Would you like to have your website up and running in 10mins?
Or…
Would you like to wait for 3-weeks or more before you get to view your website on the web?
Believe it or not, time is an important tool towards actualizing goals, whether it is a short term or a long term goal.
The problem though is the fact that only a few persons recognizes this truth.
In the business world today, time is every thing, and it is one factor that distinguishes every business and their owners from the rest of the packs.
Talk about mark Zukerberg or even “late” Steve Jobs, you talk about men who understands and appreciate the quality and importance of TIME.
They had creative ideas that shook the earth of those that heard it, and yes, they also had plans, but more importantly, they gave it their all to set their ideas and plans in motion in the least of time possible.
Yes, they wrote programming languages, but they had the best of helps you could ever imagine or think of. Okay fine, they started out alone, but mind you, with their friends who is equally as good as they are.
Hope you go my drift?
Well, this article is not about any of those guys. This article is instead about YOU!
Yes, YOU!
I do not intend for this article to be long, but every time I sit down to write, I always end up serving more meats than I hope to serve.
Well, good for you. 🙂
So, gone are the days when people use to worry about languages such as HTML, PHP, CSS, Python, JAVA, and the rest of them.
Believe me, these days, not too many people write codes anymore.
Why?
Obvious answer, because it is too TIME consuming!
If you are a web designer, and it is your only means of livelihood, then I bet moving from a Traditional approach to a modernize approach would just be your best bet.
Hmm. Why does it sound like I hate programming languages so much?
The truth is, contrary to what you think, I love writing codes, but hey, I only scaled through my programming tests and examinations. haha.
Enough of the talks…
Let’s dive straight into comparing the obvious differences between Dreamweaver and CMS platforms, like Joomla.
Are you ready for it?
Oh! wait.
Do you not want to know what makes each platform different to each other?
You want.
Okay, I will tell you.
Dreamweaver: When you are looking for a WYSIWYG Website Editor, then this guy is your guy! He’s cool, but not so cool.
Here’s what I mean: You see, just like there’s always two sides to a coin, Dreamweaver has two ways to which you can work and come up with a fantastic web design.
The first one has to do with writing codes. And if you are not so big at writing codes, you could always opt for the second option – the design part of the software.
Back in the days when I went to take my web design course, I had learned to be a designer with the Dreamweaver software, but of course, it was more like a drag and drop kind of thing. But it was a bit hard, because there are times when you have to insert some Marque coding language to achieve a particular effect.
Now, that wasn’t all too fun for me. So, I dropped that, and lucky for me, I found something more cooler – I found CMS platforms, but there’s one I love in particular – wordpress!
CMS Platforms: Unlike Dreamweaver where you had to write outright coding languages, CMS is an open source platform that combines all of the languages together and present it to you for a use. More like Facebook or Twitter where you only have to sign up and start creating content.
So speaking of content, CMS is a short for Content management System.
Like I am used to saying: the buck of everything online is CONTENT!
Think of a CMS platform as a platform that archive and house all of your intellectual properties.
So, you are a “baddass” writer, or a creative genius who knows one or two things about photography or web design (something we are discussing about), you could always create a website with one of the many Content Management Systems that exist in the market today.
One thing I haven’t yet told you about a CMS platform is that it only takes about 10mins to set it up and get it running. Have I?
Okay, let’s get down to my 6 reasons to choose a CMS platform over the Adobe software called Macromedia Dreamweaver.
Shall we?
Dreamweaver Vs CMS: 6 Reasons to Choose a CMS Platform
1: Time!
Time is a general phenomenon, and whenever it flies away, it’s pretty difficult to catch up with it.
Have you seen the movie, In Time?
God!
That movie explains in full detail everything you need and should know about TIME.
See, nobody wants to wait 3months, 4months or even 1month before they can finally get to play around with their baby.
So, whatever you do, always have it at the front of your mind that time is important. And it seems to me that the only alternative to writing codes are Drag & Drop tools, which only a CMS platform like WordPress truly provides.
And I am of the opinion that when things take longer you are going to be losing out on the money you could make with your site or make as the designer.
2: ComplexityÂ
I got in a conversation with a dude from long time ago and he’s one die-hard-fan of Dreamweaver. Gosh! That dude writes codes like crazy!
But at the end, he always come back to appreciate my works and o boy, he always has great things to say about them – my works. Only if he knows I didn’t design them with Dreamweaver! haha.
No matter how complex a client want his site to look, with a great CMS platform like WordPress and a Theme like like DIVI, you could always come up with such complex sites in less than a week or two.
Like to know some great examples of guys who are powered by CMS platforms?
Okay, great!
Now, take a peep into the quality and dynamism of these sites:Â Forbes, Linux, Warner Bros, CNN, PlayStation.Blog, The Rolling Stones, Larry King Liveblog, MSNBC, The White House, Zynga, and more. Even this blog runs on a CMS platform!
3: Your Clients!
“Customers are always right!”
I bet you’ve heard that phrase over and over and over again!
Is that so?
Yeah, I know it is so.
In fact, the only reason why you are in business doing what you do is because of your CUSTOMERS.
Without them, you are nothing!
If you joke too much with them or play with their intelligence, soon enough, your business will pack out and you will start looking for a J.O.B at every corner of the country.
I bet you don’t want such a lot!
But hey, the reality is the fact that there are too many web designers out there who designs a crap of a website and serve it to their clients who obviously know a thing about website dynamics.
I think if you are going to design a website for your client, you had better make it something that will worth the money they paid you.
You should be all about quality, service, competence, and educating your client on how to use what you’ve design for them.
This is why I always advice on using a CMS platform to power your clients’ websites, because in literal sense, any noob can learn and use WordPress!
4: Price!
When you dig deeper into the cost of creating a website built with Dreamweaver, then you will know that the price is just very ridiculous.
Yes, ridiculously high!
Plans
Month to month – $30
1 year -$240
(CC) gives you everything adobe – $600 yr
Now, isn’t that really absurd?!
How on earth would I want to pay that high for a website whose rent I keep paying yearly just to keep my website up on the web?
See, with a CMS platform, all you ever need is to buy a domain and a web host. That’s all. The CMS itself is FREE. No cost!
And when you have a host, you can easily install as many CMS platforms as you can – whether is is Joomla or WordPress or even Drupal, fire on!
Here’s a question for you:Â In the next 3 years would you rather pay $140 with a CMS and hosting or would you rather pay $700+ or more depending on the plan that you choose?
5: Flexibility
CMS platforms are ridiculously and fantastically flexible!
They make your life as a designer pretty easier.
Is your client a Public Speaker and wants the capabilities of booking him on his website?
Does he want to run his own radio shows?
Wait…
He is an author of books and he wants them transformed into PDF versions and sell them via his website?
Common!
That’s what a CMS platform like WordPress can do by a click of a plugin.
Did I tell you that there are over 50,000 plugins in the WordPress Plugins Directories?
If you can imagine it, it is possible!
It is possible, because at one point in time, a developer had thought like you and he’s created such a tool to ease your designing processes.
Let me guess, sounds like fun, right?
6: Think Organically!
Ever heard of the world “Organic reach” or “Organic Traffic”?
If you haven’t, I will tell you.
When we talk Organic, what we are simply saying is a FREE targeted traffic that consists of people who are searching for what you do, what you sell.
A site built with Dreamweaver cannot achieve this at all. And even if it is possible, it will take, perhaps, 10yrs to achieve getting ranked on Google’s SERPs.
Albeit, with a CMS platform, you are open to an array of opportunities to rank your site high on Google and other search engines.
I already said there over 50, 000 plugins you could use to tackle jobs head on and achieve huge results as a designer.
Here are some of them:
- SEO & Cache plugins
- Canonical link element
- Breadcrumbs
- XML Sitemaps
- Robots.txt and .htaccess
- Clean code
- Meta Tags
- Permalinks
- Keyword suggestions
SEO & Dreamweaver don’t mix. Dreamweaver doesn’t have SEO features or plugins. To rank better you need to put your mind to work. You can almost trust that to be a lot of work!
Conclusion: Dreamweaver Vs CMS
Alright, those are my 6 cogent reasons why I always prefer and choose a CMS over Dreamweaver designed websites. I believe they are good enough reasons to want to design your own site with WordPress, one of the most sophisticated open source platforms on the web today!
By the way, I drew my inspiration for this post from this post. You should read it if you have some time. And I would also suggest that you do a little more research before concluding on which platform to fly with, whether is Dreamweaver or a CMS platform.
Over to You!
Are you a die-hard fan of programming languages?
Do you like to design your website with Macromedia Dreamweaver?
Or…
Do you prefer to go easy on yourself by making use of CMS platforms such as WordPress & Joomla?
What aspect of CMS platforms do you like most?
Would you love to share?
By all means, use the comment section below to share your great and wonderful thoughts with me. Thanks for your time!