7 Tips for Using WordPress as an Enterprise CMS
Have you ever stopped to consider how easy it is to put together a website? You can find hosting for free, use WordPress for free, get free plugins and even get a premium-type WordPress theme for free with our Qi Theme. From there, it’s only a matter of how much – or how little – effort you want to put into it. Still, you can have a website up and running in little more than a couple of clicks.
But there are websites, and then there are websites. A run-of-the-mill blog and a website that’s part of a multi-million-dollar enterprise will have obvious differences, and they’ll be more than just skin-deep. That’s why enterprise websites require solutions of their own, including the content management systems they use. WordPress is more than capable of serving as an enterprise CMS.
If you’re wondering what the tricks are to using WordPress as an enterprise CMS, don’t worry – we’ll show you the most important ones. We’ll cover topics that include:
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If you’re familiar with WordPress, then you know what a content management system is – a piece of software you can use to handle all sorts of aspects of content management, from production and editing to optimization and publishing. WordPress is the most popular content management system in the world.
An enterprise content management system is a CMS that can perform at the enterprise level. This means it can handle all the pressures an enterprise website is subjected to. An enterprise website can expect to see more traffic, a higher revenue, and more security threats than a regular website.
Because the stakes in the enterprise environments are higher, the regular-user grade solutions simply might not cut it. That’s why there are quite a few CMSs that do more than just provide software for managing content or building websites. Platforms such as Sitecore and Adobe Experience Manager have risen to the challenge as Digital Experience platforms and created the services that make them very competitive on the enterprise CMS market.
Still, many of the top websites don’t use a listed CMS and rely on tailor-made solutions. For those that use existing CMSs, WordPress is still the number one choice – even though it comes with its list of pros and cons. Here are the tips on how to employ WordPress as an enterprise CMS, avoid its downsides, and get all the benefits.
When it comes to using WordPress as an enterprise CMS, you should know that your scope of options is more than just the usual .com vs .org choice. If you’re an enterprise-level user of WordPress, you might be interested in checking out WordPress VIP. It will give you a host of new services and options – including hosting and support – provided by the team at Automattic.
If you’re not interested in experiencing WordPress as a digital experience platform, you can go the other way and create a headless WordPress website. It’s another popular way of creating enterprise websites because creating headless websites allows you to push content on multiple channels with incredible ease and efficiency. The industry is catching up to the demand for headless WordPress, leading to hosts such as WP Engine offering headless WordPress platforms.
The hosting you’ll use for an enterprise site is not the same you’d use for a small blog. For a regular website that’s not that big, you wouldn’t have a hard time choosing between shared and managed hosting. You’d probably go with shared if you want to keep the expenses as low as possible or managed if you don’t mind spending a few more bucks per month.
When it comes to hosting for an enterprise website, you’d be more likely to choose between a virtual private and a dedicated server. Hosts will have enterprise packages for the website that need the advanced level of service. These packages will have services you don’t see in regular packages but come with a matching price tag. Still, if you plan to use WordPress as an enterprise CMS, hosting is not something to save your money on.
WordPress is open-source software. It’s customizable and endlessly modifiable in terms of how it looks, how it behaves, and what functions and features it has. With WordPress, your development skills are pretty much the only limit there is to what you can do.
Don’t worry, though – if you don’t have any skills, you won’t be stranded. Plugins can help you out, so you can still have a feature-rich website even if you don’t know how to code. However, if you’re looking to develop custom solutions worthy of an enterprise website, you might choose to hire a development agency to create bespoke solutions for you, both in terms of functions and design.
Plugins are great. They, along with themes, are what makes WordPress such a great CMS for pretty much any type of website. However, plugins can come with a couple of possible drawbacks that should make you think twice before installing them. Using too many can lead to plugin bloat and disrupt your website’s performance. Plugins are also attack vectors for hackers, and let’s not mention that every plugin you add is another thing on your website that will need updates.
Does this mean you shouldn’t install plugins? Of course not. For an enterprise website, however, you should be careful when choosing the number and quality of plugins you download. Ideally, you’ll want most of the solutions custom-built for you, and then use plugins from tried and tested creators for things where you need them or where creating your solutions would be too expensive.
A great piece of advice when creating any type of website is to first figure out what you want to use the website for, and then start making all the important choices. Like most things, this advice becomes even more important when creating enterprise websites, because you don’t make these kinds of websites on a whim.
An enterprise website is often an integral part of a whole strategy that should, in the end, result in bringing money to the enterprise. In that sense, the website might have a place in a sales funnel or a customer journey. It could also be used to boost user experience and even provide customer support.
WordPress is great because you shouldn’t have too many problems with setting up a website, satellite sites, or subdomains, which cover all the needs you have. But you should be very clear on everything your website should do, and make sure that each part is designed for its role.
The two biggest problems people have with WordPress are security and constant updates. Not that WordPress is not secure – far from it. The fact that it’s the world’s biggest CMS, however, makes it a prominent target. This is why people try to find vulnerabilities to exploit, and that’s why there are so many updates with WordPress.
For enterprise websites, security is an especially delicate issue, and you should address it on as many fronts as you can. You can start by making sure that people who have access to your website know and follow WordPress security best practices. You should also practice role management and make sure that people only have access to what they need on the website.
Being careful with what you install on your website is also important, as is making sure there’s a robust system for protection from attacks. Keep the number of possible attack vectors to a minimum. Finally, make sure you have regular backups, checks, and whatever level of protection the host offers.
The people who work on enterprise WordPress websites should be experts with plenty of experience – you don’t want to entrust a big website to a first-time website developer. But don’t let yourself be lulled by the fact that you’ve had some hotshots work on your website and stop working on it.
Your website requires constant work. It’s not just because it’s WordPress and WordPress requires lots of tinkering. It’s you who should push for the tinkering. You should constantly monitor the website, how it performs, and how people react to the various choices you’ve made with it.
Then, when you have some actionable data, you should make sure to act on it and make your website better. Performance is important for most websites, but with enterprise websites, performance is an investment that should pay off, and the only way that’s going to happen is if you monitor, analyze, and improve. You can strive for the stars – as long as you’re willing to dedicate all the resources that entail.
Let’s Wrap It Up!
As the world’s premier content management system, WordPress can handle almost anything you throw at it. It easily fits into any role, whether it’s blogging, eCommerce, or landing pages, and you can also make it fit into the role of an enterprise CMS.
Still, to get the most out of WordPress as an enterprise CMS, you’ll need to follow a couple of guidelines. Security gaps, plugins conflicts, and aimless and non-strategic website development are big no-nos when creating an enterprise CMS. You’ll need to find the solutions for your WordPress site to help you avoid the missteps and get the most out of WordPress.
