Since WordPress is the most popular content management system out there, it’s no surprise that there are several “rumours” about WordPress that are simply not true. Some may be a case of “Chinese whispers” but others will be because they don’t like WordPress and just want to give it a bad name.
Since most of our clients have WordPress websites, we get asked a lot of worried questions, which encouraged us to create this article! So, here are some common myths about WordPress that we are here to put right!
1. WordPress is just for blogging
WordPress did start off as a blog many years ago, but it has now developed into a very powerful and feature-packed content management system (CMS). You can create almost anything you like within WordPress!
Whether you just want a nice brochure site to showcase what your business does, or whether you want to turn your website into a full-blown e-commerce store, or even if you want to run a membership site with forums, paid-for content and an integrated learning platform, then WordPress can do this!
If it’s good enough for major brands like CNN and Disney to run their sites on, it’s probably good enough for you!
2. WordPress cannot handle lots of site traffic
WordPress is a self-hosted platform, (if you’re using the “proper” WordPress.org and not WordPress.com) and so you are responsible for placing your website on the correct hosting. The amount of traffic that your website can handle won’t be to do with WordPress itself, but the WordPress hosting package you decide to go for.
WordPress hosts really high traffic sites such as Techcrunch and The New Yorker and they would not be able to afford to have their sites going down or running slowly due to their dedicated following.
So, if you get good quality WordPress hosting, your website will be able to handle plenty of traffic just fine.
3. WordPress is not secure
This one is the most common myth used by many web developers who feel WordPress puts them out of business. They scare WordPress users away from WordPress saying that their website will be hacked. They can even produce articles about WordPress websites getting hacked, as they do!
However, this is because those WordPress websites have not been configured properly or have been sloppy with their security. Since WordPress is open source, all the source code is freely available on the internet for nasty people to study and find loopholes. Most of the time, they just do it for kicks, or to put their own site links on your website in the hope they can improve on their SEO. It’s pretty much pointless what they do, but it’s extremely annoying for you if your site gets hacked.
Attacks and malware are common all over the internet and not just WordPress, but there are lots of steps you can take to try and enable your website to be more secure, such as including very strong passwords and putting your site behind a firewall. For more information, get in touch and we can help.
4. WordPress costs money to download and use
WORDPRESS IS FREE! Let’s just clarify that right away. You should not pay to access and download WordPress. Where people get confused is that they go to WordPress.com and look at the plans there. This is a self-hosted version that WordPress charge for and is really aimed at complete beginners. However, even beginners should be using the WordPress.org version.
If you go to WordPress.org, you can imply hit “download” and it’s on your computer in seconds… for free! The only thing you need to pay for is the website hosting (which also allows you to get business emails @yourdomain.com) and your chosen domain.
If you’re not sure and are worried that you may end up paying for something you shouldn’t, please ask us and we can guide you through!
5. WordPress will slow your site down
If you were to make a website completely from scratch, you could code in the absolute essentials you need for the site and it would naturally be a lot more lightweight. So, therefore, all content management systems are going to be heavier than a completely bespoke website, as they will contain elements that won’t be used.
However, this is not easy to do and it will cost you a fair amount of money to pay a web developer to do this. Plus, you will struggle to edit your website unless you know how to code.
WordPress will only slow your site down if you install lots of unnecessary plugins or upload very large images to the website. These are the main culprits and are usually done by amateurs who are not aware of the pitfalls of doing this.
6. WordPress is for beginners
Again, this is something that website developers say to provide an insult to those who use it. WordPress is fantastic for beginners as it gives them a platform where they can edit or even produce their own website without knowing any coding. However, WordPress is also great for professional web developers as it provides a versatile platform with immense flexibility for web developers to custom code their own themes and plugins.
From point 5, it’s clear that beginners can actually cause a lot of problems with WordPress and we’ve got a lot of experience with that, which is why we offer so much WordPress training to our clients, so that they do not undo some of the hard work done on the website!
7. WordPress websites all look the same
Due to the thousands of WordPress themes readily available, people can download a template and put their WordPress website online in minutes! There are several premium WordPress themes which have proved to be more popular than others and these have been downloaded thousands of times. Due to the popularity of these themes, many people end up having similar-looking websites.
However, a lot of these websites have a very nice design and so others copy them. Then, other theme developers see them doing well and copy them too! Web design trends come and go, but you see lots of websites having a recurring theme whether on WordPress or not.
Due to the flexibility of WordPress, you can make your website look exactly how you want it. We actually create a custom design of your website first in Photoshop before converting it into a responsive WordPress site. This means you can fully customise the look exactly how you want it and then we can build it into your own custom theme.
8. There’s no support for WordPress
This is a common complaint from beginners who are trying to build their own WordPress website. Because they are not paying for the service, they think there is no customer support. While you cannot “submit a ticket” or email a “customer service email” like with subscription software, there is no shortage of support out there!
The first place to look is the WordPress.org forum where you will find thousands of people asking common questions about WordPress and you will probably find your answer is already there. However, you can also start your own thread and WordPress experts from all over the world will reply back very quickly with solutions.
There are also some great online resources to help you with WordPress. Some of our favourites that we recommend are WPBeginner and Elegant Themes as they have a powerful blog that they upload tons of resources to regularly.
Plus, you always have us! We are always happy to answer any WordPress questions you may have. Please also follow us on social as we have WordPress Wednesdays, where we answer any WordPress questions you may have on our social channels.