CMS & Theme Reccs for SPEED

Zach

Zach

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Jun 7, 2015
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I want to build a directory-styled site, and I'd like it to be FAST! I am a marketer, not a coder.

I've read the posts on this site years ago about how most themes you use that are drag/drop are just horrible for speed.

What approach should I take if I need:

1. A CMS that can house all my content well
2. The fastest site humanly possible. The cutting-edge shit that'll get me 90+ speed scores in the page speed tools and syncs well with the CMS.

I am fine with having a developer custom code me something, but I need to be able to tie it to a good CMS and I'm not sure how that works. Can someone point me in the right direction? Any themes that do this 90% of the way? CMS reccs? Possibly a theme to start with, and custom edit/slash features from there?
 
1. I am so all in on Wordpress I should be getting paid. I read your other post about the hypothetical "climbing spot" site and I assume this is related to the same project. This can very much be done with Wordpress' built in categorization system.

Categories:
Mountains
Gyms
Walls

Secondary category:
By Country / State

Tags:
By specific region, down to as specific as you want to get...

Then, you can link all of this together and display it pretty much however you want. So, if a user is looking for Mountains in the U.S.A. / Pennsylvania and a tag for the Hershey region and boom you've got mountain climbing spots in Hershey PA organized all together.

That approach requires zero custom code whatsoever, at least for putting all the data in place. More just dealing with the steep learning curve of WP. Which is definitely a thing. But once you wrap your head around the basics, a whole world opens up.

2. If you're good with hiring a developer then you should go for a developer-friendly theme. Go for something that will give a developer the quickest and most direct path to success. If it does have any custom features make sure they are tailored to what you're trying to achieve.

The problem with a lot of the big user-friendly custom themes is that there is just a lot of extra fluff in the way of the core functionality. You get this big customize menu filled with options you'll never use and you'll have to deal with their branded BS. A lot of the code is overly complex, huge PHP files, and just annoying to even try and read when you inevitably want to change something.

Creating a big directory doesn't sound like that much custom code to me other than the style and presentation. Wordpress is made for organizing data like this and you can manipulate it any way you want.

My recommendation based on my own personal experience with Wordpress development is to use GeneratePress or another theme that is set up to be manipulated using Hooks. Hooks are the best because they are made to customize a theme, and a theme that leans into this is like a ball of clay.

You can use a plugin, I like PublishPress Blocks, or even WP core blocks sometimes, to display the data. A little CSS and boom you've got a pretty decent looking site that loads fast and doesn't bog you down with extra features.

I'm not a freelance developer myself, but I would also imagine that a lot of devs have a theme they like to use on all fresh sites. I definitely would if I was going to be doing this kind of work for others.
 
Thanks for the reply!

I think you’re honing in on what I’m looking for. I have experience with wordpress in the past so am familiar with it.

I have come across an issue with shopify in particular: horrible, systemic speed issues. I’ve even had devs hired to specifically work on site speed and both of their responses were pretty much:

“Well we made a few tweaks and edits, but tbh you’re on shopify so there isn’t much you can do. It’s just a big slow platform.”

I am just wondering if I get sucked into that on Wordpress as well, or if there’s a much cleaner solution out there I am not aware of (especially if I have resources to custom code).

But yea, as of now it seems like taking a boiler-plate theme and having some customizations done is the most practical approach based on your answer.
 
Zach said:
I have come across an issue with shopify in particular: horrible, systemic speed issues. I’ve even had devs hired to specifically work on site speed and both of their responses were pretty much:

“Well we made a few tweaks and edits, but tbh you’re on shopify so there isn’t much you can do. It’s just a big slow platform.”

I am just wondering if I get sucked into that on Wordpress as well, or if there’s a much cleaner solution out there I am not aware of (especially if I have resources to custom code).

But yea, as of now it seems like taking a boiler-plate theme and having some customizations done is the most practical approach based on your answer.
Click to expand...
You will not run into the bolded issue with Wordpress. You can strip it back so that it is nothing but its core functionality of being a CMS, and literally turn it into anything you want.

As for a cleaner solution, I'm sure that some devs out there would have an answer for that. It can be done with Wordpress and it can be done quite well.

You could create a WP site that looks and functions just like a Shopify site if you wanted to.
 
If you don't want to be beholden to a developer, just use WordPress and GeneratePress.

Bite the bullet and buy the GP Premium plugin (essentially GeneratePress Pro) for like $100/yr and you can use the Elements system to literally do all of your templatization inside of the WordPress dashboard using the block editor. The block editor encodes all of the block data right into the post content so it's a single database call (that WP is going to make regardless) rather than storing different page elements in individual metadata fields that have to be queried separately.

Get your caching set up correctly to avoid redundant queries. If you're a real speed freak you can look into getting a LiteSpeed server ($$), or I've heard of people using WP as the backend for a static site generator.

You can go with a dedicated static site generator but the pool of developers who are going to be familiar with whichever one you choose is going to be much smaller (could be a positive or a negative depending on how you look at it).
 
Depending on your exist strategy, you'll want to stick to something like WordPress which has a large community and potential php developers. AND staff/employeess will most likely already be knowledgeable in navigating it - reducing the learning curve.

Now if you really don't think you'll ever exit, than do what makes you happy.

You selling a site not on WordPress, you'll have less buyers pulling the trigger faster.

I'm talking about content sites. SAASes, ecommerce and other can get away without Wordpress since their streams of income are vastly different.

So having an idea of an exit strategy is crucial to how you build your house.
 
chubes said:
You could create a WP site that looks and functions just like a Shopify site if you wanted to.
Click to expand...

I want to point out that perhaps this IS possible but come at it from a user experience, Shopify is very solid and has gotten it down pat.

I was looking at a shopify analytics and noticed in the past week the iOS users were almost 2.5x than 2nd place (which were desktop mac) in terms of visitors.

I then went on the site and tried to buy a product with my iPhone and the experience was easy and phenomenal.

They even have the "Buy With Shop" button ready, but even throughout the whole checkout, everything has already been thought of and perfected.

I don't know about ya'll's skillset but mimicking that on Wordpress will take a team or a lot of hours from top developers, other wise it comes out, no other word comes to mind but, janky.

We've all seen those mimicking projects that don't get it quite right.

All that time and effort - for what? 1-2 seconds of speed? Doesn't sound like a good return on time. And let's not forget the user experience...

Just because you CAN do something doesn't mean you should.
 
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