Choosing a website platform shouldn’t send you spiralling down a Google rabbit hole. There are a lot of options, a lot of opinions, and somehow everyone on the internet is absolutely certain theirs is right.
So here’s ours, for what it’s worth.
We build ecommerce stores on Shopify and we love it for that. But for service-based businesses? WordPress, every time. We’ve tried other options, we’ve watched platforms come and go, and we keep landing in the same place.
You actually own the thing
With a lot of platforms, you’re renting. You’re paying monthly for access to a system someone else controls, and if they decide to change the rules, raise their prices, or shut down a feature you rely on, that’s their call, not yours. WordPress is open-source, which means no single company owns or controls it. Your site lives on your own hosting and your content is genuinely yours. No one can take that away from you.
It’s also genuinely flexible in a way that matters when your business is growing and changing. We see it all the time: a business owner who’s outgrown their website but can’t do anything about it because the platform won’t let them. Can’t change the layout. Can’t add the feature they need. Can’t even move to a different web team without starting from scratch. WordPress doesn’t work like that. New service? New page. Different direction? Different design. It moves with you instead of holding you back.
We’ll be honest about the downsides
WordPress has a bit of a reputation problem, and it’s not entirely undeserved. We’ve inherited projects that made us wince. Slow, clunky, impossible to update, looking like they were built during a power cut.
But that’s not a WordPress problem. It’s the flip side of all that freedom. When a platform lets you do almost anything, it also lets you do almost anything badly. When it’s built well, with the right tools and someone who actually knows what they’re doing, WordPress is brilliant. We’d rather be upfront about that than pretend every WordPress site is automatically great just because we like the platform.
Most of the page builders out there contribute to this. We used Elementor for a few years, but these days we build everything with GeneratePress and GenerateBlocks. Lightweight, close to WordPress core, fast, and easy for clients to manage without accidentally breaking everything. If your current site feels slow and clunky to update, it might be a builder problem rather than a platform problem. Worth knowing that’s fixable.
The plugin ecosystem is genuinely useful
Online bookings, review widgets, contact forms, client portals, live chat — the WordPress plugin library is enormous and someone has almost certainly already built exactly what you need. This saves real money. You’re not commissioning custom development every time you want a new feature.
That said, do your research before installing everything that looks good. There are some real duds out there and the wrong plugin can slow your site down or cause headaches. When in doubt, ask your web team before hitting install.
Speed and flexibility, built in from the start
A website that takes four seconds to load loses visitors fast, and Google notices too. A well-built WordPress site is lean and quick. We work hard to keep it that way — fast on mobile, fast on desktop, fast for the person in a rural area on a patchy connection trying to figure out if you’re the right fit.
We also build with accessibility in mind from the start, meaning more people can actually use your site regardless of how they navigate the web. It’s good practice and increasingly it’s just expected.
Your WordPress site isn’t tied to any single hosting provider either. If something better comes along, you move. If your circumstances change, you move. You’re never stuck paying for something that isn’t working because you’ve got no other option. We think that kind of freedom should just be standard.
It’s not going anywhere
WordPress has been around since 2003 and powers somewhere close to half the websites on the internet. It has a massive global developer community and it’s not going anywhere. When you build on WordPress you’re not taking a punt on something new and unproven. You’re building on one of the most stable, well-supported platforms in existence.
The right platform always depends on what you’re trying to do. But for service-based businesses that want a site that’s fast, flexible, and actually theirs? WordPress is what we’d choose every single time. And it’s what we’ll probably still be building on in another ten years.
Want to make the move to WordPress? lets chat