WordPress vs Custom Website for Small Business
Every business needs a website, right? Is there any business (still in business) that doesn’t realize this truth? [Rhetorical 
] But just having a website is not even enough anymore. It needs to be strategic. Specifically, it needs to:
- look professional
- be optimized for search engines
- contain fresh, timely content
Web designers enjoy opining on the WordPress blog software vs Joomla CMS software, and I am no different. I agree with conventional wisdom that WordPress learning curve is not so steep as that of Joomla. See WordPress vs. Joomla: A Handy Guide So I am going to talk about WordPress now and save the topic of Joomla for another time.
WordPress is an affordable website solution for strategically building a business website and I recommend it for many of my clients. You can have a professional looking website in a day, and add fresh content as often as you like. Plus, WordPress is SEO friendly.
There are many professionally designed WordPress themes available for FREE. And free is about as affordable as you can get. (When somebody starts paying you do download and use their designs, I’ll be first in line.) If your budget allows, consider having a web designer customize and configure your WordPress installation and WordPress theme for your business. Starting with a free theme it is still very affordable, but you are not confined to the “off-the-rack” look and feel.
WordPress allows you to add other pages, which is pretty easy to do. However, if you want more to your pages than what you can do in WordPress, consider having a web designer build a few custom web pages for you. A good web designer/developer can integrate your WordPress blog with your custom designed pages for a seamless appearance. This way your business gets the benefit of having custom pages that contain and do whatever you want, plus the convenience and timeliness of blog posts you create yourself for fresh content.
For SEO, there’s a lot you can do in WordPress and the native installation is already pretty good. Have a look at 20 of the Best SEO Plugins for WordPress to see the myriad things you can do.
Ok, there you have it, Mr./Ms 21st century business. You can have a website for your business for as little as the cost of hosting it, plus your time. And consider using a good web designer to help you create your website the way you want.