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WordPress Pros and Cons - Is It Right for Your Eyecare Website?

By Practice Growth September 18, 2020

With over 27 million websites and counting, WordPress is the most popular content management system (CMS) in use today.

That popularity is not by accident. WordPress offers numerous advantages to a static HTML website. In addition to being able to quickly and easily modify the content on your website, WordPress can provide the familiar feel of an eyecare website with full control and ownership of the contents. 

Moreover, deploying additional features and benefits for your users is a cinch with WordPress plugins. 

In this article, we’ll look at why your choice of CMS is important and whether WordPress has what it takes to meet your needs.

Why Your Choice of CMS Matters

A content management system is more than just an efficient way to put digital content into circulation. At its best, a good CMS will streamline your content strategy and help you reach a wider audience in a variety of ways.

For starters, a good CMS should be as practical as possible. There’s bound to be some friction between creating content and publishing it, but a CMS’s job is to make the process simple and easy.

Another characteristic you want out of your CMS is to make it easy to optimize content across devices. The number of mobile users is steadily growing and having content that caters to them is imperative for your long-term strategy.

Further, if you’re serious about your SEO efforts, you’ll need to apply analytics. Your choice of CMS can play a huge role in that based on the analytics tools it gives you access to.

And the CMS should ultimately make it easy to scale your content creation as needed. It’s likely you’ll need to start relatively small, but you’ll want to have room to grow without needing to migrate your content.

Advantages of Using WordPress

One of the most important advantages of using WordPress and the one you’ll hear about most is how responsive it is. In other words, WordPress websites can be adapted effortlessly for mobile, tablet, or desktop viewing. 

But that’s only one of the many benefits it provides. Without further ado, let’s see what makes WordPress the go-to choice for so many users.

1. It’s Affordable

WordPress is free, for the most part. While there are premium frameworks that may be right for you, there are multiple free templates and solutions as well. In either case, WordPress is among the most affordable ways to build your eyecare website. 

If you hire a WordPress developer or dev team to build your website, it will likely be within your budget. When you want a WP expert to develop the site for you, costs can range considerably--anywhere from $300 to $5000 or more depending on your desired  level of customization. But like anything else, you'll get what you pay for. Not all WordPress developers are created equal, especially when you start asking for custom design and features.  And remember, this is your primary interface with patients. Your website is an investment.  Only opt for a family & friends solution if they are experts in WordPress or web development.  Whatever you save in dollars by using someone you know, you will lose those savings in time to launch and emotional grief.  (If you take anything away from this article, let this time tested tip sink in.)

In addition, WordPress gives you full control of your content. All the website files and data you upload to WP are yours and yours alone. 

Essentially, this means you’re not tied to any single hosting company and you can move your content around if you need to. You also don’t have to ask the developer for every single content update on your website, saving you time and money.

2. It’s User-Friendly

WordPress Mobile Apps | WordPress.orgAs mentioned earlier, WP started out as a blogging solution. The guiding principle behind it was always to make it simple and easy for anyone to start a blog.

Much has changed, but the principle has remained. WordPress is one of the most user-friendly CMS solutions.

It has a highly intuitive interface that even complete novices can learn to navigate within hours. Moreover, both the front and back end of your content is easily accessible at all times.

3. It Has a Multitude of Third-Party Tools

As the top dog, WordPress attracts a lot of developers who want to help people manage their content better. The result is countless plugins that can help you do everything from creating an opt-in form to tracking analytics at the push of a button.

One of the most popular WordPress plugins, Yoast SEO, has over 200 million downloads. It’s a freemium plugin that helps manage your site’s SEO and improves search rank by following simple SEO practices with proven results. 

Not to mention, a majority of these plugins have free versions for small users. With over 50,000 plugins to choose from, almost everything you want to do has an automated solution.

And one of the main reasons why so many developers flock to it is...

4. It’s Open Source

WordPress is and always has worked on an open-source model. Anyone can use, change, and redistribute its source code.

Many important WP updates and developments have come from determined enthusiasts trying to improve it. As a consequence, WP updates are relatively frequent and address real user concerns and needs.

5. It Has a Huge Library of Templates and Designs

How To Change WordPress Themes | WP Engine®WordPress templates number in the thousands and you can have a professional-looking website up in mere minutes from start to finish.

Not all of these templates and designs are spectacular, but there are paid options that even seasoned developers use for their websites.

In addition, there are numerous visual building tools available for WordPress, both free and paid. These tools make it possible to use a drag-and-drop approach to web development without using a single line of code.

Drawbacks of Using WordPress

As good as it is, WordPress isn’t perfect. Here are some of its disadvantages.

1. You’re in Charge (of Everything)

WP puts you in the driver’s seat when it comes to your content. This is great in numerous ways.

However, novice users will feel a little overwhelmed, especially when it comes to good security practices regarding WordPress. Installing updates, backing up content, and security measures are all up to you, the content manager.

Moreover, frequent updates across numerous plugins and themes mean you’ll have to deal with things breaking sooner or later. A simple update can lead to a cascade of conflicts across your site.

2. Templates and Themes Vary in Quality

While there are a dizzying number of themes, visual builders, and designs to choose from, many aren’t as optimized as they could be. Some have a lot of code that’s unnecessary or poorly made and will bog down your site speed.

Choosing the right theme isn’t an easy task and novice users will often be faced with selecting something simplistic and fast, or attractive and sluggish.

3. Fine Customization Isn’t Simple

Getting started on WordPress is a cinch.

Everything about the initial process is meant to be super streamlined and simplistic. However, when you get to the point of making fine adjustments in the design, you’ll often need to create custom solutions.

Gaining some knowledge in CSS and HTML is ultimately necessary to get exactly what you want out of your site. In practice, this means you’ll need the help of a WordPress developer to get your site up and running correctly. 

4. Security Can Become a Problem

How To Secure WordPress With the All In One Security Plugin | HostAdviceOne of the disadvantages of being the most popular CMS is that it’s also the most targeted by malicious attacks. As soon as your site goes up, attackers will try to exploit any vulnerabilities on your site. 

This is also a consequence of the numerous plugins available and their, sometimes, questionable coding practices. Of the known WordPress vulnerabilities, over 70% are related to plugins. 

Your eyecare site can be kept relatively secure using WordPress. However, you’ll need to adhere diligently to good security practices and use the latest security tools and plugins available. 

Choose a CMS That Works for You

As you can see, there’s a lot to like about WordPress. It’s the most popular CMS solution in the world for a reason.

It’s easy to use, simple to set up, and free. However, no solution is perfect and that goes for WordPress as well.

Getting started is easy, but you’ll need to learn a few skills along the way to keep track of your content effectively. WordPress is the best CMS choice for most users, but there are more specific options for things like e-commerce and landing pages that might work better for you.







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