GoCentral vs WordPress – What’s the Best Choice for a Website?
A website is an indispensable part of any business. Even the smallest companies can’t exist with out a website. Unfortunately, creating a custom-built website from scratch can be extremely expensive. That’s why there are so many web hosts like GoCentral that provide pre-built, ready-to-use websites with all the necessary features and functionality that you need to get your website up and running smoothly.
Depending on your needs, you have two main options when choosing the best website host for your needs: GoCentral and WordPress. Let’s examine the differences between these two platforms and how you can choose the best option for your needs.
Features
One of the first things you’ll notice about GoCentral is that it offers a lot of features that WordPress doesn’t. For instance, GoCentral provides you with a complete monetization platform and even offers ad-free versions of their hosting products.
If you’re looking to monetize your website, then GoCentral is the best platform to do so. It has a built-in monetization platform that can be integrated with your ad-free version of their hosting products.
WordPress doesn’t offer a similar integrated solution, so if you’re looking to monetize your website, then you’d have to rely on affiliate marketing, which can be quite the hassle.
Another significant feature that WordPress doesn’t have is an integrated store. You can’t find a retail store that isn’t on the internet, so an online store makes a lot of sense. Also, from a marketing standpoint, having an integrated store is much more beneficial. For example, if you run a clothing store, having an integrated store that shows the latest styles and offers customers the ability to buy those styles right there is much more convenient for them. It’s also much more convenient for you as a store owner because customer loyalty is greatly increased when they can easily find what they’re looking for. When searching for products, finding exactly what you’re looking for isn’t hard because everything is clearly displayed as it should be.
Security
You might be wondering how a website can be secure when it’s being hosted on the internet. The truth is, even when your website is on a reputable host such as GoCentral, it’s always at risk for hacking.
Back in 2015, the internet recorded more than 4,800 malware-related incidents involving WordPress. That’s nearly 70% of all the malware-related incidents that year. And this isn’t a fluke either. According to the WordPress security team, between January and June of this year alone, there were 12,300 malware-related incidents on WordPress websites.
Given the frequency of these hacking attempts, it’s no wonder that so many people are anxious to switch to a secure hosting platform. Luckily for you, GoCentral offers completely encrypted networks and an SSL (secure socket layer) certificate, so your visitors will feel safer making purchases on your website. When implemented, the closed-loop SSL encryption actively protects your visitors against man-in-the-middle attacks, while also preventing the theft of their personal and financial information. And best of all, they can have peace of mind knowing that the security of their personal information is always kept protected.
User-Friendly
One of the primary concerns any business owner has is making sure their customers can easily use the website to carry out their tasks. And that’s exactly what you get with GoCentral. Not only do they offer pre-built, user-friendly websites with all the necessary features and functionality that you could want, but they also provide you with tools to enhance the user experience.
For example, you can create custom CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to change the way your website looks. While CSS can be quite the hassle to learn if you’re not a web developer, it’s nothing compared to the hassle you’ll have to endure if you try to build everything from scratch. With GoCentral, you can simply modify the styles for the existing pages and posts to give them a unique look. If you’re still not convinced that GoCentral is the best choice for your needs, then perhaps the ease of use will sway you.
Functionality
Let’s move on to the features that make WordPress so special. First off, WordPress was initially designed to be a blogging platform. As you might imagine, a blog platform designed to be simple to use would evolve into something quite extraordinary.
Unlike a lot of other content management systems out there, WordPress was initially built with four unique functions in mind: 1) publishing posts and pages, 2) editing posts and pages, 3) creating and 3) uploading files.
Despite what you might think, these simple functions can be extremely useful, especially if you need them to do certain jobs. For example, if you need someone to publish a blog post for you on a regular basis, then WordPress is the best choice as it makes it very easy to get started.
Also, WordPress was built with media inside mind, which means it was designed to easily work with all kinds of media files. That’s why you’ll often see WordPress-powered websites with a lot of multimedia content, including images, videos, and music. The ability to easily work with multimedia files is a significant feature, considering that it makes web content more engaging and memorable.
When it comes to functionality, you really can’t go wrong with either platform. WordPress has been around for a significantly longer period than GoCentral, but for the most part, you don’t need to worry about being outdated as both platforms continue to evolve and improve with the times.
Cost
Last but not least, we have cost. As mentioned earlier, creating a custom-built website is usually a lot of work, and it can be extremely expensive. Let’s assume you want to build a simple, basic blog with the cheapest possible option available, which is usually based on a shared hosting plan. The total cost for this shared hosting plan will be around $5-$10 per month. And if you want to make sure you have all the necessary features and functionalities, then you’ll have to upgrade to a premium plan which will set you back at least $15-$20 per month.
However, if you decide to host your site on GoCentral, then all you need is a standard plan, which is around $2.95 per month. And if you need additional features, then you can get a Plus plan for $5.45 per month.
In the end, it really depends on what you need and how much you want to spend. If you want a simple blog, then GoCentral is the best choice because you can get started for free, while WordPress will set you back a lot of money. On the other hand, if you want a fully featured eCommerce store or CMS (Content Management System), then WordPress is the way to go because it gives you a lot of flexibility and customization options.
In terms of cost, GoCentral is still significantly cheaper than a custom-built solution, especially if you consider the fact that they provide you with a fully featured, ready-to-use website. In most cases, you won’t even need to pay for hosting unless you decide to upgrade.
Summary
When it comes to building a website for your business, it’s important to consider a lot of factors. Not only do you need to make sure that the site is easy to use and has all the appropriate features and functionalities, but you also need to ensure that it’s secure and has the best user experience possible. Luckily for you, we’ve covered the basics of the two main options, GoCentral and WordPress. Now it’s up to you to decide which is the best option for your needs.