Looking for advice on website technologies
Discussion
I know there’s plenty of IT professionals on PH, so I’m hoping that somebody will be able to help.
I’m helping with the management of a professional organisation that is involved with training & education of professional members, and is also a source of technical information to the public in a specialist field.
The existing website is due for an upgrade and I’m involved with the website overhaul. We already have quotations from a few website companies who can produce the new website, but they are offering different solutions, and I don’t know enough to make an informed decision between the different options.
I’m therefore looking for a person or company that would be able to provide independent advice on the different website technologies currently available and advise on the pro’s & con’s of each.
I’m helping with the management of a professional organisation that is involved with training & education of professional members, and is also a source of technical information to the public in a specialist field.
The existing website is due for an upgrade and I’m involved with the website overhaul. We already have quotations from a few website companies who can produce the new website, but they are offering different solutions, and I don’t know enough to make an informed decision between the different options.
I’m therefore looking for a person or company that would be able to provide independent advice on the different website technologies currently available and advise on the pro’s & con’s of each.
Don't use wordpress unless you, an agreed role in the org, or the host are looking after all the updates.
Cheap web companies may use lots of wordpress plugins to produce something that looks great with bells and whistles, but these come with an admin overhead that must be considered. Vulnerable wordpress sites are compromised automatically and must be managed properly.
Cheap web companies may use lots of wordpress plugins to produce something that looks great with bells and whistles, but these come with an admin overhead that must be considered. Vulnerable wordpress sites are compromised automatically and must be managed properly.
It's funny that you mention avoiding wordpress, as the current website is based on wordpress, and we are thinking of moving away from that based on limited research that wordpress is not ideal.
I'm looking for someone to provide technical advice on the different alternatives to wordpress.
I'm looking for someone to provide technical advice on the different alternatives to wordpress.
It's really difficult to recommend technologies without a list of requirements and what you need the website to achieve.
For example:
You need to nail down your requirements first and go from there.
For example:
- What type of content will you be publishing and how will it be structured
- Do you need memberships, logins, paywalls etc
- Who will be maintaining the site and how technical they are
- Do you need any integrations with existing systems
- How do you expect the site to scale and grow in complexity over time
You need to nail down your requirements first and go from there.
Chimune said:
Don't use wordpress unless you, an agreed role in the org, or the host are looking after all the updates.
Cheap web companies may use lots of wordpress plugins to produce something that looks great with bells and whistles, but these come with an admin overhead that must be considered. Vulnerable wordpress sites are compromised automatically and must be managed properly.
Very good advice IMHO.Cheap web companies may use lots of wordpress plugins to produce something that looks great with bells and whistles, but these come with an admin overhead that must be considered. Vulnerable wordpress sites are compromised automatically and must be managed properly.
We have two Wordpress sites where I work - a core company site and a specific brand focused one. They were build by different agencies, so one uses the Divi eco-system and the other seems to use parts but not all of Elementor. Adding a blog post or other content is straight forward but making design changes or site administration is time consuming. Updates to either a theme, plugin or the core of Wordpress can be a pain as you to try to check version compatibility. You could be using a free plugin which is no longer updated and you have no idea if it might work after a full version upgrade (eg the recent release of Wordpress v7).
For bigger upgrades I've ended up taking a backup of the entire site, restoring it into a temporary Wordpress setup and then running the upgrade there first. In light of this, I have a current mini-project figuring out how much work will be needed to move both to a common set of plugins.
Other aspects to consider (Wordpress or not), are backup of the content. Don't just trust a web host which says they provide x number of days of backups, you want a backup in your possession (which somebody occasionally tests!). There's also security (alongside routine updates / patches). For instance, enforcing strong passwords and MFA on administrative accounts to any management portals or similar.
That all said, Wordpress isn't a bad option per-se, it just needs consideration in planning the site and then looked after on a regular basis.
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