WordPress Development: Why It Makes Sense?

In this digital age, it would almost be a mistake for any business not to have an online presence. Even if that business is doing very well offline in its brick and mortar outfit, it would certainly perform much better if it can move some of its products online. Daily, millions of people come to different online platforms to communicate, source information or transact business. The internet is rich with potential customers just waiting to patronize your goods or service.

One of the best ways of getting an online presence is by the development of your business website. A website offers tremendous advantages to the growth of any business. It helps to introduce the business to the world. It acts as the medium through which customers and clients can source for information or interact with you or your staff. It can also be an avenue through which you can sell your products. A business may not have social media pages, but the very least it can do is to get a website for itself.

To build a website, several options and platforms are available. Business owners would have to make a choice between these different platforms. Building a website on Content Management System offers amazing advantages. They are highly user-friendly and efficient. Users can easily modify content and create functionalities particular to their businesses. Among all Content Management System, WordPress is by far the most popular and most used. It has an edge over the other CMS as its functionality can easily be extended and it is much easier to use.

Despite having 75 million sites depending on it, WordPress development is still growing by the day. Currently, over 45,000 plugins are available, developed by both the Automattic (WordPress web development company) and independent developers which can be used to extend the functionality of WordPress.

WordPress is highly trusted by millions of people worldwide, below are five advantages and five disadvantages of WordPress development;

Five Advantages:

1.) Open Source:

This is so far the biggest thing working for WordPress and perhaps the reason why it has become so popular. WordPress is an open source platform. This means that the codes that have already been written and used can be reused by developers without having to start from the beginning or modify. This has given thousands of developers worldwide the avenue to develop themes, plugins etc, for the WordPress platform. This saves them tremendous time since they are working on a foundation that has already been laid. The more these developers develop WordPress themes and plugins, the more popular the platform becomes.

2.) Usability And Simplicity:

WordPress developers may love WordPress development because of its Open Source nature, but average users love WordPress because of its high user-friendliness. For most other Content Management Systems, you must, up to a good extent have basic technical knowledge to develop and manage them. But that is not same for WordPress. It is very simplistic. You don’t need any technical knowledge neither do you need to understand programming language before you can use it. It works on a principle of click and use, and drag and drop. Anyone can use it and use it quite well.

Perhaps you want to add some pages to your website or change the theme or color, you don’t need to hire a developer or designer, as you may have to do with other CMS. When it comes to WordPress, all of these can be done yourself with a simple click of a bottom. This saves precious time and money.

3.) Plugins:

Another major advantage of WordPress is its large repository of plugins. WordPress has over 45,000 plugins that can be used to extend its functionality and achieve desirability for any web owner. If you want to convert your traditional website into an e-commerce store, there is a plugin for that. If what you need is a social media platform, there is a plugin available for you. Do you want to have a slider on your website? There are plenty of plugins for that. Virtually every functionality you can think of has its plugin available on the WordPress repository. This makes WordPress interesting to use.

4.) Rapid Development:

The time it takes for the development of a WordPress website is quite amazing. From the start of its creation to when you are ready to post your first post or page (when it is a basic website) takes just a couple of hours. The straightforwardness of its development makes it one of the CMS to go to when considering website development.

5.) Search Engine Optimization:

Every web owner wants their site to have relevance, and this means coming tops in search results. This can be achieved via Search Engine Optimization. WordPress offers several SEO tools that allow users to be able to do their own SEO.

Disadvantages Of WordPress:

1.) Open Source:

Although this is one of the biggest advantages of WordPress, it also happens to be one of its biggest disadvantages. Being open source, WordPress exposes itself to diabolic intents of cyber hackers. The code upon which your site runs, since it was written by someone else, may contain malicious bug or code that could prevent your sire from running as it should. WordPress sites are among the most hacked in the world. Therefore, it is advised that after installing WordPress you install sufficient security to prevent spamming as well as other more dangerous attacks.

2.) Website Loading Speed:

WordPress runs on several generic codes and plugins, therefore making the site respond slower than normal, increasing the site loading time. People generally have low attention span when it comes to anything on the internet, so they may consider alternatives if your platform is not performing as it should. Using a high-performance host can help mitigate this problem.

3.) Excessive Plugins:

Since plugins are abundant and free, users tend to fall to the temptation of using several of these plugins at once. This is not a good idea as it immensely affects the site’s functionality and makes it load very slowly. Select and use only the plugins that are very important to your website and learn to update your plugins as soon as updates are available.

4.) MYSQL Database Backend:

WordPress uses MySQL as its database backend. This problem with this is that it is susceptible to hacking.

5.) Regular Updates Needed:

In order to combat the large army of cyber attackers, WordPress regularly releases updates and patches. WordPress, therefore, requires regular updating so as to prevent it from being vulnerable to these attackers.