There have been numerous open debates regarding which platform is better for website building. With hundreds different e-commerce solution, you can choose from, each with its own list of benefits and limitations. Although Magento and WordPress are the two most popular ones, what works well for one company doesn’t necessarily have to work for the other. One is a separate product owned by eBay while the other is only a WordPress plugin. Each has large communities working to make the platforms better, with eBay users advocating for Magento and WordPress users preferring WooComerce. That said, here are 6 reasons why you should switch your e-commerce business from Magento over to WordPress.
1. Installation and Setting Up
Setting up a business always comes with certain hurdles. That said, there’s really no need for your choice of e-commerce platforms to become one in the first place. WordPress is extremely easy to use, even for an absolute beginner. The installation process is reduced to copying files onto the server and before you even know it, you have a working website. If you want to pursue e-commerce, Magento isn’t that bad of an option, but WordPress really comes through with its beginner-friendly user interface. Setting up an e-commerce website is as easy as installing a plugin called WooCommerce and filling it out with unique and engaging content.
2. Cost Differences
Developing an entire website on WordPress is rather easy, even for the average user. Magento, on the other hand, requires hiring professional developers to build a website using it as a platform. Professional developers are notorious for being expensive, which could a problem for new startups and smaller businesses. Not to mention that the price of hosting a Magento website is significantly higher when compared to costs of hosting a WordPress website. Finally, customization with different options and plugins is a piece of cake when done on WordPress, where Magento can get a little tricky to customize unless you know exactly what you’re doing.
3. Blogging and Content Creation
WordPress is the single best platform to use if you wish to submit blog articles regarding the products and services your business is offering. This doesn’t mean that Magento websites don’t have the capabilities of being integrated with a blogging feature. However, WordPress started off as a blogging platform which has grown into a full-fledged content management system used by around 16 million individual websites. Furthermore, WordPress blogs are notoriously easy to optimize for search engine ranking, which, when executed properly, results in an increase in lead conversion.
4. Creation of New Templates
WordPress is essentially made up of a number of editable pages and posts. When developing a template, a set of loops and functions is used in order to call a specific page and post content. Although Magento has a number functions similar to those used in WordPress, some tasks which only take a few clicks to accomplish in WordPress quickly becomes a matter of programming in Magento. For example, you can’t simply create a new template file in Magento, but you also have to create an additional module which will update the available list of templates.
5. A Go-to Choice for Small Business Owners
WordPress is excellent for small business with no actual developing experience looking to sell products. As your customer base and website grow, you can further customize and develop the shopping experience for your customers with a number of different e-commerce plugins, most of which are rather easy to install and set up. Additionally, WordPress could be a great solution to those already used to working with WordPress interface or have already set up their domain and now need to make their products and services available for purchase through the website.
6. Larger Community Base
WordPress isn’t the best solution for e-commerce, at least by itself. However, by adding WooCommerce, an open-source e-commerce plugin, your WordPress website can easily be transformed into the perfect solution for all your e-commerce worries. WooCommerce has a very large group of developers and contributors which allow for lower developments costs, as well as growing base for a number of new features and extensions. Additionally, you can find help for almost anything WordPress related due to various forums and message boards maintain by the users themselves, ready to help you with any problem that might occur during your use of both WordPress and its plugins.
Both Magento and WordPress are open-source platforms which businesses use to market and sell their products and services. Although choosing the right one depends greatly on what you intend to use it for and how experienced you are in using both of these platforms, WordPress has shown itself to be a superior choice not only for e-commerce purposes, but also for posting promotional blog posts detailing any new additions and news regarding the products and services offered by your business company.
About The Author:
Author bio: Sam Cyrus is CEO and co-founder of Green SEO Sydney, a Digital Marketing agency from Sydney. Sam is also a creative writer and likes to share his insights on entrepreneurship, business, online marketing, SEO and social media. He currently collaborates with Nirmal.