In the not too distant past, web pages were always built by hand. Masters of the craft were capable of producing beautiful, cleanly written code. Over time, tools were developed to automate some of the more routine tasks involved. The results weren’t always pretty, but the advantages were obvious.
Today, most websites are built using a content management system. Dozens of options exist, but only a few stand out as viable options for the typical small to midsize business. WordPress is one such platform. Projex IMC builds modern, feature-rich websites using WordPress … the world’s most popular web content management system.
Website Development Tools
WordPress is a free, open source content management system. With hundreds of core contributors and tens of thousands of web developers using the platform worldwide, WordPress is constantly evolving. That’s good news for those who choose to base their website development efforts (and investments) on the WordPress platform, because the collective efforts of this massive user base contribute toward a stable product and a keen focus on emerging trends and technologies that continually redefine the state-of-the-art for all modern websites and website development service providers.
The WordPress platform’s low cost of entry and well-conceived administrative interface are important reasons why many small businesses and municipalities choose WordPress — and WordPress developers — to build and maintain their online presence. But the attraction isn’t reserved for smaller organizations alone … in fact more than 28% of ALL websites online today are powered by WordPress, including sites owned by some of the largest organizations in the world.
Ecommerce Platform Development Tools
Projex IMC has adopted WooCommerce as a codebase for all editions of our industrial ecommerce platform.
Launched in 2011, WooCommerce quickly became the fastest-growing ecommerce platform on the internet. Automattic, the parent and founder of WordPress, acquired WooCommerce in 2015. By 2018, WooCommerce had overtaken all ecommerce platform competitors, commanding roughly 21% of the market among the Internet’s top one million webstores.
Today, WordPress and WooCommerce (now managed by the WordPress Foundation) power 28% of this market. By contrast, Magento (now Adobe Commerce) has fallen from approximately 13% market share in 2018 to 8% in 2022.
Design Themes and Extensions
WordPress and WooCommerce together provide a flexible website/webstore development codebase. Thousands of design themes and software extensions are available to satisfy current requirements, and the platform’s massive ecosystem of developers ensures that your organization’s web presence is well positioned to support future growth.
Technology/Service Bundles
Projex IMC offers bundled technology platform/support service packages to help customers achieve objectives in the shortest possible time frame, and at a lower overall cost (ROI). Initial (one-time) platform acquisition and development costs can often be treated as a depreciable asset (please consult with your tax advisor), while ongoing expenses are easily managed due to the single-source nature of our Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) arrangements.
Our Base platform is intended for smaller-scale, high quality websites. Modular options are available to add ecommerce capabilities, digital marketing tools, performance optimization technologies and web analytics over time. The basic toolkit includes:
- Shared hosting options
- WordPress installation/configuration
- Professional design theme selection/installation
- Installation of commercial and proprietary software extensions
- Product catalog development and search optimization support
- Server/software security hardening
- Automated daily backups
Our ProjexMFG™ Advanced and Manufacturing Editions are built to support larger and/or more complex industrial ecommerce projects, with a specific emphasis on the needs of small to mid-size manufacturers. Each package offers a progressively more in-depth entry point to industrial ecommerce, based on the requirements of your market(s) and methods of operation. These packages include:
- VPN/dedicated hosting options
- WordPress installation/configuration
- WooCommerce installation/configuration
- Professional design theme selection/installation
- Installation of commercial and proprietary software extensions
- Product catalog development and search optimization
- Server/software/webstore security hardening
- Automated daily site backups
- Weekly offsite backups
- SEO support
For additional information regarding our ProjexMFG™ Base, Advanced and Manufacturing platform editions, please review the information provided in their respective sections on our website.
User Experience
Our developers work closely with the creative team to ensure that the end user experience (UX) envisioned in the design phase of your website/webstore development project is realized in the development phase. We configure, code and test a prototype for each site in our staging environment to ensure that all elements of the user interface (UI) are functioning properly across common devices and viewports. If use cases are documented (common in more complex website development projects … less so for smaller projects) we also test each use case to ensure that supporting functionality is installed and performing as intended.
Information Architecture
Key website/webstore pages and navigation components are added and refined based on your requirements. Product data, where applicable, is organized to present a logical product catalog to potential customers. We also insert critical data (meta data) used by search engines to catalog and classify content. These efforts can significantly impact the visibility of your website and/or webstore by improving Search Engine Results Page (SERP) rankings.
Feature Development/Integrations
The WordPress ecosystem provides thousands of free and low cost software extensions — called plugins — (47,000+ in the free WordPress plugin repository alone) that can be installed within your WordPress website/webstore to extend functionality without the costs associated with custom development. Our development team is familiar with many of these tools, and will recommend their use where applicable. We also develop our own software extensions for use by Projex IMC website/webstore development clients.
Domain Name Registration
An easy-to-remember domain name is a valuable asset to your organization. Projex IMC can offer assistance with the selection of an appropriate domain name for your new website and/or webstore, and we can also register new domain names through our preferred domain name registrar (Name.com).
Website Migration
If you already have a website, Projex IMC can help you migrate the site to our web hosting environment. Please contact our sales manager to discuss your specific requirements.
