Table of Contents
- WordPress Review – Easy to Use with Extensive Customizability
- Benefits of WordPress
- Factors to Consider Before you Decide to Buy WordPress
- Pricing
- Ease of Use
- SEO
- What Do the Customers Think?
- Best Easy-to-Use Web Development Platform
- HTML5 Review – Flexible and Transparent
- Benefits of HTML5
- Factors to Consider Before you Decide to Buy HTML5
- Pricing
- Ease of Use
- SEO
- What Do the Customers Think?
- Best Flexible Web Development Platform
- Content Management System – Buyers’ Guide
- Pricing
- Ease of Use
- SEO
- Final Verdict
As an online course creator, you’ll eventually have to create your website regardless of if you choose to host your online course on it or not.
Many people opt for WordPress when they develop websites thanks to its ease of use but you can also consider HTML5.
In this post, we will compare WordPress and HTML5 in terms of many different aspects to determine which option would be more suitable for online course creators.
| Features | WordPress | HTML5 |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | 4 stars | 3 stars |
| Ease of Use | 4 and a half stars | 3 stars |
| SEO | 4 and a half stars | 4 stars |
Now that we’ve had a brief overview of both options, let’s take an in-depth look at both.
WordPress Review – Easy to Use with Extensive Customizability
Nearly 40% of the content on the internet consists of WordPress websites.
The prevalence of WordPress sites is no mystery: they’re extremely easy to create and provide a ton of options in terms of customization and templates.
Due to WordPress’s popularity, you also have access to a plethora of plugins that further increase the functionality of your site and allow you to easily create dynamic content.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| • Great customer support and tons of support forums to browse through • Free • Tons of plugins to choose from • Tons of templates to choose from • User-friendly interface | • Does not come with a web hosting service |
Benefits of WordPress
We already mentioned how WordPress is open-source and completely free.
Thus, you can easily just start to create your WordPress site right this very second without paying anything.
WordPress hosts a library of themes that you can use as a jumping-off point. You can then use its customization features to tailor it according to your personal brand’s aesthetics.
There are also tons of plugins and options you can utilize to make your site search-engine-optimized.
Factors to Consider Before you Decide to Buy WordPress
Pricing
WordPress is completely free but it’s important to note that it does not come with a hosting service.
In order to make your WordPress site available to the public, you will have to employ the services of a third-party hosting service which you will have to pay for.
Ease of Use
WordPress’s interface is extremely neat and easy to navigate.
Even people who aren’t very tech-savvy can make use of its drag-and-drop editor to build their websites.
SEO
With WordPress, you can easily alter title tags, meta descriptions, image alt texts, and other fields that influence SEO.
You can also utilize plugins to further help you in making your site more discoverable.
What Do the Customers Think?
People love WordPress’s ease of use and its helpful community that enables them to find solutions for any issues they may face.
Here are some of the reviews we found:
Best Easy-to-Use Web Development Platform
The best easy-to-use web development platform is WordPress thanks to its neat interface and abundance of templates. You can use the templates as a start-off point and utilize plugins to further increase the functionality of your online course website.
HTML5 Review – Flexible and Transparent
HTML5 is a markup language that is used to display web pages on the internet. Literally, all of the websites you see are written in HTML5. Even WordPress uses HTML5.
Hence, HTML5 directly gives you much more control over what you can do with your website.
That being said, it’s extremely difficult to build a dynamic, engaging website with HTML5 alone.
We highly recommend that you don’t go for HTML5 unless you have technical expertise and experience with HTML5 to build websites.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| • Cannot create dynamic content • Requires fewer resources to maintain • Better compatibility with hosting services • Better speed • Greater control | • Extremely steep learning curve • Tedious website-building process |
Benefits of HTML5
With HTML5, you have much greater control over how your site looks and feels as well as how it functions.
You literally work with the code (although HTML5 isn’t technically code) of your website. Hence, you can easily manipulate to make the changes you need.
Furthermore, HTML5 requires fewer resources such as PHP or MySQL servers. Hence, if you have a site built with just HTML5, it will load and perform much faster compared to a site made with WordPress.
Factors to Consider Before you Decide to Buy HTML5
Pricing
Similar to WordPress, you can utilize HTML5 free of cost.
That being said, you’ll still have to pay a third-party web hosting provider to make your site available to the public.
Ease of Use
Making a website using just HTML5 can prove to be very difficult and it’s definitely something you should not go for unless you have prior experience and technical expertise.
SEO
You can easily alter tags, alt texts, meta descriptions, etc. with HTML5 to make your site search-engine-optimized.
That being said, the process is much more tedious compared to WordPress.
What Do the Customers Think?
The greatest selling point for HTML5 is its extensive control and flexibility.
That is exactly what we found it being praised for in the reviews we came across online as shown:
Best Flexible Web Development Platform
The best flexible web development platform is HTML5 since it gives you full control over what your site will look like and how it will function. You can easily create web pages that function just the way you want with HTML.
One of the first decisions you’ll have to make when you develop a website is to choose a content management system. Some of which other than WordPress and HTML5 include Drupal 8, Dreamweaver, and Webflow.
Content Management System – Buyers’ Guide
Pricing
As an online course creator, you’ll already need to pay for a whole bunch of services.
Hence, it’s ideal that you opt for a platform that is either free or costs no more than $15 per month.
Ease of Use
It’s imperative that the platform you opt for is instantly usable as soon as you pick it up.
The less time you have to spend learning how to use the platform, the better.
This is because you want to devote as much time as possible to perfecting your online course(s).
SEO
The main purpose of building a site for your online course is to build brand awareness and reach as many people as possible.
Hence, it’s highly important that whatever platform you choose has extensive options for SEO to make your website discoverable.
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Final Verdict
With that, we’re at the end of our post for WordPress vs HTML5.
In the end, WordPress is definitely the winner for us mainly due to its ease of use.
While HTML5 gives you greater control, WordPress saves you time by the automation of many of the more tedious tasks.
You should only go for HTML5 if you have the technical expertise and are confident you can build a better website with it than if you used WordPress.
What do you think is the better option to build an online course site? Let us know in the comments below.