Last Thursday, I showed you 10 reasons for using WordPress. There are some disadvantages; although outweighed by the advantages you need to be aware so that you don’t have unrealistic expectations.
WordPress is a doorway to everything you need for a website, easily to hand. However, to use WordPress, you need to overlay it with a theme. Once you have a theme it’s like trying to paint your entrance hall through the letter box! In other words, you may need help to get your WordPress site running properly. Fortunately there’s lots of help around.
So, here are five things to watch out for:
- It takes time to understand any content management system. WordPress is no different from other platforms. So, if you pick a theme and want to adapt it to your requirements it can be quite difficult at least until you’re used to the way WordPress works.
- Security is an issue because WordPress is so popular. Every crook and idiot in the universe seems to target it. There are some good plug-ins that look after all this for you, but you need to install them, keep them up-to-date and be mindful of good housekeeping.
- Good housekeeping means installing updates as soon as they become available and maintaining your site. You must install updates because they enhance site security but they can crash your site. This happened to me last week and it is a pain!
- Good housekeeping includes the need to back up your site. This is fairly complicated to set up but easy once running. If you don’t do this, you can’t be certain you’ll recover your site should it crash!
- Plug-ins are variable in quality and some of them are not reliable and can jeopardise your site. So choose the popular ones, where you can be certain of their reputation.
- As soon as you install WordPress, you have a massive site, even though initially you won’t use all its functionality. It gets bigger when you install plug-ins and if you install too many it can slow your site down. This is not an issue I’ve encountered too much, although some people do complain about it.
So, what has been your experience using WordPress? Almost certainly, you will have found it’s brilliant once you’ve set it up. It’s the set up that’s the problem.
