I have lots of reasons that I love WordPress but I wanted to just highlight one today. That reason is the awesome plugin infrastructure. You can do almost anything you would want to do with WordPress with an already completed plugin. (You might have to PAY someone to get access to that plugin but the work has already been done.) It is true that every once in a while there will be things that need to be done with custom functionality or a custom plugin, but seriously like 95% of the functionality you could ever need can be found in plugins.
A few weeks back a graphics design friend of mine brougt me an exciting opportunity to work with a small business on a new site. The idea isn’t new at all, in fact most of the functionality is seen on other sites around the web. What I found that was awesome though is that almost all of the pieces they asked for already existed in the form of plugins created by others. I will just have to pull them all together and make sure they work well together.
This happened again yesterday (which is why it is on my mind) when a client asked for some help. She had been working with another developer on her site and had asked for some functionality that the person was struggling to get working. I looked at what was needed and started looking around for the functions I would need to customize to make it work. And then, believe it of not, I found the whole functionality in a free plugin someone had written. I needed a bit of css modification but I saved HOURS in code I would have had to write and test and build out.
When building your business website, don’t just end up with a basic informational site if that isn’t what you want. Start with that if you have to but once you get that up and running, if you ever think “It’d be nice if my site had a google map” or “I wish my site could do XYZ” then do a bit of research and see what you can find. I think you will be suprised to find at least one (if not more) plugins that will do the job. WordPress is a great platform, not just because of what it can do, but because of it’s open structure that allows you to benefit from the work of others.
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