WordPress has been a leading website building platform for over a decade. And while aggressive advertisements have now prompted some business owners to check Google Sites for building websites, professional web designers advise them to avoid the risk.

At Luminary Software we have tested several website building technologies, comparing their customization features, security aspects, user-friendliness, scalability, and overall return on investment.

Our analysis on all occasions has revealed that WordPress clearly takes a lead. It has a rich collection of tools that make a website notable with a striking design while also strengthening it for search engine optimization (SEO).

In this article we highlight the attributes, which we – as a digital marketing agency – consider for choosing WordPress instead of the less evolved Google Sites, to build user-centric websites:

Brand Persona

Any company investing in online marketing will want a website that portrays its brand image distinctly and helps it to stand out in the crowded digital world. The problem with Google Sites is its inability to lend unique personas to brands.

The basic layout, content placement, fonts, menu structuring, and user interface (UI) elements with Google Sites are so rudimentary that visitors can hardly notice any striking feature on the pages they visit. Using this website building platform is like accepting ‘one-size-fits-all’ strategy for marketing. Why would anyone want that?

On the other hand, WordPress gives designers unlimited flexibility to customize websites in line with a brand’s identity, its target customers’ expectations, business goals, and the industry the enterprise belongs to.

Luminary Software has built a number of websites for organizations in myriad B2B and B2C domains, and we have tailored all of them exclusively for the brand stories they narrate.

Security

Would you reveal personal details or make a payment on a website whose domain name states “Not Secure”? Would you expect your customers to interact with you if your business has such as website?

Data security and encryption are prime concerns in the virtual space and WordPress takes it very seriously. It automatically installs SSL certificates for business platforms and gives them a domain starting with HTTPS. It also runs virtual firewalls to alert for extra layers of security.

Rigorous testing is a routine process on WordPress. By using this platform, owners can rest assured that the data they share with their customers, as also the information that their customers entrust to them, are end to end encrypted.

Although you can buy an SSL certificate for a web portal built on Google Sites, security issues still mar the utility of this website builder. There have been incidents where webpages hosted on Google Sites were used to trick visitors into opening Trojan infected PDFs enabling cyber criminals to take over and control their devices1. Such issues keep professional web designers at a safe distance from Google Sites.

The team at Luminary Software is committed to providing attractive, feature-rich, and SECURE websites to its customers. And this is why we do not develop their online assets using an application builder that we do not trust.

Plugins and Integration of other Apps

Digital marketing is a comprehensive process. Websites need to work alongside social media platforms and other third-party apps used by a business to optimize its promotional campaign.

If you aim to direct visitors to your Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn handles seamlessly, WordPress supports such navigation more favorably than other website builders.

While building your WordPress website Luminary Software can integrate it with Mailchimp for email-based subscriptions to newsletters, and Airtable to present your databases more efficiently. WordPress also integrates well with hundreds of other third-party apps.

You cannot expect this level of flexibility if you make-do with Google Sites. Yes, the website integrates with G-suite pack, but is that enough in a virtual world replete with endless possibilities for user engagement? We don’t think so.

To maximize your conversions and give customers all possible help they expect on your website, it is worthwhile to go an extra mile with WordPress.

SEO

Launching an attractive website into the online space is not enough. It must also have the elements that help it climb the search engine ladder and become visible when people search for the products / services it offers. That’s another area where WordPress shines.

Google Sites does not support SEO with title tags and meta description. It also lacks facilities for site categorization, description and mapping.

Conversely, when we use WordPress for building a website, our SEO team can partner with web designers to keep optimizing it for high search engine results.

What’s more, WordPress focuses on user experience (UX), provides informative and succinct permalinks, keeps images optimized for search results, and does not annoy users with slow loading times – and this is why Google usually ranks WordPress websites higher than those built using other techniques.

Scalability

A business website is not a digital flyer that simply describes its origin, offerings and contact information in a set of 4 to 5 similar looking pages. But that is all you can usually expect to see on a Google Sites website.

To get a professional and future-ready website built with Home, About Us, Products, Services / Solutions, Resources (Blog, Articles, Infographics, Case Studies, Whitepapers, Brochures and other content), and other bespoke pages, you need scalability.

WordPress offers gigabytes of space that enables your digital marketing agency to keep adding fresh content to your portal. It may be a standard business website, an online store, a booking website, a catalogue, or a marketing platform for any brand, WordPress has the resources that turn investments into returns.

Conclusion

Luminary Software has observed that WordPress outperforms Google Sites in almost every field that matters for digital marketing. If your expectations from a website go beyond its ability to display a few projects, portfolios, events, and write-ups, we advise you to choose WordPress.

To know more about the possibilities of this website building platform for your marketing campaigns, feel free to connect with us.

Source:

• https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/14/google_sites_malware/