This site runs on WordPress. I also run my other sites, North Carolina Divorce, Stay Happily Married, and Divorce Talk Radio, on WordPress. The WordPress software is free. We pay for hosting at Rackspace, but the software costs us absolutely nothing. In fact, we’ve installed dozens of plugins created by the WordPress community, and they are usually free as well.
WordPress is amazing. It works well. It’s fairly easy to use, and it will do just about anything we can dream up. It’s terrific.
Unfortunately, sometimes it’s also tricky. The plugins will, occasionally, have bugs. More likely, one plugin will conflict with another. For instance, our video player plugin once had a problem with our backup plugin. Both plugins, on their own, were wonderful, but together they caused our site to crash.
When we need to fix something like the plugin problem we had, we have to do a bunch of digging around and experimenting. It’s time consuming. Sometimes the problem simply exceeds our knowledge, and we have to hire someone to help us figure out things.
I advocate using WordPress, but only if you’re prepared-and staffed-to handle the challenges it brings. If you don’t have the staff and you want to use WordPress, consider using WordPress HelpCenter. These experts charge a reasonable fee to take care of your WordPress support needs. At the low end, you’re going to pay $550 per month for their help. That’s fair considering what you’d pay to have someone on your staff.
If you aren’t up to the challenge or expense of WordPress, I suggest experimenting with SquareSpace. I’m a fan. It’s simple, and it works. You can try it free for 14 days. You don’t even have to provide a credit card.
You have to pay for SquareSpace, but it’s cheap (between $14 and $30 per month). SquareSpace users are creating amazing, unique, beautiful sites. Libke Insurance is a good, simple example of a SquareSpace site. SquareSpace has a huge portfolio of other examples. If you’re willing to do it yourself, you should give SquareSpace a look.
What if you aren’t willing to build and manage your own site? Obviously, you can pay a web designer some money and have them build the site. I’ve done that-twice. Here’s my problem with that approach-you need to keep up your site. It’s going to change a bunch if you’re doing a good job with it: you’ll be adding articles, videos, podcasts, and the like. You can hire a web marketing company, pay it $3,000 to $15,000, and have it build a great site. My experience is that after it’s up and running, you’re going to pay significantly to make changes. The fees are never-ending, and changes are always a major undertaking.
I’ve heard the pitches. “We’ll build it and turn it over to you. You can change anything you want.” The reality, however, is that it’s never easy to change everything. It might be easy to change some things, but inevitably, you’re going to want to change the thing that costs money to change.
Today, websites are essential-they have become a core business tool. You’ve got to control the core. It’s too important to delegate.
I really like having control of my site. I can do it in WordPress. You might not be ready for that. You are, however, ready for SquareSpace. They make it easy. They constantly improve the product, and they charge you a fee that is more than reasonable. Consider SquareSpace and take control of your web presence.
