There is no doubt that WordPress is the pre-eminent blogging platform and content management system with over 50% of the installed base. What many people do not realise, however, is that WordPress is a superb platform for development of business websites as well.

1. When WordPress Is Not WordPress
Perth
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2. So on my first blog post for Oracle Digital I am going to get all
geeky on you, however, there is a reason.
My commitment to you is to bring you the best, most inexpensive,
most flexible and most reliable websites and online marketing
solutions possible.
Therefore part of my responsibilities at Oracle Digital involve our
use and mastery of the web development / content management
system / blogging platform WordPress.
There is no doubt that WordPress is the pre-eminent blogging
platform and content management system with over 50% of the installed base.
What many people do not realise, however, is that WordPress is a superb platform for
development of business websites as well.
WordPress is the Perfect Platform for Small Business Websites
There are more than a few reasons for this statement;-
 WordPress is simple to use – both for the developer and the website owner
 WordPress has many fantastic built in features that make it the best and most popular
content management system
 WordPress is an open source project which means it continues to benefit from input from
programmers all over the globe
 WordPress cannot be high-jacked by one big corporate for their own benefit
 A huge and growing number of plugins both free and premium exist for WordPress
 WordPress is very friendly to SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
 WordPress developments are usually quick and inexpensive
 WordPress skilled developers are becoming more readily available in the market so you
are not locked in to a single supplier
There are many more reasons for selecting WordPress as your development platform as well,
however, we have covered some of the main ones here.
So When and Why Is WordPress Not WordPress ?
WordPress development is a relatively simple process for those that know what they are doing.
You simply build a WordPress theme that contains html (hyper text markup language), CSS
(cascading stylesheets), php (personal home page) scripting language and a smattering of
Javascript in a layer above WordPress.
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3. In reality, though, those that have spent any amount of time working with WordPress know far
better ways to deliver a much quicker and far more reliable end product.
These days you can find many free WordPress themes on the Internet. Some are good most are
average, many are rubbish and a few are downright dangerous.
Most of us that develop on WordPress started hacking someone else’s theme and then building
our own themes. It is sort of a right of passage for WordPress developers.
In the last couple of years though I have been introduced to a much better way to build
WordPress websites and this is the schema that I recommend to all who ask me ‘which sort of
website they should have’.
The WordPress Theme Framework
The WordPress theme framework inserts
another layer between the day to day developer
and WordPress.
First there is WordPress, then a parent theme
and then, the bit that we can modify, the child
theme (see diagram to the right).
The parent theme is commonly developed by a
specialist WordPress development house that
includes seriously smart and experienced
WordPress developers.
This parent theme is tasked with interfacing directly with WordPress so, when a major release of
WordPress occurs (happens at least once per year these days), the guys have already made sure
the parent them works with the new version of WordPress.
As long as people like me who are developing the child themes follow the rules set out by the
theme framework we can have 100% confidence that upgrading to the latest and greatest version
of WordPress will not make our site fall over for an unknown (and often extremely difficult to
identify) reason.
Using a theme framework also significantly reduces the development time for WordPress
projects.
Yes, it is more difficult to develop in a child theme environment initially, however, once you
know the rules and have mastered the code then you can complete a superbly functional and
great looking website in a very short period of time.
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4. So the benefits of using a WordPress theme framework are as follows;-
 Much higher level of reliability for the websites you develop
 Faster development time
 Less unique code – also means much higher levels of reliability
 Greater flexibility (once you understand the rules)
 More consistency in the finished product
 High levels of re-usable code
 Access to the amazing resources in the theme framework supplier’s forums
Bit of a ‘no brainer’ really. Better, quicker more reliable results for less effort.
Ask your developer if they are using WordPress. If they are not then ask them why not ?
If they are using WordPress then ask them if they are using a theme framework ?
It could make a lot of difference to the longer term reliability of your website…
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