In today’s article, we will give you an overview of the pros and cons of WordPress websites. This way you will see how effective a WordPress website can be for your business and decide whether or not it is the right option for you to choose.
But before we dive deeper into the topic, here’s a quick fact check. WordPress powers more than 1/3 of the 10 million most popular websites on the internet. In the last few years, its market share has also increased continuously, reaching 33.4% from 29.9%.
In its early years, WordPress was just a blogging platform, created for bloggers with the idea to provide a user-friendly platform. However, it is now the largest and one of the most popular content management systems (CMS) on the market. If you follow our blog regularly, you might already know that WordPress has now become the leading CMS in the industry.
When it comes to choosing the best platform to build your website on, the name WordPress always comes up. And for a good reason. This open-source platform is the first choice of many bloggers for creating interactive websites, but it is also the website of many businesses. However, WordPress faces tough competition, but still remains the most popular CMS in the world.
To help you decide whether or not WordPress is for you, we gathered the most outstanding pros and cons of this CMS. So now, without further ado, let’s take a quick look at the most important advantages and disadvantages of WordPress. Ready? Let’s get to it!
The advantages of WordPress
#1 User-friendly CMS
CMS platforms like WordPress allow the site administrator to edit pages, navigate the backend of the site, and upload new content. Without any technical knowledge like website management and coding knowledge, website owners or bloggers can edit and maintain their websites with easy-to-use features like drag and drop. Yes, just as easy as it looks!
#2 Plugins
One of the main advantages of WordPress is that it includes more than 45,000 plugins for almost every function. It doesn’t matter if you want to improve your SEO or analyze your website, you can find specialized plugins for everything. This means you don’t have to write lines of code for every feature you want on your website. You just need to install the plugin and enjoy all the benefits of this feature on your website.
#3 SEO friendly
WordPress plugins are designed for SEO purposes and simplicity. Some people struggle with meta descriptions and tags. WordPress helps make these tags easy to use and understand. WordPress is an excellent teacher when it comes to search engine optimization. It helps you identify the most frequently used phrases and words on your website that can be used as keywords to make your website/blog more SEO-friendly, so more people searching for your content can find it.
If you want to learn more about SEO tips and tricks you should keep in mind when optimizing your website pages for search engines, feel free to dig deeper into our blog and read more about the topic!
#4 Responsive Sites
Due to the increasing use of mobile devices for internet browsing, a mobile-friendly website is vital for both user experience and search engine optimization. Fortunately, most WordPress themes and designs are responsive, so they look perfect on mobile devices as well.
#5 Open Source Community
One of the main advantages is that WordPress is an open source platform. This means that the developer can use, modify and study the code without having to create it from scratch. Because it is open source software, WordPress programmers can share the code with other developers online. This will save you a lot of time and money to write a new codebase and less time to create major changes.
Disadvantages of WordPress
#1 Customization
Unlike other drag and drop web building tools, WordPress is quite a flexible tool. However, if you are not a WordPress expert or do not have a competent WordPress developer, then you will face serious problems. Issues like updating WordPress centrally can be confusing as the update may break some functionality. Also, if you are not familiar with site design practices, that can also be a problem. That is why it is recommended to involve an experienced WordPress developer in the creation of the page.
#2 Vulnerability and data security
One of the biggest disadvantages of this CMS is that it can be vulnerable in several cases. Since WordPress is an open source platform, it opens the door to potential hackers. Choosing the right themes and plugins for your WordPress sites is key to reducing this risk. Also, it is always a good idea to assess the quality of a WordPress plugin before installing it.
#3 Frequent Updates
Installing WordPress is not enough. To make sure it works properly, you need to install several plugins and themes. The more plugins you use, the more compatibility challenges you face. In addition, updating the website frequently can interfere with its functionality, for example, plug-ins may stop working. Before updating your website, make sure you have a backup of your data.
General FAQ and Wrap Up
Now let’s wrap up the most important things you should know about WordPress, including features, advantages, and disadvantages:
What are the benefits of WordPress?
- Using CMS platforms like WordPress allows the site administrator to edit pages, navigate the backend of the site, and upload new content without any technical knowledge.
- It has more than 45,000 plugins for almost every feature.
- WordPress helps you identify the most frequently used phrases and words that can be used as keywords for SEO effectiveness.
- Most WordPress themes and designs are responsive!
- WordPress comes with over 3,500+ free templates, while Joomla has 1,000+ and Drupal has 2,000+ templates.
- WordPress is an open source platform. This means that the developer can use, modify and study the code without having to build it from scratch
What are the disadvantages of WordPress?
- Issues such as updating WordPress centrally can be a problem as the update may break some functionality.
- To make sure it works properly, you need to install several plugins and themes. Frequent updates to the website may also hinder its functionality.
- It requires regular maintenance, due to security and extensions.
Conclusion
WordPress is today and it sure looks like that will continue to be the best content management software in the world. In addition to the advantages of WordPress, its disadvantages are dwarfed. Why? The reason is simple. Because WordPress is multifunctional, easy to use, free, search engine-optimized, mobile-friendly, and, most importantly, extremely secure, which clearly makes it the best website engine in the world.