When you look at the most popular platform for building a website, WordPress will quickly pop up as the answer. Some of the most powerful and influential sites online make use of WordPress, mainly because it is versatile, functional, and effective. If you are considering using WordPress for building your website, here is an objective look at the pros and cons of this content management system.
THE PROS:
– User-Friendly
One of the best things about WordPress is that it caters to beginners and professionals. The straightforward layout and dashboard make running a site very simple, but it doesn’t take away from the options professional designers like to have at their disposal.
– Search Engine Friendly
Another reason why WordPress remains the most popular CMS is based on the focus of visibility. The plugins, the themes, the reporting system, everything is geared toward creating more visibility with all search engines. And up to now, WordPress has gained a strong reputation with search engines.
– Extensive Theme Possibilities
Firstly, you get to choose whether you want to use a custom design by a professional, a free theme, or a premium theme. In addition, you get to tweak these themes depending on the fundamental design. Some themes will have more options than others, especially when you work with custom or premium themes.
– Great Performance
Given the basic approach used by WordPress and the dramatic cut on coding necessities, the loading speed is incredibly fast. This is an element search engines appreciate, while users appreciate it even more.
– Powerful Tools For Visibility And Improving User-Experience
Whether the tools are created by the WordPress team or a third-party author, you are not limited regarding the tools at your disposal. From plugins to help you optimize your articles exactly the way search engines like them, to running polls and monitoring performances, WordPress provides a world of options.
– Affordability
It doesn’t cost anything to use WordPress as a CMS. Instead, the only costs will be for the domain and the server, which don’t even have to be connected to WordPress in any way. You should also know the plugins and tools come free to use as well. So, the only time you pay for WordPress is when you decide to use it as a host for your domain.
– Solid Reputation
Up until now, WordPress has gone from strength to strength. Of course, other platforms are gaining ground, but it hasn’t taken away from the reputation that is WordPress. It is a trusted platform that opens up possibilities for everyone, as supposed to favoring only professional developers.
THE CONS:
– Limited Coding Capabilities
Even though WordPress allows for coding changes to be made, you will be limited as to how much coding you can do. Compared to certain platforms where everything is based on coding, WordPress only offers this to a certain degree. Although, this is a con that will only influence hardcore developers who want total control, from in-depth server tweaking to website changes.
– Consistent Updates
While the constant updates from WordPress is actually a good thing, it can get a little annoying. For example, updates to the theme and plugins can come around several times a month. And the updates are not installed automatically, meaning you have should check for these on a regular basis. Just keep in mind that these updates ensure the websites maintains an impressive performance. And not installing the updates can make the site vulnerable to security breaches.
Overall, you won’t find too many problems with WordPress, hence the reason why the majority of websites use it. Although it will be ignorant to assume everyone is going to agree with this point of view, the facts about how powerful WordPress can be don’t lie.