Open source software is not owned by any corporate entity. Popular open source website platforms like WordPress and Magento have communities of hundreds of thousands of programmers contributing to their codebase every day, and the full codebase is available for editing – allowing for full development flexibility.
We prefer open source website platforms for several reasons:
- Well-supported open source software like WordPress and Magento stays up to date with Google’s ever changing requirements better and faster than any proprietary platform can, and most patches/updates released to address Google’s new requirements are low or no-cost. Proprietary platforms pale in comparison to the speed of which well-supported open source platforms can respond to changing search engine requirements.
- Open source platforms do not put the client at risk of losing their website should the platform publisher go out of business, or discontinue that particular offering.
- Open source platforms are more portable. A website built in open source software can be easily transitioned to another hosting company and/or developer should either of those business relationships fall apart. (But clients should pay attention to their web design contract terms to ensure that they own their own content.)
- Most importantly, open source software is fully editable. There are no parts of the code or database that are locked down as intellectual property of the publisher. This, along with a flexible hosting plan where even the server settings can be adjusted, makes it so that we will not encounter roadblocks when trying to implement technical SEO enhancements, such as caching and minifying for speed optimization, which is becoming increasingly important for SEO. Speed optimizations and certain other technical SEO enhancements are extremely difficult, or often impossible, to execute on proprietary platforms like SquareSpace, Wix, Weebly, BigCommerce, Shopify, etc.
Therefore, we don’t prefer to take on projects where our efforts will be hindered by technical roadblocks. We prefer to work on SEO in open source environments where no such restrictions exist, and the client can fully realize the return on their investment.
- For non-transactional websites, we prefer WordPress, but can also work with Drupal and (least preferable) Joomla.
- For e-commerce, we gladly welcome sites built in Magento or WooCommerce (the e-commerce add on to WordPress).
Please let us know if you have any questions!
President & Chief Web Traffic Controller at Pam Ann Marketing at Pam Ann Marketing
Recently named one of the “Top 10 Best Women in SEO,” Pam Aungst Cronin, M.B.A. is widely recognized as an expert in SEO, PPC, Google Analytics, and WordPress. A self-proclaimed “geek”, Pam began studying computer programming at 6 years old, started creating websites in 1997 and has been working professionally in the field of e-commerce since 2005. Referred to by Sprout Social as a “Twitter Success Story,” she harnessed the power of social media to launch her own agency in 2011. Pam travels all over the country speaking at conferences and guest lecturing at universities. Click here to read her full bio.
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