Here Are My Website Software Recommendations
I've worked with a LOT of different CMS platforms over the past decade and a half. I recommend different website software platforms for different purposes.
EcommerceFor ecommerce, I recommend either Shopify for mid-size stores, Weebly for small catalogs, or BigCommerce for larger, more complex ones. All three have clean code, tend to load fast (if built correctly), SEO tools built in, and are using state-of-the-art site security—all things that weigh very heavily in Google’s latest algorithms. Make sure you use a secure, hosted solution like ones I recommend. Unless you have an entire team of internet security professionals at your disposal, open source software like WooCommerce, Magento, Drupal, Joomla, etc are just too easy to hack.
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Local BusinessesFor local business websites, I highly recommend Weebly. (I can hear the collective scoffing gasp from the web dev world now.) Yes, Weebly. Not Wix [shudder], not web.com, not Wordpress (more on that in a bit), not even Squarespace (although that may change as they recently purchased Weebly). Weebly’s code is very basic and clean. The pages load fast. The SEO tools are easy to use and navigate. And for whatever other reasons, it just works. My Weebly based websites have outranked other platforms every time for local SEO.
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Blogs & Content-focused Websites
For blogs & content sites, I recommend Wordpress, with a big BUT. Everyone’s got one, right? You can build a large, complex content site on Wordpress, and if all you're doing is blogging to share content that's perfect. BUT you need to make sure that your hosting is very fast and very secure. Lock that puppy down!
Wordpress is open source software, which means it’s free for anyone to download and use. That is great for people who want to build websites, but also great for people who want to learn how to hack those websites. Wordpress websites in the US are constantly (like, thousands of attempts on a site per day) being bombarded by hostile takeover attempts by hack-bots in China and Russia (among other countries). They know Wordpress software inside and out and are fully capable of exploiting common plugins to gain access to your visitor’s data, user accounts, and (heaven forbid) customer data. All I can say is if you are using Wordpress for ecommerce… get out right now. If you even have a WP site linked into your ecommerce store, unlink it now. You are on the hook if the Feds find out your customer’s data has been compromised. It can be a business destroyer.
Move your store to a hosted ecommerce platform like Shopify or BigCommerce, where they can guarantee your site’s PCI compliance. Okay rant over. But seriously. This stuff matters. Big time.
Also, just FYI--this website is built in Weebly ;)
Wordpress is open source software, which means it’s free for anyone to download and use. That is great for people who want to build websites, but also great for people who want to learn how to hack those websites. Wordpress websites in the US are constantly (like, thousands of attempts on a site per day) being bombarded by hostile takeover attempts by hack-bots in China and Russia (among other countries). They know Wordpress software inside and out and are fully capable of exploiting common plugins to gain access to your visitor’s data, user accounts, and (heaven forbid) customer data. All I can say is if you are using Wordpress for ecommerce… get out right now. If you even have a WP site linked into your ecommerce store, unlink it now. You are on the hook if the Feds find out your customer’s data has been compromised. It can be a business destroyer.
Move your store to a hosted ecommerce platform like Shopify or BigCommerce, where they can guarantee your site’s PCI compliance. Okay rant over. But seriously. This stuff matters. Big time.
Also, just FYI--this website is built in Weebly ;)