What Are the Pros and Cons of WordPress?

WordPress is the simplest and most popular way to create a website or blog. WordPress powers nearly half of all the sites you see online. More than one in four of all sites you’re regularly visiting is probably WordPress-powered. 

On a technical level, if you’re going to start working with a WordPress website developer, it’s worth knowing it’s an open-source content management system. That means that anyone can use or change the software for free. 

A content management system or CMS is a way to manage the aspects of your website such as your content, without programming knowledge, although you’ll probably have a professional initially set up a site for you. 

If you aren’t a developer, you can still customize your website with themes and plugins. There are thousands of free themes and many more premium options to create a custom site. Plugins change the function of your site, which can be something small or a big undertaking. 

There is a sense of flexibility with WordPress and scalability. Your site can grow as you or your business do. 

There’s a distinction to make before getting into things more precisely. There are two versions of WordPress. There’s WordPress.com, which is cloud-based. You don’t download anything or get third-party hosting to use it. It’s truly for a beginner. 

WordPress.org is what your developer might use, and it’s what people are often referring to when they describe running their site on WordPress. 

To use WordPress.org, you download the software and then upload that to a hosting provider. For the most part, when talking about WordPress, what’s actually being talked about is WordPress.org. 

While WordPress is arguably the best way to create a website, it is helpful to still have an idea of not just the good points but also potential downsides. You’ll likely find the pros of WordPress outweigh the cons, but you still want to know what you’re working with. 

While WordPress is the most popular platform of its type, you also have to consider your particular goals. 

What Are the Pros of WordPress?

Benefits of using WordPress include:

You Can Get Started Easily

It’s hard to overstate how easy it is to get started with WordPress, particularly if you choose a third-party host with a one-click installation option. If you do, you’re guided through the setup process. You could launch a site in a few hours. 

Some great developers can create a custom site for you, and one that’s perhaps more complex than what you could make on your own. 

Plugin Options

Plugin options are available by the thousands. They cover so many features and functionalities. They might include social media sharing, SEO, and email marketing functions. You can find a lot of free plugins, but some do cost money. 

SEO-Friendly

The entire WordPress platform is SEO-friendly even for newbies. SEO is important, because unless you’re optimizing your site and content, no one’s going to be able to find it. Search engines will more easily index any website you build in WordPress, which will help it rank higher. 

Many themes are already optimized, but a developer can further help you with technical optimization and SEO. 

Plugins can also help you along the way as you’re optimizing particular pages and blog posts. 

It’s Easy To Create Content

When you have a blog and page templates right there for you, as is the case with WordPress, it simplifies your content creation process. You can add your content including elements like images or tables quickly and then publish with just a few clicks. 

Supportive Community

When you use WordPress, you get peace of mind knowing there’s a massive community of other people using it. If you need help or have questions, it’s relatively easy to find someone willing to give you information. 

Flexibility

You can build or have built almost any type of website imaginable with WordPress. There are very few limitations. 

There’s a framework to achieve a lot of different things with WordPress. For example, you can make an online shop, a blog, a directory, or pretty much anything. 

Along with general design flexibility and the type of site you create, it also integrates with third-party tools, furthering usability. 

Mobile-Friendly

In the modern environment, your site has to be mobile-friendly. This is from a visitor standpoint, but it’s also highly relevant to SEO. WordPress themes are designed to be mobile-friendly and often mobile-first. 

These benefits can sound great, and they are, but what about downsides?

What Are the Possible Cons of WordPress?

The following are a few downsides you might think about when choosing a CMS. 

Too Many Options

Sometimes, it can be overwhelming to have so many options available to you when you aren’t sure which direction you want to go with a website. You may also want to build something more complex. With that in mind, you can work with a developer who might use another CMS or could potentially just make your WordPress site as complex or customized as you need it to be. 

Security Risks

There are security risks that can come with using WordPress. One of the risk areas comes from the fact that WordPress has frequent updates. That’s a good thing, but if you don’t manage them and keep up with them, you’re at a higher risk of being targeted by hackers. 

Even if you do work with a developer initially, you may need to give yourself a crash course on things like keeping up with updates and making sure your site is secure. 

Lacking Dedicated Support

Finally, while there’s a supportive community of other WordPress users you can rely on, there isn’t a dedicated support system otherwise. Since WordPress is open-source and free to change, it’s not a commercial product. You’re on your own with a lot of the issues you may have. Again, a developer can be helpful here.