EDUCO Co-Founder Featured as a Web Design Expert on Clutch
WordPress and Drupal are two of the most well-known CMS's out there. Marty Vernon, one of our co-founders, was recently featured as an expert in an interview with Clutch about the pros and cons of using Drupal vs WordPress.
Clutch is a rating and reviews site that focuses on connecting buyers with companies and service providers in the IT sector that best meet their needs, such as web development and design. Clutch has made the process of finding a website builder easier, however, there are still a lot of unknowns for a buyer as they look to hire a partner to help their internet brand and business evolve.
Marty offered a lot of advice and insight into the process of deciding what CMS and provider are right for your individual project. In the initial selection, he encouraged potential buyers to connect with multiple companies and ask them for a demo of the platforms they work with. This will help you in realizing which software and agency most accurately captures your business needs. He follows with the suggestion to find a company whose:
- Work you like
- Reputation is strong
- Trustworthy - this is a bit harder to uncover
- Good at retaining clients and make sure to speak to a few of their clients
After you have thoroughly evaluated the different options, you should be in a position to make an informed decision as to which CMS is right for you.
It's no secret that companies of any size, small, medium or large, can use Wordpress or Drupal. Often companies will use both for different web projects.
However, Marty tends to recommend WordPress for projects where, “...the site has no other reason for being, other than to be a content publishing or marketing platform”. Marty recommends Drupal for companies that are "an enterprise organization or that have aspirations of being an enterprise organization." What "enterprise" means can vary, but essentially these companies have gone beyond the content publishing or marketing stage of their site and want to integrate with some third party software, or integrate with the organization or business beyond simply content publishing.
One of the most important points Marty recommends if you have a complex or enterprise caliber project is to go in with a plan. Building a website is a lot like building a house;
“You wouldn't build a house without an architectural blueprint or a thorough understanding of:
- All the rooms you have in your existing house that also need to exist in this new house
- All the new rooms you’ll need to build
- A thorough list of all the amenities and specific features you need”.
This is why Marty recommends having a preliminary budget range. If you're not sure what to budget, but your project is complex consider paid digital discovery to get a design and development agency to help you plan out the blueprint as it will give you a better idea of exactly what your build will require and the cost. Additionally, this can be a nice approach because you don’t have to commit to a large risky number.
Marty’s concluding thoughts are that the the ultimate choice is in the clients hands and urges them to be an active participant in the CMS selection and what their business needs are;
“As a prospective user of a CMS we owe it to our organization to examine each CMS and to look at what each CMS software is doing today, look at how they’re trying to align themselves with the needs of businesses, and pick a software that matches the needs, likes and aspirations of our organization. If we need something a bit leaner that can easily allow standard content to scale, WordPress seems like it could be a great fit. If you want more of an enterprise-level software and partner, Acquia, Drupal and your development agency are going to be a strong fit”.
The next time you are trying to decide what platform to use for your website, make sure to remember the advice here from Marty! Or feel free to contact us.