Top 6 Things to Look for When Picking a Web CMS Platform

In this day in age, there are so many choices for which platform to use to build and host your own website. In a later blog, we will do a comparison of different platforms, but first, it is important to know what exactly to look for when choosing a platform. There are several elements to consider when picking the right platform for your business. Here are the top six things we encourage companies to consider. Whether you are looking for a new eCommerce website design or just a general custom website design for lead generation, we have some tips for you in what kind of CMS to look for.

1. Cost and Affordability of a Website

Considerably the most important aspect of choosing a website platform is your budget. One fairly unavoidable cost of a website is the domain name fee. The hosting charge of the website may differ for each platform. New start-up doctor practices and wellness organizations may need a cheaper option for a site and may have to go with a template platform with very few features and customizations. Existing businesses with a higher budget may want to consider the options that pricier sites offer. With a higher budget, things to consider are additional plugins for multiple features and common updates to the site.

2. Primary Purpose of Your Healthcare / Wellness Website?

The second things to consider are the top priorities and immediate needs of your website. If you already have a custom website design created, you will need to find a platform that will allow the transfer of your current site if that is your intended use. If you have a current site, you should also be familiar with what your needs are and how they differ from what your platform currently offers.

For companies without a website, consider the amount of traffic to the site (more traffic volume may need a faster server). Mobile responsiveness should be a top priority when picking out a web platform due to mobile-first indexing by Google. E-dreamz specializes in eCommerce web development and eCommerce web design if this is what you are looking to create contact us today.

3. Features and Customizability for Your Website

Features and customizations are the bread and butter of a good captivating website. They can take a website from boring and plain to lively and compelling. Important features to consider are newsletter signs up and email saving, the addition of a contact form, videos for the homepage, and blog opportunities. The ability to add customizations to the website may be necessary if you have a complex business. For example, if you run a subscription service, you may need a different checkout and payment system then a typical product checkout. There also may be development work when adding new plug-ins that would require the ability for unique customization within the coding of the site.

4. Ease of Use

The ease of use of the website platform is very important because it is something that you will be manipulating on a regular basis. Mundane and confusing back end changes on the site could slow the business down or discourage you from making necessary changes to the site. Drag and drop templates can be a good place to start for simple changes, but they also do not allow for a lot of creativity. Content and images are typically things that should be manipulated often. Call-to-Actions (CTAs) are a crucial part of every custom website design. CTAs should be found on the homepage and within content pages to direct customers to certain products, pages, and the checkout process. These should be easy to create, modify, and reorganize on any page. With ever-changing products and marketing tactics, new marketing panels should be freely added and deleted at any time with ease.

5. Search Engine Optimization for Your Website

Search engine optimization (SEO) is an important part of getting websites to rank on Google and increasing traffic. It is imperative that the web platform you choose makes it easy to manipulate the metadata of the content pages. It is also crucial to be able to add image alt tags to photos, redirects for links that have changed, establish H1, H2, and H3 tags, and manage the URL structure. It is also important to be able to add content to head scripts in order to add google analytics tracking, Facebook pixels, and canonical tags to the site and pages.

6. Customer Service and Support for Your Web Platform

When new to a platform, things can be very difficult and confusing to use. The most important thing you can look for in a web platform is the support to create the site the way you want it. You have put so much time and effort into creating your business and you want your website to represent all of that hard work. Look for a platform that has a chat service, listed phone numbers, and one-on-one customer support.

E-dreamz proprietary platform, Echo, offers all of these necessary features and more for eCommerce web design, eCommerce web development, and lead generation websites. For more information, contact us today to get started on a new website build or to find out how we can help your business grow.