Advantages and disadvantages of using WordPress (updated)

One of the biggest advantages of using WordPress is its user-friendly interface. Even if you have no coding experience, you can still create a professional-looking website with WordPress.

Its back-end (admin panel) allows you to navigate and manage the content creation system. There you can find the page and posts editor, the plugins area, and all the other settings that give you full control over your website’s content.

In this way, WordPress facilitates the organization of content and makes it possible for any user to manage it without necessarily being an expert in web development or design.

WordPress offers a wide range of templates and themes that make it possible to customize websites according to specific needs.

You can also add various plugins to modify and enhance the functionality of your website. For any adjustment you wish to make, there is probably a plugin, which can rapidly and easily do the job. This makes WordPress more versatile than any other CMS, even the custom-made ones.

WordPress is SEO-friendly, meaning it is designed to help your website rank higher in search engine results.

There are several plugins like Yoast and Rank Math that enhance SEO functionalities and give you control over a number of important SEO aspects, such as metadata, keywords, readability and more.

Learn more about SEO in our series of articles on How to do SEO?

With the increasing number of people accessing the internet on their mobile devices, having a mobile-friendly website is vital.

WordPress offers various mobile-responsive themes, making it easy to create a website that looks great on any device.

It also provides manual control over responsiveness, meaning you can manually adjust most features so they appear perfectly on smartphones and tablets.

WordPress is an open-source system and anyone can use, study, change and redistribute its source code. This reuse of existing code can help save a lot of programming time and costs.

Many of the themes and plugins are free or require a one-time fee, which allows access to updates.

WordPress has a large community of developers and users who are constantly creating new plugins, themes, and resources, and exchanging helpful information. This means you can always find the support you need when working with WordPress.

It is relatively easy to integrate an ecommerce functionality into a WordPress website using plugins. It is actually one of the most straightforward ways of creating an online store.

There are many popular ecommerce plugins available for WordPress, such as WooCommerce, which can be installed and configured with just a few clicks.

Once you have chosen an ecommerce plugin and installed it on your WordPress site, you can start adding products, setting up payment and shipping options, and customizing the design and layout of your online store.

While WordPress is relatively easy and intuitive to use, there is still a learning curve involved. You may need to spend some time exploring the platform and getting to know its basic features.

WordPress websites require regular maintenance, such as updating plugins and themes. Installing these updates is vital for the health of a website, but can be a hassle if not done carefully.

If a theme, plugin, or even WordPress itself is not correctly updated, it can be vulnerable to hackers or malicious software.

Updates should be done with precaution as they can bring certain issues to a website, in which case you may have to revert to a previous state of WordPress.

To avoid this, it is advisable to examine updates before implementing them and closely monitor the website post-installation. This is when you may require the professional support of a qualified WordPress expert.

Being a popular open-source platform, WordPress is an attractive target for potential hackers.

You need to take extra measures to secure your WordPress website, such as keeping your software, themes, and plugins up to date. Outdated software can have vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers.

To mitigate risks, it’s a good idea to use strong passwords, change them regularly and add two-factor authentication (2FA) for an extra layer of security.

Installing a WordPress security plugin such as Wordfence, can also help protect your website from brute-force attacks, malware, and other threats.

Additionally, regular backups of your website data and storage in a secure location is essential.

Some themes contain a lot of unnecessary generic code, which can slow down site speed and cause slow load times. Without prior WordPress experience, it can be difficult to understand what code you need and what code you can manage without.

Furthermore, the more plugins and customizations you add to your WordPress website, the slower it may become. This can negatively affect user experience and SEO. Learn more about how user experience affects SEO in our article.

While WordPress offers a wide range of customization options, there are some limitations to what you can do without coding knowledge.

If you need to create a highly customized website, you may need to hire a developer.

In conclusion, there are many advantages and certain disadvantages to using WordPress to build and manage your website.

Given that potential problems are relatively avoidable, especially if you count on the help of an agency, and taking into account the wide freedom and autonomy that WordPress offers in terms of website management, it is an excellent choice for any business or brand that needs a modern, user-friendly and updated website.