The tiler and the website builder
We once bought an apartment in a Palazzo style building from the early 1900s. It was not in a habitable condition and had to be completely renovated.
I jumped at the task with great enthusiasm and started looking for craftsmen for the jobs I didn’t want to or couldn’t do myself.
We are entrepreneurial people, we are happy to do what we can ourselves.
Of course, at every stage of the project we assessed whether doing this ourselves was worth our time and effort or we would be better off paying a professional to do it. A pro, who would do it quicker and – hopefully – in better quality.
Calling on professionals usually proved to be a good decision but not always…
For example with the first tiler.
I discussed with him what we wanted in the kitchen, how we wanted the tiles on the walls and on the floor.
Can he do it?
Sure, no problem.
OK, we agreed, I purchased everything he needed, tiles, adhesive, etc. I added 15% extra to everything, as there would be losses so let’s have enough of everything.
In the morning the tiler came and I went to work.
I went back in the afternoon, by which time the tiler had gone home.
I looked into the kitchen and almost fainted.
He had started to put the tiles up on the wall but then he managed to smash every other tile and made almost no progress.
I thought I would talk to him in the morning.
The next morning we were standing in the kitchen door together looking at the tiles – on the floor.
Yes, on the floor.
By that time, all the tiles he had put up on the wall the day before (the few pieces) had fallen off and broke into pieces.
Needless to say, Mr. Bean lost the gig on the spot and I started to look for another tiler.
It proved harder than I thought.
Showed the project to a number of tilers. Many of them were just hemming and hawing, before one of them eventually spat it out:
Who likes to straighten out some moron’s sh*t?
I have just remembered this while talking with colleagues about custom built versus WordPress websites. We were discussing pros and cons as the issue came up in a client meeting.
WordPress over custom-built website, every time.
Of course, every coin has two sides.
We believe that WordPress (and its peers) offer several advantages over custom builds and at least one of them is huge.
Let me explain.
Imagine having a developer, who builds your website using coding (custom development) and unfortunately they go AWOL by the time you want to change or improve something.
What do you do?
You try to find another developer who is able AND willing to work with your site.
Some other guy’s sh*t – pardon my french.
You see, a custom-built website is built following the developer’s mindset and priorities. Anyone who wants to change anything in it must first understand the concept of the original developer.
Besides, it is not easy to find out what is related to what meaning what parts of the code would be affected (if any) by changing something.
This is because custom development rarely comes with detailed documentation.
And yet, it is true that we have to develop and change things from time to time, because everything evolves around us, so the technologies we have built in become obsolete after a while. This can lead to security and operational problems.
That’s why developers are as reluctant to touch someone else’s work as the tilers in my kitchen.
All WordPress sites are built on the same, modular framework.
In comparison, WordPress sites are built on a system.
Everything works within a framework, thoroughly documented, with the support of a large and active community. The modular design means that individual components can be replaced and upgraded separately.
Anyone familiar with the system will be able to navigate immediately through the admin interface of any WordPress site.
Now you might think that it’s probably not that common for the original developer to disappear.
I hope it doesn’t happen to you. But what we do see is that a surprising number of companies get stuck because of that.
And it’s a serious problem, because if a site written with code (= custom-built) goes down and there’s no one to fix it then it’s going to be very expensive to get the site back up.
You may end up having to rebuild it from scratch – this time using some other method. Then the risk of data loss increases, so it might lead to an expensive and potentially sad solution.
Of course, there is a silver lining: starting anew always offers new opportunities…
This is one of the important reasons why we work with WordPress.
In our Free Website Audit we’ll show you how to use it. Because putting our customers in the picture with at least the basics is important for us.