Since 1998 we have used many different Content Management Systems to power the websites we build. Over the years we have worked with Expression Engine, Drupal and Joomla, as well as having built our own CMS in the days before there were so many Open Source options available. In the last couple of years though we have used WordPress almost exclusively.

There are three main reasons why we believe WordPress to be the best Content Management System for our clients: useability, flexibility, designability.

Useability
Visit the website of practically every CMS and you will see phrases along the lines of “it’s easy” or that old chestnut “user-friendly”. The thing with WordPress though is that it actually is easy to use because it is so intuitive.

Many of those tasked with managing the website in our client companies are not highly technical people, often being in the Marketing department. As such, they need a tool that let’s them achieve their goals with the minimum technical fuss. Adding a news item to a website is as simple as:

1. click “Posts”
2. click “Add New”
3. type post
4. click “Publish”

In four steps you can be adding content to your website, and fresh content is one of the drivers of improved search engine rankings. Having good search engine rankings is essential to being found online, and being found online helps drive business to your company.

WordPress also has a one-click automatic update function, which allows users to make sure they have the most recent version of the core code and plugins.

Flexibility
Although WordPress is easy for the technically challenged to use, it is also a powerful tool for technical experts to modify and add to. WordPress has a very productive community of developers who have created more than 17,000 WordPress plugins. Whether you want to add an event calendar or build a social networking platform around your website, there are plugins which do just that.

If there isn’t a plugin already available to add the functionality you are looking for, we have the expertise to create one. When the Virginia Health Care Foundation redesigned their website, we replaced their Flash based map of grantees with a custom WordPress plugin which plots grantees on a Google Map. Grantee details are entered through WordPress with the position of the marker pulled from Google based on the Grantee address. The plugin then positions the markers on the map, which allows all of them to be shown on a single map.

Designability
The power and flexibility of WordPress is not just limited to the technical aspects of a website, but allows our designers free rein to create visually appealing sites for our clients. In the hands of master designers and developers, WordPress allows for an immense diversity when it comes to the look and feel of a website. That means that we don’t have to design with the tool in mind, but can use the tool to serve the design. Here are some recent samples of websites we designed and built using WordPress.

For more examples of Category 4′s WordPress designs, see the Our Work section of this website.