When it comes to purchasing a new school website and the accompanying school website content management system (CMS), often the only real concerns are related to the features and functionality of the school CMS, not the potential risks of which particular CMS is actually being used.
We recently wrote an article about why you should choose the WordPress CMS for your new school website. Today we flip the coin and give you some insight into why we think a proprietary CMS is a wrong choice for your school website.
1. It holds your data hostage
When a school website is developed on a proprietary CMS, moving it away from a vendor is not simply a case of downloading the files and transfer to another supplier. In fact, there is no simple way to transfer your site away at all.
The website must be totally rebuilt wasting thousands of pounds. When a website is created with a proprietary school CMS, schools are held hostage to that CMS, with an incredibly steep exit cost to redevelop with another website provider.
There is certainly a good business case to create these systems. In over 20 years of working in the design industry, I have worked for many agencies that created proprietary CMS systems. The main reason they built them? To boost retention. Not because they were better for the client.
This still rings true today with virtually all the in-house built CMS systems, which is why from the very beginning Brothers Creative have used the open source WordPress CMS system. We feel schools should have the right to leave if they are not provided with an excellent quality of service and should never be penalised with ridiculous costs to transfer their website away.
2. Security
In today’s climate where website hacks of major UK companies are common news, website security, especially for schools, should be a prime concern.
Many proprietary CMS systems are operated by fairly small agencies of roughly 5-20 employees. Sounds great right? Small website agencies provide that extra special touch of personalisation.
But in such small teams, their web developers will not have the skill required to make constant security patches to their proprietary CMS. It is financially challenging for most website agencies like this to invest hours per week of development time to maintain security patches.
On the contrary, the open source WordPress CMS we use is maintained by thousands of developers and because of this has a much higher grade of security than your standard CMS.
We trust a system that is updated daily for security risks versus a proprietary system with one developer’s attention every few weeks (or months or years) to address security. The risks to your website’s brand are too great to trust to one or two people managing your CMS systems security.
3. Efficiency of scale
As business people, we understand the realities of the cost of scale, where using a widely used product or service can save our customers thousands of pounds. Adding a unique feature for your school website using a proprietary CMS can cost you in the £1000’s, just for one feature. You can hardly blame them. They need to research, design, develop and set aside testing time. All this on the payroll of your typical school website agency.
Whereas using a CMS like WordPress, with a library of thousands of tried and tested functions and plugins, usually cost our customers nothing at all.
4. Updates and new features
The digital landscape is an ever-changing beast. There are constantly new and better ways to do things, often taking less time and improving customer experience. The cost of making these updates to a proprietary school CMS is steep. Likewise, making the same update to the WordPress CMS that is being used by millions of users worldwide is much more likely to happen at the speed that the web is moving forward.
5. Risk management
I’m often asked that if I was knocked down by a bus tomorrow (lovely, thanks!), what happens to the websites you manage? One thing I do not have to worry about is what happens to our clients’ websites. Because we use an open source CMS system familiar to literally thousands of web developers, someone can easily pick up where we left off.
On the other hand, what happens if your school website company decides to dissolve, or a key web developer decides to leave who is responsible for the CMS? That proprietary CMS would be defunct and cease operation. This would likely require your company to redevelop your site at the same cost or higher than you paid in the first place. Not forgetting the fact your school site could be down for days or weeks. Of course, this is a worst-case scenario, but why take the chance?
We choose to trust a bulletproof system like WordPress and the stats are very impressive. WordPress websites now account for 30% of all sites on the internet. 60% of all CMS systems on the internet are WordPress. WordPress is trusted by huge brands worldwide like Walt Disney, The White House, IBM, Bloomberg, MTV, and the list goes on and on.
5. Service
Perhaps the biggest point for me and something I am most passionate about is customer service. By using a proprietary school CMS, you are dealing with a school website agency with literally hundreds of customers who they know have no choice but to stay no matter how great the service. The number one reason schools come to us from other school website agencies is because they are tired of the poor support from their existing supplier, or being charged for the smallest of requests. Sound familiar?
By using an open source CMS we know that at any point a customer can and should have the right to leave us. Because our clients can leave us with little or no cost to them, this forces us to remain a client-centred business, which we proudly are.
Let Us Help You…
Brothers Creative works in partnership with schools of all sizes to create some of the best WordPress websites in the U.K. We are a School Website Design Company you can rely on.
If you are searching for an experienced School Web Designer then please do get in contact with us – we would love to be involved in your next project!
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