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It used to be that creating a website was associated with a string of code – HTML. Today, fortunately, it is no longer necessary to know this language to build a site. WordPress and other CMSs allow you to easily build functional sites without knowledge of HTML. What advantages do sites built in HTML have over those created in WordPress?
What is a WordPress website?
WordPress is a content management system, the so-called CMS. It is one of the most popular platforms of its kind. A content management system is software that allows users to create, edit, organize and publish content – websites and e-commerce stores. In WordPress, we create and change everything in an admin panel specifically designed to be user-friendly.
WordPress sites
do not require knowledge of coding, and therefore HTML.
Advantages of a site on WordPress
WordPress sites stand out there that their creation does not require any technical skills. The platform is specially designed to be very beginner-friendly. Instead of having to code, most of the work can be done through the user interface.
It allows:
- creating and updating content on the website
- Customizing the functionality and appearance of your site
- SEO management
The WordPress system is highly customizable
WordPress allows you to change the look of your site at will.
The WordPress CMS system
is characterized by a large number of available themes, so the appearance of the site can be customized to your taste at will. There are literally thousands of graphic templates available. But of course, the look of a site is WordPress is not everything – functionality also matters. This one, in turn, can be changed at will thanks to a large number of plug-ins. Plugins act as code extensions to further enhance the functionality of your site.
WordPress is constantly evolving
The WordPress system is open source – this means that anyone with the skills can fix its problems and bugs, create and develop their own WordPress themes and plugins. This helps WordPress’ rapid development, which often has new updates and thus offers new functionality.
WordPress website – disadvantages
The advantages of the popular CMS are not all, of course – it also has its drawbacks. WordPress is built on PHP and MySQL. Fortunately, this does not mean that the platform requires knowledge of PHP – at least for most people. You only need to know this programming language if you want to implement more advanced actions that plugins and themes don’t offer.
The second issue is the question of performing WordPress updates – if you want to keep all plugins and themes up to date, the site needs to be updated from time to time.
A website built on pure HTML – why isn’t it always worth investing in?
HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is a coding language that is used to create web pages from scratch. We may associate the language with a string of letters, numbers and characters that means nothing to most people. HTML allows you to build the site of your dreams, where every aspect of appearance and functionality can be modified at will. However, we don’t have access to a convenient interface here – every change means writing long lines of code. Creating a website on HTML means a long period of learning the code, which, of course, translates into the time to create such a site and its price.
On the other hand, WordPress is a content management system where you can upload files, publish content and multimedia without creating a single line of code.
SEO – WordPress vs. HTML
For website and online store owners, of course, it is not only the appearance and functionality of the site that matters, but also its SEO performance. If we want to get as many people as possible to our site, we need to make it visible on the Internet, and that means showing up on the first page in Google search. To attract organic traffic to your site, you need to optimize on your SEO. How does this aspect look in sites built on WordPress and those created in HTML?
Positioning on WordPress website
WordPress is very SEO friendly. It allows you to easily customize image alternate text, meta descriptions, headers and custom URLs directly in the dashboard. You can also choose from thousands of responsive themes to design a mobile-friendly site, which is currently very important for browsers. If you have no experience or knowledge of SEO, you can download or purchase a number of WordPress plugins that can help you with this. Plugins such as Yoast SEO, WP Rocket and Redirection allow you to control many aspects of your site’s SEO in a very simple way.
HTML for SEO
There are several ways to optimize an HTML site for search engines. Adding keywords to posts and pages, linking to internal and external pages, and optimizing URLs, header tags, title tags, meta descriptions and alternate image text are all best practices. In this case, however, plugins won’t help – instead, you’ll need to spend time creating the right tags and code for your site.
For whom is WordPress, and for whom is HTML?
The WordPress platform has gained such popularity for a reason. Based on it, 30% of sites on the Internet have already been created. It is easy to use, allows you to add a lot of themes and plugins without knowing PHP, and with all this it is free. A WordPress site can be created even by an amateur, although a web design specialist is sure to use more of the program’s capabilities. WordPress will be the ideal tool for most entrepreneurs who own small and medium-sized businesses.
HTML, on the other hand, requires more time and money. Of course – it allows us to create a completely original site tailored to our individualized needs, so this web design option should be opted for by those who are able to spend more time and money for their tastes. However, the increasing number of plugins and themes available for WordPress means that it is often no longer possible to distinguish between a WordPress site and one made on HTML.
