Do It Yourself – DIY Website
We built our Sunriver Metal Works’ DIY website using the WordPress Engine. Plugins customize the functions of the website to fit the business needs. Many themes have been developed by companies to further customize how WordPress works. For example, we use a theme that presents our products in a format we like. That theme is developed and updated based on the users that have purchased the theme.
As you can see from the example above, several updates are available to apply to the current website. In this case, WordPress and the Theme updates are major. In other words, the changes may have major impacts on our little DIY website. And to further complicate things, the plugin and theme updates may not be compatible with WordPress.
Pros and Cons of Themes
We are using the Do-It-Yourself Model. Our website host helped us build our current framework using WordPress. We have the flexibility to customize it within WordPress and Theme functions. If we are having issues within that framework, our host can add special code to fix things. When it comes to updates, things get a little tricky. You need to set up a “development” site to help test out any potential issues. We are currently working with an independent contractor to help us work through these update issues (which are many). Once we have those issues worked out, we’ll migrate the changes to the “production” website.
All of these things cost money. There are also intangible costs, like having to re-create or modify 400 products in the updated theme because the import doesn’t work (or someone hasn’t developed a plugin to do that.) Anyone who tells you that having a business DIY website is easy is lying.
Customer Feedback
Our customers have given us feedback that they really like the website. It’s important to provide an easy to use website if you want to get leads and sales. You also need to have a “responsive” website for the increasing numbers of mobile users.
We haven’t given up on the DIY Model. Yet… It’s just becoming much more difficult to keep up with current trends and software updates.
So maybe we just need to take a vacation. 🙂