5 Things To Know About WordPress
WordPress is fast becoming the most popular open source Content Management System available today. With a huge assortment of themes and plugins available for free or some nominal charge, there is tremendous appeal to the budget minded website owner. While “free” website services like Wix may seem like a good idea at first, the reality is that to have a site on Wix that gets noticed by Google requires extra fees and in the end winds up costing more than a WordPress site.
Here at Techeffex, we’ve been developing WordPress sites for some time now along with our custom solutions. There are some really great things about WordPress and some other things that site owners should be aware of. Here’s our list of top 5 things you should know:
1) WordPress Is Easy On The Budget
WordPress is open source, meaning it is free to use and customize. With little website experience, you can set up a hosting account, install WordPress, enter some content and go live. Many website owners need some special customization or need help getting things set up just the way they like, but even in these cases, the cost can be quite reasonable because you are starting from a working platform. Keep in mind that your website may be the single most important element in your marketing strategy and though it may be possible to do it all on your own, having a professional looking site may be worth spending some money.
2) Lots Of Free Themes And Plugins To Choose From
A WordPress theme is a collection of files and graphics that can be installed and selected to instantly change the look and feel of the site. Themes can be customized as needed – sometimes very easily and sometimes requiring the help of a professional.
Plugins are add-on functions that are available for free or some nominal charge. For example, you can get a plugin that provides a News Manager, an FAQ Manager and whole bunch more. Like themes, plugins can be customized, though this usually requires the help of a professional.
The beauty of WordPress is that there are so many themes and plugins available, allowing a website owner to build up an awesome site by installing just the right bits and pieces. Even if some customizing is needed, it’s a whole lot less expensive than developing from scratch.
3) Excellent Blogging And SEO
WordPress was originally designed as a blogging platform. As such, any WordPress website has the world’s most popular blogging engine built in and has the SEO optimization already in place. So if showing up well on Google is important, you are way ahead of the game. We recommend installing the SEO plugin by Yoast as it provides some additional goodies to make your content easier to post on social media.
4) Prime Target For Hackers
OK – it’s not all rainbows and ponies. Because WordPress is so popular, it is a prime target for hackers. From a hackers point of view, if they can find a vulnerability in WordPress, they may have thousands and thousands of victim websites to attack so it makes sense to spend their efforts on that. Like with any website, it’s a cat and mouse game. The good news is that Worspress comes out with updates on a regular basis for both function and security reasons so as long as you keep your site up to date, security issues should be rare.
5) Can Be Slower Than A Custom Designed Website
Another downside to WordPress, or any other open source CMS system like Drupal or Joomla, is that the overall performance tends to be worse than a custom site. There’s just a lot more going on in an open source CMS application than a custom solution. WordPress has a tremendous amount of functionality available and this translates into complexity which translates into a degradation in performance. In general, we find that the trade off is worth it in most cases.
If you find yourself needing to upgrade your website, because it’s old or is not mobile friendly, but don’t have the budget for a full custom site, you might want to consider WordPress. It may be the quick, cost effective solution you’ve been looking for.