When it comes to web design, one of the biggest issues is figuring out how to maintain a web site after it’s been completed.  The resolution to this issue is usually what’s called a CMS (content management system).  The trick is finding one that will work and is easy to update with.

When we’ve done Tulsa website design in the past, we’ve tried different approaches to the CMS.  But it’s come down to using one that’s very solid and many people are already familiar with.  And that is WordPress.

WordPress comes with standard templates (known as themes in WordPress) and such, although for web design you’ll want to create your own.  Creating a customized template is much like creating a custom website design, just within the WordPress framework.

The results can be quite good.  We have a Tulsa roofing client that we built their site with WordPress.  They were thrilled that when we were finished they were able to make changes on their own (without needing to call us for help) with this CMS.  It made things easier for both us and them.  It was a little extra work at the beginning for us, but in the end it saved a lot of extra work for us and money for them.

The benefits are several:

• Lots of plugins to choose from that make putting cool add-ons easier
• Very easy to edit content, good for both the designer and client
• Easy visibility from the search engines (Google loves WordPress)
• Adding or removing pages is quick
• Editing is done all online, no need to mess with FTP shenanigans and such

There are a couple of bad things, though:

• There’s no real “dev” area you can easily put together that I’ve found, aside from not linking to all your pages until you’re live
• WordPress does need to be updated regularly to keep on top of security issues and such
• Sometimes WordPress can have technical problems that aren’t always easy to solve

If these bad things are worth the risk to you, then using WordPress for website design might be worth trying out, especially if you’re trying to find a good CMS to use.