WordPress – Need a new web site?

May 10, 2010 / in Social Media, WordPress / by Jason Terry

We have talked about WordPress before, but it comes up so often that we needed to mention it again.  In the past month, we have had 5 companies hire us to help them create new web sites to replace their dated and static web sites.  (Before and after case studies will be on the web site in the coming months.  For now, visit the official WordPress Showcase.)  Our social media clients are doing this because they see and hear about how we use WordPress and professionally designed themes to create fantastic looking web sites without the equally fantastic price tag.  WordPress is a FREE content management system for creating web sites with a ton of functionality including Blogs, Image Galleries, Polls, SEO Optimization and more.

In an environment where a typical web design proposal weighs in at $5,000 as a starting point, a WordPress based site can be implemented for half that.  Another incredibly important benefit for using WordPress is that someone on your staff can easily update the content on your web site regularly with the built-in Content Management System. All without having to pay someone hourly fees to create a news article or updated staff profile.

Version 3.0 of the WordPress system is due out this month and there are a TON of great new features.  The current Blue Gurus Web Site uses a theme from RocketTheme.com that cost $50.  It took 2 hours to switch from our old WordPress theme to the new one, completely changing and updating the look and feel of our site for the better.  And if we didn’t like it, we could have switched back to the previous theme with the click of a button.

We often buy templates for our clients from ThemeForest.net and RocketTheme.com.  The previous Blue Gurus web site theme was called Display and we bought it at ThemeForest.net for $42.  We would love to hear from you (go ahead and COMMENT!) if you have other WordPress Theme sites that you like.  We have been pleasantly surprised with the developer support of these themes.  The theme sites we use support the ability for you to ask the developers of the themes questions if something isn’t working quite right.  Sometimes, the problem has been on our end.  Sometimes, it was a flaw in the design that the developers fix and update for all to take advantage of.  Either way, getting that support from the theme developer is worth so much more than the cost of the theme itself!

If you have been sitting on a web site for more than 3 or 4 years and you know it is time to create a new site, be sure to give us a call to discuss WordPress options!  We would love to show you the power of this community based content management system that powers hundreds of thousands of web sites!

(WordPress Dashboard Backend)