WordPress or Twitter Bootstrap?

This seems to be a common question in the ‘new site build’ world, but it shouldn’t be.  Contemplating between using an HTML framework and a CMS can be figured out by answering a few questions on your own, allowing you to make this decision with ease and, more importantly, without looking back.

If you’re about to build your new site and you’re not sure where to start, then take a look below and answer these simple questions.  Before long, you’ll see the direction you need to move forward with, whether that means building your site on your own, or hiring someone on to do it for you.

 

  1. What kind of site do I want?

What is your business?  Are you selling goods, looking to broaden the knowledge horizons of avid blog readers, selling services, or creating online communities for other to contribute to?  While both WordPress and Bootstrap can be accommodating to all of these, you’ll spend exponentially more time using one vs. the other.

 

  1. Are you building the site yourself?

If you’re an avid web coder and are confident with your skill-set in HTML, CSS, JS, and so on, then you’re probably not reading this post for the right reasons.  People typically gravitate towards Bootstrap for the visual appeal of it, but it means more coding.  Utilizing an FTP client is a must and knowing your way around an html or css file is essential.  It doesn’t mean that it can’t be done, but it’ll be one of the more intimidating web tasks you take on if you’re not comfortable with it.

WordPress is ideal in these situations.  It’s basically software that you can click through the back end to publish pages, blog posts, and so on.  If you’re looking for your site to be very unique and customized, you may run into some frustrations, as most of us have been sold a theme in our early WordPress days that looks amazing upon buying it, but then shows the boring “hello world” page upon installing and activating it.

 

  1. SEO

How important is SEO to you?  On a scale of 1 to 10, if you’ve answered anything above a 2, then you will most likely want to go with WordPress.  The platform is designed to be broad, and while coding some metadata into a Bootstrap site will be helpful, if you don’t know what you’re doing, there’s a good chance that your favorite search engine won’t notice you nearly as much.  WordPress has the beauty of plugins.  There are a number of SEO plugins that you can employ to help simplify the process of adding keywords, metadata, sitemaps, and a variety of other key items when it comes to SEO.

 

One thing I must emphasize is making sure you’re confident in your decision before starting the build.  Switching everything over down the line can be a timely and costly process.

If you want a modern, appealing, and extremely mobile responsive site that will be the face of a business or a simple landing page, Bootstrap is the way to go.  They’re light-weight, often gorgeously laid out, and simple to navigate.

If you are looking to have a full e-commerce store, a content-full blog, and other forms of application functionality, WordPress is most likely your answer.  It doesn’t mean you’ll get off easy without any coding, but the platform is there for you to work within.

Finally, like with any site build, document, or file, back them up.  Constantly.

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