As Clint Eastwood famously coined in the movie Dirty Harry, “[a man’s] got to know his limitations.”
Akin to Clint’s insight, WordPress has its limitations too…lots of them actually. Afterall, at its core WordPress is a blog platform and, though it can work pretty darn well as a Web site, constraints can really get in the way.
As the owner of a business designing/marketing Web sites for almost two decades, responsibility falls to me to choose the best software for building custom sites. For the most part, WordPress is not my go-to, HTML5/CSS3 is because it makes the most sense for clients.
In part-one, I’ll discuss some of the more compelling reasons why NOT to use WordPress followed by part-two detailing the benefits to using HTML5/CSS3 coding instead.
1. WordPress has real security issues that aren’t going away.
WordPress sites are often the target of what’s called; brute force attacks where bots (software apps that run automated scripts over the Internet) repeatedly try username/password combinations on your login page until a successful break-in.
Even though the WordPress platform has been built and tested by a centralized development team, not so the thousands and thousands of WordPress themes on the Internet. A WordPress Theme modifies the way the site is displayed or designed, without having to also modify the underlying software.
The same holds true for the 55,512 WordPress Plugins currently on the market, where quality is questionable. A WordPress Plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress site. They can extend functionality or add new features.
Plugins are known to expose weaknesses for hackers to exploit since, as I’d mentioned earlier, quality can’t be controlled. And sure, while security vulnerabilities can be managed, one needs to ask at what cost as this work takes constant monitoring.
2. WordPress software upgrades are never ending and automatic upgrades aren’t always a good thing.
WordPress releases regular (frequent) site updates that can be set to run automatically. Only there’s a problem…it’s not unusual for incompatibilities between the update and existing sets of dozens of plugins to occur breaking your Web site and causing stress, time, and expense to remedy.
3. Plugins: Conflicts, insecurity, and a slow down.
So, if you’ve read this far, you’ve learned that plugins can be a culprit.
Plugins have the ability to conflict with each other and core software too. As we learned previously, there are quality issues that can leave holes for malicious types to take advantage.
What’s more, poor quality plugins can and will slow the performance of your Web site affecting its ability to rank well on Google (the 800lb gorilla of search engines).
4. WordPress software may be free but ownership is NOT cheap!
As you might have gathered so far, keeping a WordPress site in good operating order might not be a cheap proposition! Site maintenance requires time and time costs money.
WordPress requires lots of: frequent core software upgrades, plugin upgrades, theme upgrades, and the quality assessment testing that goes along with all of it.
5. Support is not available from WordPress.
WordPress has a huge DIY support community online but no dependable, professional support apparatus for site owners or developers to access the development team. VIP support fees start at $15,000/year, not really a practical expense for most small businesses.
A visitor to your Web site may not care at all what technical ‘magic’ is making it work, right? But, if you’re a small business owner contemplating a new company Web site, selecting the correct coding platform matters quite a bit. Choosing correct technologies to build with can significantly affect the cost of maintenance and the viability of your site’s performance into the future.
Be sure to check back soon for the next installment!