At Blue Zenith, we work very hard to minimize costs when designing and building your new website. While we utilize many free third-party plugins, we will sometimes recommend the use of premium plugins. So why are some plugins free while others are premium?
Why We Use WordPress
WordPress blogging is Free and Open Source Software, which means it is free to download, use for both personal and commercial purposes, and alter, extend and redistribute. We use WordPress for the majority of our websites because it is an extremely powerful, versatile, and customizable solution. And because it is free, it allows us to minimize the initial cost of the website and eliminate costly software licensing fees.
Third-Party Add-Ons
One of the primary strengths of the WordPress platform is its almost limitless capabilities for customization and expansion. While default WordPress plugins can be powerful, third-party developers have created the vast majority of the plugins and themes that WordPress website developers like us utilize. In fact, without third-party themes and plugins, WordPress would not be what it is today.
Free Versus Premium
With a little research, you can find a plugin for just about any feature you want, and often the free version is the one we go with. Sometimes premium plugins compete with free alternatives while some plugins, free or premium, offer a unique set of capabilities that can’t be found elsewhere in a competing product. These plugins can range from contact forms and call-to-action buttons to customized unit calculators and interactive calendars. Yet for all plugins, how they actually work and function can differ from the description in their documentation, so always be prepared to spend some time playing around with any new plugin that you download.
Customized Plugins
When we design and build a website, we personally consult with each of our clients and work to understand their unique needs, goals, and vision for the future of their business or organization. Only after we truly understand our clients do we begin designing a website, and based on that understanding we design the best possible website we can to meet both their present and future needs. If we believe that a premium add-on can significantly improve the usability and/or functionality of the website, we then recommend said add-on to our client. We can also customize plugins if needed to tailor them to your unique website.
If you are interested in expanding the design, functionality or capabilities of your WordPress-powered website or blog, contact us for a personal consultation! Be sure to keep an eye out next Tuesday for our blog on website maintenance.