WordPress web design, Edinburgh.

WordPress,
built properly.

Most WordPress sites are a theme somebody bought, a page builder bolted on top, and thirty plugins holding it together. They're slow, they break, and nobody can quite say why. That isn't how I build them: I write the theme, so the site does what it needs and nothing else.

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This site is one No page builder You own the files

You're looking at one.

A hand written theme.
No page builder.
No bought template.

Right click and view the source if you like.

The example.

This site is one.

The site you're reading is WordPress. The theme was written from scratch: the templates, the styles, the markup, all of it. There's no page builder, no purchased theme underneath, and no plugin doing the layout.

That's not a boast, it's the easiest way for you to check. Look at how fast it loaded. Look at how it behaves on your phone. Then compare it with the last WordPress site you waited for.

If a designer tells you they build in WordPress, ask them to show you one they wrote rather than one they filled in.

The case for it.

When WordPress is the right answer.

Not always, and I'll come to the times it isn't. These are the four reasons that actually decide it, rather than the ones a feature comparison would give you.

You want to own it outright.

The files, the database, the lot. You can move it to another host, hand it to another developer, or keep it running for a decade without asking anyone's permission. Nobody can change the terms on you.
You need something the builders can't do.

A booking flow that works the way your business works, a members area, a calculator, an integration with the software you already run. If it can be built, it can be built in WordPress.
You've got a lot of content, or you will have.

Hundreds of pages, a real blog, categories that need to behave. WordPress was built for this and it still does it better than anything else.
You want no ceiling.

Nothing about the platform decides how far the site can go. What that has meant in practice is on the recent projects page, which is a better answer than a list of features.

The other half.

When Wix is the right answer.

I'm a Wix Legend Partner and a Certified Expert, and I build on Wix Studio every week. It's a good tool, and for a lot of businesses it's the better one. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling.

Security and updates are somebody else's job.

Wix patches it, backs it up and keeps it running. A WordPress site needs maintaining, and if nobody maintains it, that's when the trouble starts.
There's less to go wrong.

No plugin conflicts, no version clashes, no morning where an update breaks the contact form.
It costs less to run.

One monthly fee covers the hosting, the security and the platform.
You can safely change things yourself.

Update a price, swap a photo, add a page, without much risk of breaking something.

If the site is a shopfront and you'd rather not think about it, Wix is the honest answer, and there's a whole page on Wix Studio web design that makes the case for it properly.

The bit nobody tells you.

WordPress is not automatically better.

It's more capable, and that cuts both ways. Worth saying on a page that is trying to sell you it.

Most bad WordPress sites aren't bad because of WordPress. They're bad because someone bought a theme designed to do everything, added plugins for the bits it didn't do, and never took anything away.

Every one of those plugins is code somebody else wrote, running on your site, needing updates.

Built that way, WordPress is a liability. Built properly, it's the most capable thing you can put a business on.

The difference is entirely in who builds it and how.

Your call.

Your platform, your hosting.

Here's something Wix can't offer you at all: a choice. With Wix, the platform and the hosting are the same company and there's no way round it. With WordPress, both are yours to decide.

I can host it for you.

Set up properly, kept current, one point of contact when something needs doing. Most clients take this because they'd rather not think about it.
Or you host it yourself.

Your own account, your own provider, your own bill. If you've already got hosting, or your IT people want it on their own kit, that's fine and it changes nothing about how I build it.

Either way the site is yours. You're never renting your own website back from anybody, and you're never stuck because moving would mean starting again.

The real trade.

Looking after it is not optional.

This is the honest cost of the capability, and I'd rather say it plainly than let you find out the hard way.

WordPress runs a huge share of the web, which makes it worth attacking. Almost every WordPress site that gets hacked gets hacked the same way: an out of date plugin nobody updated. Not clever attacks on well kept sites, just automated scanners finding the ones that were left alone.

So the updates need doing. Core, plugins, the theme, regularly and properly, with a backup taken first in case an update breaks something.

On Wix that's Wix's job. On WordPress it's somebody's job, and if that somebody is nobody, you'll find out eventually and it won't be at a convenient moment.

It can be me. It can be you, and I'll show you exactly what to do. What it can't be is left.

If you're taking WordPress, take the ongoing support with it. It's the one thing on this site I'd push you on.

Money.

What it costs.

The same as any other build. The bands are the published ones, and they don't move because of the platform.

A small business site starts at £1,500, a growing business site at £3,000, and anything bespoke gets quoted once we know what it has to do. The same bands are set out in full on the web design page.

Choosing WordPress doesn't add to the price. It changes what's possible, not what it costs to build.

Hosting is quoted separately, because it depends which way you go on it. See above.

Not sure which you need.

Then don't pick. Half an hour on the phone and I'll tell you which fits, based on what the site has to do rather than what I'd rather build. Sometimes that answer is Wix, and I'll say so.

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WordPress,built properly.

This site is one.

When WordPress is the right answer.

You want to own it outright.

You need something the builders can't do.

You've got a lot of content, or you will have.

You want no ceiling.

When Wix is the right answer.

Security and updates are somebody else's job.

There's less to go wrong.

It costs less to run.

You can safely change things yourself.