We investigate switching and field-driven domain wall motion in nanowires with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy comprising local modifications of the material parameters. Intentional nucleation and pinning sites with various geometries inside the nanowires are realized via a local reduction of the anisotropy constant. Micromagnetic simulations and analytical calculations are employed to determine the switching fields and to characterize the pinning potentials and the depinning fields. Nucleation sites in the simulations cause a significant reduction of the switching field and are in excellent agreement with analytical calculations. Pinning potentials and depinning fields caused by the pinning sites strongly depend on their shapes and are well explained by analytical calculations.