12 Feb Which is better, WordPress, Wix or Duda Website Builder?
Why choose WordPress over Wix, Duda, Hibu, Jimdo, Weebly, Webnode, Squarespace, or Volusion
Setting up a cloud-based site is easy
Even without programming knowledge, just pay their monthly fee and you’re good to go. Furthermore, the company takes care of your backup and security. Unfortunately, you can’t do much because you do not have access to a backend that would have allowed you to have full control of your website. In other words, such ease places you in a rigid box.
Setting up WordPress can be confusing
Although WordPress is user-friendly, it requires you to learn a bit about cPanel, FTP clients, setting up a MySQL database. Knowledge in Photoshop and engaging in a Domain registration and Hosting company is sometimes required as well. It can be tough if you do not have extra time and patience to do this, though it can be learned.
Advantage and disadvantages of drag and drop interface:
1. Limited customization.
When you create your website through Wix or Duda, customization is very limited. You can’t do much because the system will not allow complicated changes. In short, you can’t really fit in your personality, making most sites look simplistic and boring. You can’t really put branding.
2. Affordable, but you don’t really own it.
These platforms have safeguards that won’t easily allow you to leave and move to another platform. To begin with, you should own your Domain and allowing them to do it for you isn’t recommended. Moving your content is also difficult because unlike WordPress, there is no database that you can move around. Bottom line, you don’t own the website, they do.
3. Poor SEO
Just to be clear, having a WordPress site doesn’t guarantee a strong presence in Google. However, you can optimize your pages to meet Google’s standards and by creating relevant and worthy content, there’s no way but up. Wix, for example, uses an “Ajax crawling scheme” where you can not impose canonical tags. Properly tagged photos are a strong SEO strategy which you can do with WordPress but not here. There is no support for “
Duda also allows you to set unique title tags, meta descriptors, alt and description tags on images, and keywords on each page which makes it a strong add-on. Furthermore, DudaOne let you customize the URL for each page and automatically generates an XML sitemap. But its $74 per month. It’s not only more expensive in the long run but won’t give you a sense of full ownership of your website. They still have you on their back and if the company closes, you lose everything! The database of these platforms is not compatible with WordPress, whereas WordPress’ database can be recycled to any theme.
Advantages of WordPress:
1. WordPress themes are free.
There are more than 3,000 free themes that look much better than what
Wix, Duda, Hibu, Jimdo Webnode, Weebly, Simvoly, Squarespace, or Volusion offers. But we would push for paid WordPress themes that come with bells and whistles. It can give you the branding you want. → See samples of WordPress themes
2. WordPress has more than 50,000 plugins.
This means that your site to be super flexible, without the need for hiring programmers to create special functions. One of the most popular free plugins is Yoast SEO. It helps you to optimize each page so it can rank better on Google. There are also security plugins and flexible contact forms that allows you to create questionnaires for better client experience.
3. WordPress is going to stay here for a long time.
Technology changes by the day and there have been many popular platforms that have become obsolete. Unlike Wix, Duda, Hibu, Jimdo Webnode, Weebly, Simvoly, Squarespace, or Volusion, these are owned by a company that may go bankrupt and
Most popular CMS
There are nearly two billion websites online as of 2018. WordPress controls nearly 60% of the CMS market and rising. There is only one future for website development and that is having a good Content Management System (CMS). With nearly a hundred CMS, WordPress is the leading and most popular blogging platforms. CMS uses technologies like Java, Perl, ASP, and PHP. Most uses MySQL database, depending on the need. It is not to say that WordPress is the best in creating a website, but its popularity continues to rise because it is an open source and free platform that is relatively easy to use.
WordPress and Microsoft partnership
Here is the thing, big companies like Windows Live Spaces, Microsoft’s blogging service, closed its doors and partnered with WordPress instead. It is now their default blogging platform for Windows Live Spaces users.
Big companies that use WordPress
| BBC America Bloomberg Professional Chicago Sun Disney Facebook Newsroom Flickr | GoDaddy IBM Microsoft MTV News People Magazine Reader’s Digest | Reuters Skype Vogue Wall Street Journal Whitehouse.Gov Yelp | Sony Music TED Blog The New Yorker Time |
Bottom line: Where can you save more?
Paid subscriptions from Wix, Weebly, Duda, or Square spaces average $5 to $10, but
Long term investment
If you plan to use your website for more than 24 months, go for WordPress. The bulk of your expenses is on the hosting and most hosting companies like SiteGround give 50% discount if you sign-up for three years.
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