What Is WordPress, and Why Don't We Use It?
November 13th, 2020 by admin
A custom website is something every business wants to have, which is why something like WordPress is so appealing. Arguably the world's most popular website builder, they are used by people for everything from personal blogs to global corporations. It's not exactly hard to comprehend why either, as initially, it seems like an easy choice to make given the level of extensive customization for a reasonable price. For $300 a year (or $540 for online stores), you are offered many tools and features to use. For many companies, this seems like an amazing deal, a custom website at an affordable price. However, like many seemingly good deals, more issues lurk beneath the surface.
While WordPress may be the world's most popular website builder, it's not without its issues. With problems like bloated code, hidden costs, and security risks, here are some of the reasons we don't use WordPress for our websites:
- Hidden Costs
Probably one of the things most companies don't expect when signing up to use WordPress is all the hidden costs. While the monthly prices don't seem like much, they represent just the tip of the iceberg for your budget. Like how you still need to purchase a website domain for your business, costing you anywhere from $10 to $30 every year. That is unless you want to be stuck with .wordpress.com tacked at the end of your domain. Then there's paying upward of $200 for themes, as the free ones don't include necessary features that many businesses would need. Follow that up with paying for plugins and extensions, where premium options run anywhere from $47 to $200, either in recurring or one-time payments. Throw eCommerce features (which range from $50 per month to $199 a year) on top of that, and your business will potentially have sunk more money than you initially wanted. All these cumulative costs draining your budget to have a website that serves the bare minimum of what you needed. - Bloated and Outdated Code
One of the most significant parts of managing an effective website is ensuring page load times are fast. As studies have shown that up to 79% of customers who are unhappy with a site's load time are less likely to buy from the same site again. Which is load time speeds you may not be able to get with WordPress. As their code is not only bloated by too many features but held back by older programming as well. Their sites come with features that not every website needs or uses, but their servers process and load that code regardless of if you use them or not. Next, there's the foundation of 10-year-old coding, which requires paid plugins to be used to modernize or cover the problems caused by that ancient code. With each required plugin needed only adding to the server strain for loading your business's webpage. Combine those two unavoidable problems, and you can start to see why clients would be less likely to buy from your site again. - Constant Security Vulnerabilities
Being the most popular place to build websites has put a massive target on WordPress's back. Meaning that every bored hacker is looking to make a quick buck off a vulnerability they missed. Like abusing the default setting for websites that allows for an unlimited number of login attempts, which at best overloads your servers with their multiple tries at breaking in. Which if that doesn't work out, they can always utilize one of the other glaring security issues WordPress has. Like how plugins are not a part of their automatic updates or the fact that, due to cookiecutter code, vulnerabilities discovered on other websites directly affect your security. Making each of them may contain their own vulnerabilities, so if you have 10 plugins you now have trusted 10 additional third-party's with the safety and security of your website. Meaning your business can easily end up at risks because of a missed update. That or end up one of a million sites hacked because you used the same code/plugin. - Poor Mobile and Browser Optimization
While Google may dominate with Chrome as the people's choice of browsing, not everyone uses the same browser. That's why it's vital to have websites be consistent across all browsers available, as well as be adaptable to mobile devices, to reach the widest audience possible. You would think WordPress sites, with its focus on customization, would be adaptable to every option, but that's not the case. Their sites may not keep the same appearance on all devices/search engines. Since many of the components companies may have to use for their site to operate won't always have compatibility in mind. As the barrier to entry for being a web developer for WordPress is practically no existent, not everyone knows what they're doing when they make plugins or themes. Meaning there's no guarantee the person who made what you are utilizing knew how to code it for compatibility. Leaving you with a mandatory key feature for your website that may be locking you out of the largest base of internet browsers with little to no way to fix it. - Unpredictable SEO Results
If your site can't show up in search results, then it can't be found by potential future clients. That's why you need to ensure your site has the best Search Engine Optimization (SEO) possible, something that is difficult to achieve with WordPress. While they do provide plenty of SEO plugins, but they don't cover every key factor, and improperly using too many may cause other critical issues like security vulnerabilities. Even with those plugins, no magic code makes Google likes your site more for search results. You have to do the right things to improve the ranking of your site, something you can only achieve with a truly custom site.
There you have it, some of the many reasons we don't use WordPress to make our sites. So instead of worrying about security risks, hidden costs, unpredictable SEO, or poor optimization, get the custom website that your business wants for a website with Atomic8Ball. Our services come in a variety of plans that ensure your business gets what it needs at an upfront and affordable cost. With services like custom coding to SEO and custom social media content included in our plans, we guarantee your site is going to look and function exactly how you want while still being optimized for every browser and mobile device. We know what it takes to make truly unique and custom sites for clients and WordPress doesn't cut it when it comes to your business's needs.
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