How to build a website in 2025?
How to build a website?
In today’s blog post, I’ll compare the pros and cons of using SAAS systems versus building your own setup.
https://wputopia.com
January 15, 2025
How to build a
website in 2025?
In FACT, the barrier to building a website is now very low. You can use SAAS platforms like Shopify. Alternatively, you can set up your own system with platforms like WordPress or OpenCart.
SAAS systems
The benefits of SAAS systems? If you can type, you can build a website. The ecosystem is really rich, with plenty of plugins (or mini-programs) that add extra features.
As for the downsides, some SAAS systems can be pretty expensive. For example, Shopify costs over twenty dollars a month, if I remember correctly. Plus, there are some product limitations. If you need special features, you can’t always tweak the web program to fit your needs.
Benefits of building your own system?
You get more flexibility and freedom. Renting a VPS lets you host multiple sites, and you can custom-develop special features. There’s also more room to experiment. It’s not just for e-commerce; you can create all kinds of websites, handle traffic from SEO or social media, and explore more ways to make a profit.
The downside? It does require some technical know-how and a bit of hands-on work.
The comparison above isn’t exhaustive, but anyway, I built it myself. Honestly, installing open-source systems like WordPress or OpenCart is super easy now.
It’s nothing like before when you had to write code, set up databases, and handle front-end design and styling.
Now, there are tons of themes and plugins available for these systems. The front-end and code are already separated, so you don’t need to spend much time tweaking or beautifying it, and they pretty much cover all your needs.
For example, as I mentioned earlier, I’ve been using Pinterest to drive traffic, and now the website gets around 10,000 users daily. But if these users aren’t really interested in buying products, maybe we should think about other ways to make money.
One option is Amazon’s Affiliate program, where users can buy products through our links, and we earn a commission. In that case, though, building the site ourselves is the way to go.
Next, I’ll share some special features and details of WordPress, all based on my personal experience and practical insights.
Why you should WordPress?
First, let’s talk about why you should choose WordPress (we’ll call it WP from here on). According to stats, 25% of websites are built with WP, which shows just how strong its ecosystem is. The e-commerce platform WooCommerce is actually just a plugin for WP, and WP itself comes with a ton of powerful features.
For example, WP’s REST API makes it easy to quickly publish products through API interfaces. You can upload thousands of products in just a few hours, which is perfect for building site networks. Alternatively, you can use a crawler to gather data and add products via the API.
APIs also make it possible to optimize products in bulk and automatically. You can update titles, descriptions, images, tags, categories, prices—basically everything you need for batch SEO optimization. As long as you understand how the program works, there’s a good chance you can achieve what you need through coding, which is why I stress the importance of being able to modify the website’s code.
In WP, custom hooks (actions and filters) are a way to share code and functionality between plugins.
You can write your own functions for things like getting an IP address. For example, you could use gethostbyaddr to do a reverse lookup on the visitor’s host to see if it’s a Google crawler. If it is, you can let it stay on the site; if not, you can redirect it elsewhere. You could do the same for other crawlers, like Facebook. Of course, you can also use the IP to determine other details about the visitor.
And if you need to, you can customize the shopping cart, change the Checkout page, or adjust the steps in the Checkout process. If there’s a need, it’s pretty likely you can make those changes.
Shortcodes
WP also has something called shortcodes, which are pretty powerful. They let you insert dynamic, reusable code blocks right into your content.
For example, you can create the Checkout page by simply inserting the right shortcode, and you can pull in product reviews the same way.
You can also write your own PHP code and place it in a separate file, which can work really well too.
In simple terms, WP is super flexible and you can modify it to add any features you need. That’s why I really like WP and WooCommerce.
There are so many benefits to WP that I could go on and on, but I’ll leave it here for today. We will dive into WP hosting setups, what kind of VPS you should choose for different types of sites, and WP plugins…
And if you need custom development for specific features, or run into any issues with WP or WooCommerce, feel free to reach out.