A website may play many roles and serve many purposes, such as providing information about a business’s products and services, a method of communication or a way for one’s audience to interact with business owners or other visitors.
But there are definitely jobs a website is not meant for. Consider what role you want your website to play. If it’s any of the following, it’s not a website you need.
It isn't a substitute for Box, DropBox, Google Drive, etc.
While the administrative side of the website does permit uploading images and PDFs, the media library is intended for use on your site’s pages, not as a file storage facility. If you want a place for you, your employees or coworkers, members, etc. to upload documents, images, or PDFs, you need to use a cloud storage service such as Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, etc. These are specialized programs that are specifically designed to store files in the cloud for multiple people to access, edit and save simultaneously.
Your website is not meant for this purpose, and does not have the space and bandwidth to accommodate large amounts of files or users accessing them at the same time.
It isn't a substitute for specialized software
While WordPress has hundreds of thousands of plugins that add a wealth of functionality to websites, they are not substitutes for specialized programs for accounting, expense tracking, file storage, reports, etc.
A WordPress plugin may be able to record submissions or other data, but no plugin provides the full scope of functionality that specialized software does.
For example, while you may be able to accept payments through a PayPal plugin, you will still need QuickBooks, Wave, or another accounting program to track your business expenses, income, etc.
It isn't a substitute for a private company server
Unless your website is hosted on a privately-owned server, you are provided limited space through your web hosting server for files and media.
A website can have a paid section or a members’ section, but for businesses that want to upload extensive documentation, policies, or training that is intended for internal use only, they would be better served using a service like SharePoint, or creating a corporate intranet on a private server.
Websites serve as an informational gateway to the public at large, allowing businesses to answer frequently asked questions en masse at all hours. If that is not what you want from your website, you probably don’t need a website. If it is, and you don’t know how to start or how to create the website you want, book a free consultation with JLT Creations.