The guide to choosing a CMS/web platform for your eco business
How to choose the right Content Management System or Web Platform
Is it time for a new website and you are stuck wondering which CMS or web platform is right for you? This guide will help you to narrow down your options and make some decisions. If you have any questions leave a comment or send me an email and I will do my best to offer some advice.
Considerations
Hosted or Self Hosted?
Now this seems like a simple question doesn’t it… But take some time to consider it. A hosted platform (like Squarespace) seems easy however if the service dissapears so does your website, you are tied to their plans, the hosting might not be eco hosting, you are limited by their functionality / restrictions.
What is your budget?
Do you have a budget for a website design and build or are you doing it yourself?
What is your monthly budget for your website, then you can see if a website platform/builder monthly cost is within budget. Self hosted like WordPress can be cheaper but then you may need ongoing support for updates.
What are your website functions?
What extra functionality beyond an informational website do you need your website to do? Will you have a blog? And if so can you blog (easily/well) using the CMS you are considering. Do you need e-commerce and if so, again how good is your CMS for that? Will you take bookings, subscriptions, have a membership section etc.
How will your website look?
If you are DIY’ing your website in particular a consideration might be whether your chosen CMS/platform has a theme that looks how you want it to. Also like a mentioned before some builders/platforms have limitations for example Squarespace only has a built-in sidebar in 7.0 for some themes.
Are you a ‘technophobe’?
How easy to use does your CMS/platform need to be? Are you planning to make edits yourself or have a member of staff or will come back to whoever built your site? Do you want a visual editor or would you rather just plug in your text/images and know you aren’t messing the site up.
Will it work for your future goals?
Maybe scalability isn’t something you need to consider right now or isn’t on the cards. But if you know you are aiming towards a certain goal for example adding e-commerce can you do this and is the cost affordable. I’m going to plug WordPress here as quality plugins (or custom dev) allow for pretty much anything!
Comparing the Pro’s and Con’s of popular CMS/Web Platforms
Here I go through the most popular options at the time of writing.
Now like all web designer/developers I have my preferences and ones that I am most experienced in using so there admittedly might be some bias in the presentation but I have tried to take a fair look at what each one has to offer. Sometimes what one person may see as a pro another person may see as a con!
For example whether or not it is self-hosted, I have classed this as a con because you can’t choose green hosting, you can’t move hosting and may have a harder time backing up your site. If the platform goes down so does your website or worst case were to no longer exit, your website would be completely gone. On the other hand self-hosting means you have to be the one to consider security and website maintenance too.
At a glance platforms seem expensive with their monthly costs (especially with the add-on costs often needed) compared to a hosted WordPress site, however if you needed higher powered hosting that would increase your cost and you may wish to outsource the running of your website updates which also adds on further cost.
WordPress (self-hosted version)
Pros
- Best flexibility of design and functionality (IMHO)
- Self-hosted – can choose green hosting, backup, choose to move etc
- Free and low cost plugins for many functionalities
- E-commerce plugins Woocommerce free and perfect for small to medium shops
- Can be used as a membership site or incorporate an LMS (learning management system) easily and sometimes cheaply
- Huge number of free and premium themes available as starting points
Cons
- Maintenance to keep WordPress, themes and plugins updated
- Security plugins or services need to be considered
- A large purely e-commerce site might be best to use a dedicated service like Shopify
- WordPress backend can feel overwhelming with one long sidebar menu
Squarespace
Pros
- Intuitive and easy to use
- Visual builder
- High quality templates included to start from
- No need to worry about updates and security
- Good UI for the backend
- Analytics included
Cons
- Not self-hosted
- Membership area additional cost
- Limitations with design unless you can add custom code
- Plan costs can add up
- Functionality limited to what is included
Shopify
Pros
- Fantastic for e-commerce
- No need to worry about updates and security
- Good sustainability initiatives/efforts
- Blogging platform included
- Recognisable and familiar checkout process for customers
- Quality extensions marketplace
Cons
- Learning curve to use
- Plugins can be pricey
- Subscriptions costs can be quite high
- Not self-hosted
- Not as fully customisable as WordPress
- Best for purely e-commerce sites
Showit
Pros
- Very flexible to create whatever design you want
- Can create a separate mobile website (this could also be a con see not responsive and for the need to do changes twice)
- Amazon’s S3 hosting – fast and efficient. Some sustainability efforts.
- Free SSL (however not for third party themes)
- Visual builder
- No need to worry about updates and security
Cons
- You have to use WordPress in addition to ShowIt if you want to add on a blog functionality
- Not truly responsive – site scales
- Awkward to edit/create
- No e-commerce (you’d need to embed from another service)
- Not self-hosted
Webflow
Pros
- No need to worry about updates and security
- Can offer separation of content and editing
- Visual builder (however the ‘client’ bit isn’t)
- No themes or plugins so very flexible
- Includes blogging and e-commerce
- Memberships feature (beta)
Cons
- Bit of a learning curve
- Not self-hosted (however you actually can export and host elsewhere but then lose the CMS)
- Not as fully customisable as WordPress
- Plan pricing can add up especially for e-commerce
- Adding team members incurs further subscription costs
Wix
Pros
- Cheap plans for low traffic sites
- Visual builder, easy to use
- A good ‘marketplace’ of extensions
- Integrates Google analytics
- Marketing planner and emails included in the dashboard (additional costs for premium plans)
- Automations (a bit like IFTT/Zapier)
Cons
- Can have problems with SEO
- Not self-hosted
- A free plan (however this contains ads – so I don’t really recommend as will look unprofessional)
- Editor slow to load for me
- Easy to make a mistake in the editor and mess design up
So, still feeling a little unsure?
If you are planning to do it yourself hopefully this guide has given you some things to think about and narrowed down which options to consider. If you are working with a website designer then often your designer will either have a CMS/platform they use already or some will offer a range or work with developers. So it is best to discuss with them if you have a preference or ask what they would recommend based on your requirements.
For me, at the moment, I have tons of experience with WordPress and truly believe it is a very flexible option for clients with the benefit of eco hosting so I will mostly suggest this option, however I have also worked with Squarespace and Shopify and this could be right for some clients too.
