WordPress Development in DC
How WordPress is taking traction in the Washington DC area.
Over the past few years, Drupal has gained a tremendous amount of traction in the DC and Virginia markets. From small startups and non-profits to whitehouse.gov, Washington, DC is now using Drupal to run both public and private websites, causing a huge need for the skilled DC Drupal Developer.
We love Drupal as it is an amazingly powerful open-source tool; however, it’s not for everybody and can most certainly be overkill for most organizations. There are many challenges with implementing a Drupal infrastructure. The biggest challenge? Finding good Drupal developers in the DC Metro area. Implementing Drupal is a big enough endeavor to take on … Imagine the nightmare that you can be faced with by hiring a novice Drupal group.
While you’re mulling over what content management system (CMS) to use for your company, take into consideration why we recommend using WordPress in lieu of Drupal for the majority of organizations out there:
No Need to OverThink Things
Main point to keep in mind: WordPress is less complicated than Drupal. This reason, and this reason alone, should typically be the dealbreaker for considering Drupal over WordPress as your site’s CMS. Obviously, it will depend on how intricate your website is, but for most organizations in the DC Metro area, a high level of complexity is the last thing you want. With WordPress, Content Managers and Web Masters don’t need to have a technical background in order to manage their websites. This is not possible with Drupal unless you are willing to dive deep into the complex Drupal framework. Doing so takes time, money and other valuable resources that you can otherwise effectively put to use elsewhere in your quest to conquer your industry.
Sexy WordPress Themes
Due to the intricacies of Drupal and the resources that it takes to develop a theme for it, most developers are staying away from designing sexy, appealing designs for Drupal. Take a look at a few Drupal-based sites … You’ll notice that most of them are clunky, boxy and very monotonous. It takes longer to implement creativity into a Drupal theme, whereas WordPress allows for easy theming. To add to the argument, the WordPress community in DC is made up more of creative people versus a community of just developers.
Not only is it easier to allow such creativity, software updates are also easier to implement on WordPress than on Drupal. Although the latest version of Drupal does make it slightly easier to update modules, it still doesn’t beat the user-friendliness of WordPress. Updating the Drupal core requires solid technical knowledge and experience. If you are the poor soul that needs to upgrade from Drupal 5 or 6 to Drupal 7, it can cost you a pretty penny since there’s a good chance you may need to have your website rebuilt for the upgrade. In comparison, WordPress is built to last and, with a few clicks in the administrative end, can easily be updated as needed.
Adding Widgets Is Easy Like Sunday Morning
WordPress widgets provide a quick way for designers and web content managers to add new features to their already awesome website. Adding a newsletter registration section, contact forms, twitter feed, etcera, can easily be accomplished through widgets mostly done through the WordPress drag and drop interface. On the other side, Drupal makes it hard for non-technical users to add new widgets and features. With the demand for Drupal developers being so high in this area, it can become very time-consuming and costly just to have a registration widget installed on to your Drupal page.
User-Friendly and Then Some
DC Drupal organizations spend alot of time and efforts learning how to configure the product. If you want to be able to fully control your site due to having a technical team on staff, or you are a coder, then Drupal is platform for you. WordPress is more streamlined and “non-technical”-user friendly, and it’s easy to install and update when needed. You don’t have as much control as you would with a Drupal system, but if you’re running a marketing brochure-type website, you don’t need to have Drupal complicate your daily life.
These are just a few of the many reasons of why WordPress may be a better fit for you than Drupal. If you’re looking to migrate from your existing Drupal site, or you’re just wanting more information on which open source platform is best for your organization, drop us a line! We’re located right by the water in Old Town, Alexandria, so just stop by and let’s grab a cup of coffee while we discuss your needs and project.
Email us at [email protected].
