The Dark and Light Sides of Building a Site with This Popular CMS
Websites have become a necessity for every company, and the opportunities that the internet offers us have opened up a whole path to explore and grow our brand. Many platforms can help you create and manage your websites, depending on the degree of freedom you require, and the level of customization, among other things. However, WordPress is an open-source software that has stood out in recent years and has become the favorite of many. In this topic “pros and cons of using WordPress” we will discuss major points that you should know. Thanks to WordPress easy manipulation, customization, and all the possibilities it offers regardless of the field.
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Pros and Cons of using WordPress
WordPress Advantages
First, we have to talk about the advantages of using WordPress to create and manage your website, to understand why it is one of the most popular.
1. It’s free
It is a free platform to start, making it perfect if you still hesitate to spend money on a bespoke website for your business. In this manner, you can start experimenting without having to worry about the expense. This will help you to familiarize yourself and understand all its elements, its tools and play a bit with the templates, which are even divided according to the type of site you decide to create: a portfolio, a landing page, a magazine, etc.
WordPress provides a variety of options that may inspire you to unleash your inner amateur web designer. This task would be a piece of cake for you if your favorite hobby was customizing your MySpace by creating your templates back in 2006.
2. It is open source
To summarize and put you in context: open source —or open code— is software that has been created and developed by a group of people who are passionate about the Internet, that is free for everyone, and to which you can modify the code depending on your needs. your needs. In addition, we say that these people are passionate because they are constantly developing and updating, becoming modern heroes, since they offer us the possibilities to create how, when, and where we want. In this way, we can say that WordPress has the great advantage of being open source, and this is partly the reason why it is so popular for both amateurs and professionals.
3. You can install very useful plugins
Another advantage is access to an infinite number of very useful plugins, and if you already have an idea of what WordPress is —or have decided to experiment with it— you probably already know what we are talking about. In a few words: it is a kind of program, additive, or complement that serves —as its name indicates— to complement some functions of the site, and that facilitate many aspects of management and the user experience. In this way, WordPress has a large number of totally free plugins that help you improve your site; from font customization plugins, social media features, SEO tools that allow you to track and optimize, and even Facebook Pixel plugins.
And what are the advantages of plugins?
- They are easily accessible since it is not difficult to find them
- They are free, which means that you can try several without worrying about the cost.
- Its installation is very simple and you do not need much previous experience.
- They offer solutions to specific problems, such as SEO metrics and evaluation.
We also have to remind you that it is not good to abuse plugins because having too many at the same time causes your site to go slow, which negatively affects the user experience. Who likes to enter a page that takes a long time to load? Not too many. What you can do is try each of these supplements, see how they work for you, and choose only the ones that give you the greatest benefit.
4. Facilitates the work of SEO
We will never get tired of telling you how super important SEO is and what it can do for you, because this is one of the fundamental elements to make your customers find you, instead of you going out looking for them.
Making a brief reminder of what SEO is: we have that its initials mean Search Engine Optimization, and it is the way for your content to position itself in the first places of the main search engines, such as Google. This way, if you sell “cheese shrimp empanadas”, you want people who Google “shrimp empanadas in that city” to find you first. If you want to know more about content optimizations, we recommend that you visit our article on what is SEO and why you are doing it wrong.
At the end of the day, WordPress stands out from the rest of the platforms, since it has plugins that make it a very powerful content manager; It makes it easier for you to control the ranking of your keywords and helps you optimize and improve the positioning of your site. It also has an organic structure that makes it easier to comprehend — and use — things like tags, meta descriptions, and alt text.
5. You have access to templates
We already mentioned that you can customize a WordPress website from scratch, but did you know that you can also purchase templates? In this way, you would not have to invest so much time in designing your website.
This platform has become a whole marketplace for web designers, who invest their time, effort, and talents in very interesting templates. In this way, you can find from super simple things to the most complex customizations. What you have to keep in mind is that you can find both free themes that offer incredible experiences, and paid themes that offer all the functions you can imagine, so you don’t have to worry about anything and just dedicate yourself to creating the content. Also, these packages usually already include updates and support, so you wouldn’t need a whole team of programmers.
6. Facilitates e-commerce
Have you heard about e-commerce? E-commerce is —in a few words— a sale-purchase transaction that is carried out through digital means, on the Internet. This is one of the industries that has grown the most in recent years, which is why having an online store has become a priority for many brands. However, certain specialized —and security— elements are needed that make it a bit complicated to perform. The good news is that in WordPress there are specific templates to create virtual stores without any problem or previous experience.
And if you add to this that there are special plugins for this purpose, you will see how your store gradually becomes a success and a sea of income with little effort. If your business is focused on e-commerce and you want to delve into these issues, we recommend that you visit our article on how to know if you need e-commerce, so you can analyze how you can take the next step to success.
7. WordPress.com Premium Plans
Throughout this article we have referred to the use of WordPress.org, which is free-to-use software that you can customize practically from scratch, however, we also have to mention that WordPress.com premium plans are a very interesting option. And what is the difference? What does WordPress.com have? The main thing is that it is a specialized hosting service that uses WordPress and that it offers you to create your website without you having to know anything about code or design.
This option is the best for those who want to have a personal blog, who are just entering this world, or for those who want to browse the options offered by this platform. If what you want is to have a website optimized for business, we recommend that you look for a custom design or use WordPress.org.
WordPress Disadvantages
We have already talked about the great advantages that WordPress has, so now we will focus on the negative aspects, on the things that could be improved, or that are simply overcome by a custom web design. In any case, it is important that you always choose the software that best suits the needs of your company, taking into account the sector in which you develop, and the profile of your potential customers. Our friends at Jivochat know what the best alternatives to WordPress are.
1. Not everything can be done with WordPress
Throughout this entire article, we have said wonders about this software, and it is not for less, since its benefits are many, but the truth is that not everything can be solved with a plugin or a template; There are times when a little more freedom is needed.
2. Limited customization
And something that has to do with the previous point —which is rather a consequence— is limited customization. Although WordPress allows you to use themes with many options, the truth is that there are things that are very difficult to edit, that require a greater degree of knowledge, or that simply cannot be modified.
3. It’s heavy
We’ve already said before that you should be very careful with the number of plugins you install on your site, because as tempting as it may seem to have all those features active at the same time, it can cause all your pages to take a long time to load. And what if you already have this problem? How do you solve it? For this you have to use tools that analyze your site and detect which plugin is causing the slowness; one of the most used is P3 Performance Profiler.
4. It has vulnerabilities
The great advantage of WordPress can be in turn a disadvantage, because being an open source software anyone can review the code and find “gaps” in security, and take advantage of it. That is why it is not so rare to see news related to attacks on websites that work with WordPress. To avoid having these problems, it is best that right after installing WordPress you apply extra security tools to your site, and then keep both the software itself and do the plugins update regulary.
The important thing is to be able to analyze the situation of your business very well so that you can make the best decision, and that yes or yes you are encouraged to create your own space on the internet so that in this way you can reach more people and achieve your goals. If you want to continue learning about these interesting topics, we recommend you read our articles on what is web design, web design trends, and what are the best web design software, so that you are even more prepared to conquer the internet.