated website, please reach out.