I can certainly understand the appeal that Wordpress presents and for most this would seem like it is the popular choice when considering a CMS (content management system) for your website. However while Wordpress may appear shiny on the outside its internal code and plugins have a history of causing so many issues for small business website owners I’m surprised that more businesses have not gone broke overnight because of this atrocious platform. Having read horror stories about Wordpress developers that work directly with its code pulling their hair out it’s not hard to imagine what a complex and difficult to navigate CMS this is for small business owners.
Some web designers will use Wordpress and simply slap a pre-purchased theme or template over the top of it, this is something that a 7th grader could do without any knowledge of coding at all. This really isn’t my style and not what I would call "web design" , so Instead I prefer to code by hand efficiently using my skills in HTML5, CSS3, PHP, MYSQLI and Javascript in combination with an Advanced front end framework to product robust, secure websites that load fast and will continue purring like a kitten for years to come!
With a plethora of plugins available for Wordpress there is nothing to stop the average user from downloading and installing a bunch of plugins as if they are ordering items from a menu, with no way of checking the integrity and compatibility of the code. So that fancy new plugin you just installed has now conflicted with another plugin and oops your website is broken. Or that $30 theme that the web designer modified with sloppy 2nd rate programming is now spewing out errors after you updated the Wordpress core software – your website is now a blank white screen; now a potential client visits your website only to find it’s broken, this is extremely bad for business!
Website security is important and for this reason above all, is why I use a custom built CMS (content management system). Last year it has been reported that Wordpress (a common website CMS platform) accounted for a whopping 90% of all CMS hacked websites using that platform, this is due to the fact that the Wordpress open source code is readily available for hackers or anyone else to find ways to exploit and find backdoors and vulnerabilities within the platform. Not to good when your business relies on your website! Despite the fact that Wordpress releases security updates, most small business owners simply don’t have time to be constantly worrying about software updates as they want to get on with running their businesses.
With the Wordpress classic 5min installation it makes it sound like you can have a website hosted and up and running in no time, Wrong! If you are going it alone then this will be an even steeper learning curve, further still if you use your hosting providers Wordpress installer then you might find that additional plugins have been pre-loaded and security features disabled which introduces even more problems.
The actual administration of a Wordpress managed website quite often will require extensive staff training and that doesn’t come cheap. So you get your several hours of training, then 3 months down the track when you decide you want to make a change to your site (this is typically what time it takes for a busy small business owner), you login then you’re bombarded with a bunch of updates then you’ve completely forgotten how to do edit your website. WordPress was simply not designed with clients and small business owners in mind period.
Although Wordpress is an open source platform meaning anyone can essentially install it on their webhost for free, it is not going to be smooth sailing. More often than not you wil need to have a theme either modified or custom built by a wordpress developer which aint cheap. You will find that most themes/templates will not work and look as expected off the shelf. Then there are ongoing costs everytime your website breaks because of either sloppy code, plugin conflicts, malware within plugins or other updates. Sure websites take work but these are the kinds of time sucking horrors your business simply does not need.
The loading performance of your website is an important ranking factor in google search, so if your website takes more than 10 seconds to load then you are in serious trouble. Wordpress sites tend to have to load dozens of style sheets, javascript and broken or slow cdn resources. Canberra websites I build have clean optimised code and images and are snappy to load and can be fined tuned for mobile devices.
For the reasons mentioned above, and much more, WordPress is bad for small business. As a Canberra business owner it takes up your time, money and resources to make sure your website can just do the bare minimum. Your website is the most important marketing tool for your business, so don't leave it in the hands of an unreliable and potentially expensive CMS platform. Instead, you need a clean, easy-to-manage website which can stay online, without getting hacked, that looks slick, and is easy for you to manage and expand as your business does, My Custom CMS can do just that.
The CMS I use is very secure, loads fast, and the source code is not publicly available, so to hackers it is an unknown system making it very very very hard to exploit. It is a much more compact system that doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that Wordpress boasts nor does is it a nightmare to use, and as far as small business websites go it doesn’t need to. My CMS can be customised in such a way that exra funtionality can be added as per your website requirements including database driven web pages. Adding to the complexity and manageability of a website is not what small business owners need.
If you are serious about getting a website designed for your business consider a Custom or bespoke web design as this means that your website is going to function and look exactly how you want it to as I have total control over the design process and development so you don’t end up with a stock standard template like many other websites. Not only that you will get superior performance, has sound, solid code that will have your website future proof like no other.
If you choose to work with Neondragonfly Web Design Canberra, you will get a great looking website that is mobile responsive, secure and is easy for you to manage. Get in touch with Rob at Neondragonfly Web Design for an obligation free consultation.
