Using a content management system (CMS) like WordPress can have many advantages. At the same time, there are challenges as well. But, like most things – practice makes perfect. Having just started in the world of WordPress, it’s easy to see that the perception of the advantages will only grow over time. But, one thing is for certain – WordPress isn’t just for blogs!
Advantages
- Ease of use – this is honestly the biggest advantage I can see. With just a few clicks of a button, the whole design and look of a website can drastically change. It was fun test driving different themes and seeing how they look in comparison to each other. What would previously take hours of planning and coding can be accomplished within minutes.
- Customizations – WordPress is designed to be customized, users aren’t tied down to a particular look or a cookie-cutter feel even if they do choose a specific theme. The theme is just be a starting part, and depending on the person’s skill and experiences – can really be adjusted so that even sites using the same theme may end up looking completely different from each other. For example, WordPress can be used for all different types of sites, not just blogs.
- Add-ons – like themes, the ability to add plugins and widgets to increase the function of the site can be done relatively easy and painlessly. I have mentioned before just how easy I thought setting up the store was and including products. I would never have been able to do something like that on my own.
- Wide appeal – this is more a continuation of the previous advantages, but the ability to customize and use plugins and widgets easily really makes WordPress a must-use method to create sites: especially for those that are new, don’t have the time or resources to do it themselves or hire someone to do it. A freelance or mom-and-pop business could easily set up a site to show their abilities and hopefully make some money. Social media integration throughout the site also makes this a must-use especially for those who are just starting out. I have been thoroughly impressed with how professional the sites have looked and what can be accomplished.
Disdvantages
Such is life in that many of the advantages can also be disadvantages.
- Customizations – although these are easy to do in a template way, sometimes it was difficult to find which element I can change and how to do so. I mentioned in a previous post how changing the color of the links in the posts took a lot of time and had to be adjusted one by one. Some of that is due to my own inexperience in WordPress certainly, but for those without any extensive web development experience or coding – that can prove to be a frustrating experience.
- Free vs. paid – there is a lot you can do in WordPress for free, more than I would have ever imagined. However – it was a challenge finding that some of the features I wanted to use were only available in the paid version. I understand the reason for that and would not want the people who worked hard to not receive compensation, but it was also frustrating at times.
- Subscription nightmare – I really wish I had set up a new Gmail account at the start that could be used as a “burner” account. More likely than not, I will be receiving emails from many of the plugins and other accounts I set up for a long, long time. That said, many plugins worked really well and integrated with google quite easily – so I could use that for many things. It’s more of “can I keep track of what I’ve signed up for?” situation.
- Reset nightmare – ultimately this was the most challenging and frustrating aspect. IONOS and WordPress worked quite well with one another most of the time. But when I had to reset the website for this assignment, I could not access WordPress anymore. I contacted IONOS customer support as directed and started two days of spending hours with Customer Service. Eventually it seems to have worked itself out, but I would be on the phone with customer service setting up a new password and it just wouldn’t work. Eventually they gave me a that account to log in and that wouldn’t work at times either. Ultimately it just used a lot of time trying to get that sorted out, and each time I get prompted to login I am nervous it will say my account no longer exists.