Is a WordPress Business Website Right for You?

Is a WordPress Business website right for you? The short answer is yes. You’re going to get a lot of bang for your buck with any WordPress plan, especially their Business Plan.

But with all the competitors in the market, it’s hard to be certain. Let’s take a look at WordPress as well as some of its competitors such as Squarespace, Wix, and Weebly.

Who Trusts Them?

WordPress has done a superb job in working with some of the top web developers in the field.

Take a look at a few of the brands that trust WordPress as their platform:

• CBS
• Fortune
• The New York Times
• Spotify

What’s Offered On Most WordPress Plans?

Before we get to the wonders of a WordPress Business website, let’s take a quick look at what exactly WordPress offers.

Currently, there are four different options offered by WordPress. They are:

• Free – $0/month
• Personal – $4/month
• Premium – $8.25/month
• Business – $24.92/month

The Free Plan

The Free Plan is pretty much what you’d expect. You’ll have the WordPress.com subdomain, access to hundreds of free themes, and basic domain customization.

You’ll also receive the benefit of what they call Jetpack Features. That includes SEO, spam protection, social sharing, site stats, and more.

The Personal Plan

The Personal Plan provides everything mentioned above as well as a custom domain.

But now, you’ll have access to WordPress’ email and live chat support. You’ll see for yourself that, as soon as you engage the live chat feature, a member of their customer service team (a.k.a. Happiness Engineers) will be quick to reply and very thorough in answering your questions.

The Premium Plan

The Premium Plan, of course, includes all that and more. Now, you’ll be able to monetize your site through WordAds which help you earn money from impressions.

You’ll also have access to unlimited themes and VideoPress. VideoPress is an easy way to upload videos with a fast, unbranded player.

The WordPress Business Website Overview

Here come the big guns. A WordPress Business website offers everything mentioned above and so much more.

Let’s review what you’ll receive that some of the other plans also offer:

• Custom Domain
• Jetpack Features
• Email and Live Chat Support
• Unlimited Themes
• VideoPress
• Monetize Your Site

But, a WordPress Business website comes with several more bells and whistles.

The WordPress Business Website Details

Now, you can attend live courses to further advance your web design skills. You can also set up a one-on-one with one of the Happiness Engineers to take a deep dive into your website. This will be very beneficial to you.

Here come some of the serious perks of a Business Plan:

• SEO tools to receive better results on search engines and social media
• Google Analytics Integration for a deeper understanding of who your website visitors are
• You’ll also be able to install custom plugins to meet your needs.
• You can remove any WordPress.com branding from your site, making it your own.

What’s So Great About It?

Those SEO tools and Google Analytic integrations are superb features. Best of all, they’re easy to utilize from your dashboard.

WordPress also works quite well in their mobile editor. You’ll find that it’s as responsive and easy to use as their desktop version.

If you’re ever unsure, you’ll quickly see that those Happiness Engineers live up to their name.

As soon as you hop onto the Live Chat feature, you’ll be met with a warm greeting and an intelligent mind that’ll help you solve any of your problems.

Be sure to set aside some time for their live courses, too, when you feel inspired to learn even more.

Some of Their Competitors

Now that we’ve taken a deep dive into the waters of WordPress, let’s look at some of their competitors.

Truthfully, this list is extensive. But, we thought we’d deal with some of the heavy hitters in the industry who’ve done a good job bringing their platforms to light.

Squarespace

Squarespace will cost you either $12/month or $18/month if you’re just looking to host a website. If you’re an online retailer, however, you’re looking at $26/month or $40/month. Those are some pretty fair prices.

You’ll also receive quite a bit for your money. Squarespace is likely the most feature-rich platform.

It includes e-commerce components, a blogging module, WYSIWYG editing, custom CSS, and tons of design features.

Squarespace is so focused on visual design and attractive imagery that you’ll want to make sure you have high quality personal or stock photos to upload to your site.

This is actually a good thing because, as we all know, people are attracted to visuals and short videos.

Wix

Wix is coming on strong these days. Their marketing campaigns have been everywhere, and with good reason. They have a lot to offer.

Their pricing plans start at $3.50/month and increase up to $25/month. So they’re right on par with WordPress.

Here, you’ll also find that their mobile editor is easy to use. Likewise, they offer WYSIWYG editing, a blogging module, social media integration, and an advanced image editor.

Their reputation precedes them as being easy to use. You can sit down and drag and drop various components onto your new site and be ready to go live within minutes. Their 24/7 support doesn’t hurt a thing either.

Weebly

Weebly has been in the game for quite some time. They’ve branded themselves as “The easiest way to make a website”. That’s true enough, but there are so many other platforms out there who also offer a similar ease of design.

Their pricing comes in anywhere from $0/month – $25/month. They, too, offer an e-commerce integration, mobile app, blogging modules, and social media integration.

Weebly is geared more toward small startups or those wanting to feature something simple like a portfolio. On the Starter Plan, for instance, you can only create ten pages.

If you’re wanting to expand your content beyond that, you may want to think about some of the other players e.g. WordPress or Wix.

What’s the Verdict?

Well, WordPress is still winning. You can be sure all those big brand names like The New York Times, Fortune, and CBS searched high and low before selecting their platform. And, truly, WordPress’ Happiness Engineers live up to their name.

Wix, however, keeps coming on stronger and stronger. Their reviews are quite favorable and there’s quite a bit of room in there for customization.

Squarespace is probably the way to go if you’re planning on going strong with images and visuals. Whereas Weebly is probably the way to go if you’re looking to create a small, simple site with basic features.

Nowadays, we’re pretty lucky. You’ll find that web design is being offered to the everyday man. With drag and drop features, ample customer support, and user-friendly dashboards, we all stand a chance at creating beautiful, well-designed sites.

We’ll Make It Even Easier for You

If you feel that you do not want to take on the challenge and would like a quote for a wordpress website build-up where you will get a fully accessible, SEO-friendly, mobile-responsive online presence, do not hesitate to contact us.

We can take plenty of the other technical digital marketing aspects off your hands, too, with our SEO optimization services, link building, web analytics, social media marketing, and more.

Email us today! We’d love to help you bring all your online marketing dreams to fruition.