I am happy to announce that sellboss.se has gone through a small makeover during the summer and is now released to the public. I also thought I would write a short post about it and share with you the main reasons why, and a bit about what made us go for WordPress as our new content management system (CMS).
Why a new web page?
Reason #1 – The old page was hacked
First of all our hosting company started to alert us that they had identified harmful code during scans of our server and that we probably had been hacked. In my mind, I always looked at our page as a simple one and not a page valuable enough to be considered a target. But it is clear that any “free” server is interesting enough today and it is easy for bots out there to find a server, identify known issues, and use them to deploy malware. It is very important to maintain and keep even the simplest service up to date, this to not end up being one of those “open/free” servers that anyone can use for bad intent.
Reason #2 – As we did not maintain the site on a regular basis, it was not easy to update
The second reason emerged when I tried to update our Drupal source, which was the old CMS we used, and it just did not work. Our version was to old and our theme was no longer supported. So we basically did not have much choice to start over with a clean installation of Drupal.
Reason #3 – The content needed an update as Sellboss has grown and GDPR has arrived
Last we had the need to review our content anyway, as Sellboss has doubled in size and gained a more mature identity. We also needed to make it GDPR compliant. Maybe a small thing for a page like ours, but still so important.
Why did we go with WordPress?
Our focus are not front-end development, but we are still a small technical firm with a deep understanding of software development and it felt important the we created it as we will maintain it. We needed a platform that was very easy to maintain, have good security options, simplify GDPR work, and give us features like social media integration and a blog.
I quickly evaluated the most common CMS systems and ended up choosing between Drupal or WordPress. Drupal as a very competent and secure platform. WordPress as a very simple and easily maintainable platform.
I already have experience with Drupal, so I decided to give WordPress a try. As our hosting company had a very nice one-click installer available, I logged in using my Ipad and started to play around. The fact is that it was very simple to get it working, it ended up becoming our new internal web for Sellboss. In a few hours I had a HTTPS secured page with forced G-suite login, automatic updating and/or alerting of outdated source, a responsive and mobile friendly theme, and a minified and cached source for optimal performance. I launched the page one day later and started on a new external web for Sellboss.
After a few hundred US$ and ~40 hours of work, spread over the summer and many times only using my smart phone, the page is live. Hurry!
Even though it looks a lot like many other WordPress sites, it is still a great upgrade for us. The content is up to date and more focused. It’s also open regarding what we offer our customers and team members. We have an Instagram feed to share a bit more about our culture.
Now we are also using HTTPS only, which I believe is a must have for any serious page these days. Another important feature we added is the traditional cookie notification. Even though we do not use cookies our self’s, our integrations to other services do, and these are very important not to forget, if you want to be fully GDPR compliant.
Enjoy!