WordPress is one of the most or perhaps the most advertised content management system. Many people like it and there are reasons for that. Of course, most customers choose WordPress platform because this system is absolutely free. Moreover, WordPress offers users a lot of interesting features and a wide selection of plugins. Thus, using this CMS, you can create different types of projects: from a simple blog to a popular forum. Nevertheless, when creating a site, do not forget about the problems that you may encounter using WordPress. The best solution to avoid problems during web development process is to hire professional web design company like us.
WordPress Functional
Do not forget that originally WordPress system was created as a platform for bloggers. The bulk of functions and tools for CMS are designed to publish posts and comment them. Therefore, you should understand that the functionality of WordPress is somewhat limited. To implement some functions, you will need to find and add the appropriate plugins. Of course, this is possible but still creates certain inconveniences.
It’s impossible to create an E-commerce website or a large-scale web resource using WordPress. Even such basic online store features as a product catalog and a shopping cart can be organized only by implementing plugins. For example, to have such function as sorting products by name or price on your website, you will have to look for a good-fit template (WordPress itself doesn’t provide this function).
Running an online store on WordPress will be no picnic either – at a minimum, you will not be able to add special offers and discounts. If there are a lot of goods on your website, you simply will get confused at long last. In addition, WordPress doesn’t support all payment systems, which also creates inconveniences to online store owners and their customers. Thus, to create blogs and static sites, WordPress is very good, but in order to fit serious business needs you have to hire an experienced web design company, and it should be kept in mind.
Plugins
If you ever created WordPress website, you must know that the main functionality of such site is achieved through plugins. Fortunately, WordPress has a plugin system, which developers of this CMS can be proud of. According to various estimates, there are more than 40,000 plugins for WordPress available at the moment.
The plugins are created by developers from around the world. The problem is that the expertise of these people may be brought into doubt. Therefore, the conflict of plugins is not uncommon for those who use WordPress. When adding plugins, it is necessary to be cautious at most because they are developed by specialists of a different professional level. If you make a mistake when choosing a plugin, you may encounter problems with the operation of your site.
For example, by installing a seemingly simple plugin to search for similar posts, you can become a conflict trigger between the plugin and the template. Even if you are lucky and there are no conflicts, the installed plugin may simply not perform the described functions or may cause problems with the database. Some plugins are forbidden by hosting providers because they require too many resources or lead to security problems. Therefore, before installing any plugin on WordPress it is worth to thoroughly study the information about it and read users’ feedbacks, and when changing a hosting provider, make sure that your plugins are not “blacklisted”. But, unfortunately, even these precautions don’t guarantee the absence of errors.
Most likely, sooner or later you will still have to deal with problems in the work and display of your template website and you will have to solve these problems intuitively, frantically remembering which plugins you installed or updated recently and how they could affect the site operation. This never happens when having a web design company like ours to make a custom website for you.
Endless Updates
Plugins, necessary for the operation of your site, require constant updates. In the world of modern technology, everything should be constantly updated, changed and improved but in the case of WordPress, updates become more than annoying. Every time you log in to your account, you will probably have to update something. In this case, no one can guarantee that after the next update your site will work correctly. If you don’t have a person who monitors your website and you do all the work yourself, it will be a real problem.
Even if you disable the automatic updates in order to update the system manually, this isn’t a warrant of the correct CMS operation the next update. A constant fuss over backup, error search and fixing them take precious time. And if you use paid templates or plugins, one unsuccessful update can cost you not only time but money. However, without constant updates, the system also will not work correctly. Therefore, if you work alone and you are not experienced in web development, it’s worth considering involving more experienced people into the project.
Speed Problems
If you want to create a really good site, you will have to add many plugins to perform various tasks. But don’t forget that the more plugins you have on your template website, the slower your it works. By the way, the speed of the site is affected not only by the number of implemented plugins but by non-professional “user” templates, poor optimization of the main page, lack of caching, etc. All these factors showcase that saving money option of web development by means of WordPress appears to be not so saving.
CMS itself requires much of processing power and disk space. To provide your site with correct and quick work speed, you have to add an additional plugin for caching but it is often not enough. Uploading too much content to your site can worsen the situation as well. Choosing a template with “extra” functions leads to an extra slow website speed. Of course, it will push your potential customers off.
Non-Adaptive Templates
You definitely need to make sure that your site performs well on devices with different screen resolutions. Unfortunately, not all WordPress templates are come fitted with a mobile version. Therefore, be careful and look for an adaptive template that will be displayed correctly on any screen. The same happens to plugins, not all of them are suitable for any type of device.
Weak Security
Many experts describing the shortcomings of WordPress put this issue in the first place. Indeed, WordPress sites are very easy to crack. There is a plenty of manuals for hacking sites on WordPress you can simply find floating around the Internet.
As you may know, WordPress belongs to the number of open source systems. Nobody controls plugins and themes that are freely available. With the help of one small plugin, intruders can enter the admin panel and the security of your site or blog will be at risk. In addition, the WordPress system is written in PHP and uses the MySQL database management system, which makes your site vulnerable to SQL injection (one of the common ways of hacking sites and programs). There are a number of plugins for site protection but even they do not guarantee complete security.
Where is Tech Support?
In fact, WordPress does not offer customers any technical support. If you decide to create your business website using WordPress instead of having a professional web design company develop it for you, be prepared to spend a lot of time looking for a solution on forums when facing a problem.
In addition, the forums often offer the most rapid, simple and cheap solutions, but not the most effective. The situation is complicated by the fact that a professional level of the person who answered your question on the forum is unknown.
Poor SEO
Our web design company Direct Line Development provides SEO to promote websites for our clients besides design and development services. If you ask skilled designers what site would they choose to promote in Google a custom or a template one, they would definitely choose a custom website. A promotion for a template website is no easy task at all and we have seen it first hand. A purchase of modules and add-ons can help improve search engine optimization. Yet, as you can see it takes additional money and time again.
Site Appearance
When running a successful business, you have to have a specific feature that makes you stand out from your competitors in the field. It might be lower prices, free services, a lifetime warranty, etc. And it is impossible to be in step with your business strategy to strive to be out-of-the-box and having a pre-made template. To be one of a kind in any business, you should be unique in your business ideas and online appearance because your website serves as a reflection of your business. You can’t achieve this effect using WordPress without spending money again.
The Bottom Line
As you can see having a template website can be a good solution for blogging because it was the primal function of the platform. But if you want a fully functional website and you think long term a custom web development is your best solution. A custom variant offered by professional web design companies seems a bit costly and it is true but you get a full-service package and complete project without bugs. You may learn more about services our web design company Direct Line Development provides to our clients on our website. If you want to launch your business online on a custom-made responsive website, contact us to discuss suitable options for you and your company.