Why we use WordPress for our charity websites

It used to be that WordPress was purely a blogging platform. It then added the ability to manage a whole website, but the codebase was bloated and it suffered from an ecosystem of DIY theme and plugin makers with great intentions, but without the skills and knowledge to produce performant and secure software. Indeed, we resisted using the CMS for many years, preferring to work with more nice systems such as MODX which gave us more flexibility and we found easier to work with. Thankfully, those days are long gone and WordPress has come on leaps and bounds, with an booming industry of commercial developers creating awesome plugins and contributing to the core code.

WordPress has become the largest CMS by far, powering 43.5% of all websites globally. It’s a firm favourite with charities as our report on the charity CMS landscape in 2023 showed, with 59.6% of UK charities trusting it for their sites.

Security Through Maintenance

Security is paramount, especially for charities handling sensitive information. It’s no secret that, being the largest CMS, WordPress is also the most attacked, so a robust security and maintenance policy is paramount. We have strict maintenance schedules and procedures to keep our servers and our WordPress sites secure which includes regular updates to core WordPress files and plugins.We are notified on a daily basis with any newly discovered vulnerabilities, ensuring that any potential threats are swiftly addressed.

Additionally, we implement strong password policies and can put two-factor authentication (2FA) in place to further protect the admin area from unauthorised access.

Building with a Modular Approach

We believe in building flexible and scalable websites that are a breeze for clients to maintain. Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) allows us to create modular designs, providing customisable layouts that can adapt to various needs without the need to develop new templates. This modular approach means that as your charity grows and evolves, your website can easily be modified to reflect new campaigns, initiatives, or content strategies.

Optimising Website Performance

Performance is crucial for user experience and SEO and is something our dev team obsesses over. We leverage advanced caching techniques using Cloudflare and Varnish. Cloudflare’s CDN (Content Delivery Network) distributes site content globally, reducing latency and improving load times. We can add granular caching rules, and for sites which do not have dynamic content we can even serve entire sites from Cloudflare’s network, reducing the load on our servers and making them lightning fast and capable of handling virtually unlimited traffic Varnish acts as a server cache for the site’s pages, significantly speeding up web requests.

Beyond caching, we employ various performance optimisation techniques to ensure fast load times. This includes optimising images, minimising CSS and JavaScript files, and leveraging lazy loading for media. By continuously monitoring and fine-tuning site performance, we ensure an excellent user experience and improved SEO rankings by adhering to Google’s performance criteria.

Low Cost of Ownership

WordPress is an open-source platform, meaning there are no licensing fees and can be easily updated by our team at the push of a button. This significantly reduces the total cost of ownership for our clients. Coupled with the availability of free and premium plugins, we can often add complex functionality without the need for custom development, keeping costs manageable.

Ease of Creating New Functionality

Adding new features and functionality to a WordPress site is straightforward. Whether it’s integrating a new donation system, creating event management features, or adding social media feeds, our tried and tested development process makes this process efficient and cost-effective. The modular approach we take allows for new functionality to be seamlessly added to our sites without the need to any redevelopment of the existing code.

A Familiar Interface for Editors

There are few people in digital who haven’t used WordPress before, so onboarding new members to a site is easy and frictionless. We back this up with comprehensive training on each individual site, with video recordings of the sessions being available for future team members and for refreshers for your team.

Global Talent Pool of Developers

WordPress is a globally recognised platform with a vast community of developers. This ensures that our charity clients are not locked into a single vendor. Should the need arise to bring in additional development resources or even change agencies, the transition is seamless, with a huge pool of WordPress experts available.

Scalability in Pages and Functionality

WordPress is highly scalable, both in terms of the number of pages and the functionality it can support. This scalability is essential for charities as they grow their digital presence. Whether starting with a simple informational site or expanding to a complex, multi-functional platform, WordPress can handle it all. In fact, some of the largest charities in the UK use WordPress so you will be in good company.

Search Engine Friendliness

Search engine visibility is vital for charities to reach a broader audience. WordPress, combined with the Yoast SEO plugin, provides powerful tools to optimise content for search engines. Yoast offers features like keyword optimisation, readability checks, and structured data implementation, ensuring our charity websites are SEO-friendly and rank well on search engines.

Conclusion

WordPress offers a robust, flexible, and cost-effective solution for charity websites. With our focus on security, performance, and scalability, we ensure that our clients receive a platform that supports their mission and growth. By choosing WordPress, charities can benefit from a powerful CMS that adapts to their needs while providing a low total cost of ownership.