What makes WordPress a super powerful CMS

The Web is one huge compilation of websites and applications, all hosted on different servers and having a divergent purpose.

Some websites are developed from scratch using completely custom design and code, while others take advantage of already existing templates, features and plugins. The latter is a very convenient option for those who want to create a website for their personal projects or business but don’t have any prior technical experience when it comes to programming or web design.

This is where content management systems come in, allowing everyone to create a website from scratch by using pre-existing components and features with one of the most popular and super powerful CMS being none other than WordPress.

But what makes WordPress a top player in the world of content management systems? What are its advantages? How about its drawbacks? Let’s find out the answers to these and other WP questions!

What is a CMS?

A content management system, most commonly abbreviated as CMS, is a software that enables users to create and manage a website without having prior experience in the field of web design or development.

A CMS provides users with a rich library of pre-configured templates and useful plugins that can be utilized to create a functional website that will attract online traffic and perform well in Search.

What is the most popular CMS and why is it WordPress?

WordPress is a content management system software that allows users to choose a template and utilize a wide range of plugins to make the website functional, responsive and interactive similarly to every other CMS.

However, WordPress is one of the most powerful and popular content management systems on the market, powering over 34% of all existing websites on the Web and holding over 61% of all shares in the CMS field.

Due to its widespread popularity, there is also a wide range of both free and premium templates that users can choose from when creating their websites. Additionally, there is also constant support, updates and new features being introduced, allowing the CMS to remain on top.

WordPress is written on PHP and utilizes MySQL & MariaDB, making it also easily customizable and scalable from a developer’s perspective.

As a matter of fact, WordPress is a very good option for many different website types. WP can be especially useful if you decide to create a personal project, portfolio or blog. However, the possibilities are endless, meaning that WordPress is also a good choice if you wish to start up your own online e-commerce business.

Advantages of using WordPress

WordPress has many separate advantages that make it so popular across the global Internet community. The following are only a handful of the benefits that the CMS has.

Popularity means better support

As we already mentioned, WordPress is the most utilized CMS in the world. Many major brands and companies run their websites on WP due to the amount of already existing features and functionalities that can be implemented with just the click of a single button.

It is this popularity that makes support for the CMS very strong. New templates and plugins are constantly being developed in accordance to user response and experience as well as the changes that are made to the Web on a global scale.

Due to the fact that WordPress is used by such a large percentage of all existing websites on the Internet, it is crucial that development for the software keeps progressing. This, consequently, attracts the attention of developers and designers, resulting in more templates and plugins being created, which in turn gives webmasters a wider selection of tools to choose from.

Ultimately, this results in an enclosed system where demand for new templates and tools is ever present, which generates a stable cycle that benefits both WordPress website administrators and their visitors or clients.

WordPress is completely open-source

WP is a fully open-source content management system, meaning that the source code is freely available for everyone to view and customize.

This is the primary reason as to why support for the CMS is so strong, as many developers can take advantage of the software’s open-source code and utilize it in order to create exciting new features, which can later on be turned into individual plugins.

Additionally, this also allows the CMS to have better overall security, allowing backdoors and code exploits to be quickly discovered and patched.

WP is easy to set up and use

The process of setting up the CMS is quite straightforward with many hosting providers even providing their customers with a single button that can automatically install the software onto their server with zero effort, which we at VPSBG also offer to our shared hosting customers.

Installing WordPress through a server management panel like cPanel is also very easy, again, happening with only a single button press.

Additionally, the CMS is also very easy to navigate and use. You have a step-by-step initial guide that takes you through each step of creating a website, which is especially useful for those who don’t have any prior technical experience as well as those that can get overwhelmed by the amount of options.

To get started, all you have to do is to just find a theme and template design that you are happy with and implement it into your project. There are both free and paid templates with the premium options usually offering more in terms of preconfigured features. However, there are plenty of exceptional free templates that you can also utilize and customize in order to change your website’s layout.

Next, you just need to start editing the different pages, components and text. You can make use of the WP customizer tool to modify any aspect of your chosen theme. Moreover, you can also use different page builder tools to modify existing pages or to create new ones.

Finally, you just need to pick the plugins that your website will be using to become interactive. Some examples of plugins that you might want to start using can be related to checkout if you intend to be selling anything, as well as an image-management plugin.

Additionally, you can also find tools that can help you manage SEO, user visits and website monitoring analytics.

WordPress drawbacks - plugin management, security flaws & speed

While we would like to think that WP is a flawless CMS that doesn’t have any issues, that is unfortunately not the case.

One of the greatest WP disadvantages is that you will never have complete control over the code and the design of your website. While a lot of the aspects of the predefined elements can be changed, you unfortunately can’t tweak everything at a granular level.

Additionally, you will need to install quite a few plugins in order to get the desired functionality for your website. This will consequently result in you having to constantly keep track of whether your plugins have updates, making management very difficult, especially if your website has a large number of them installed.

Plugins need to be updated constantly not only because there are improvements that have been made, but also because these updates could be fixing security issues. There have been multiple cases over the years in which WordPress websites were breached due to security flaws in some of the plugins that were being used.

Next, WordPress can also have its own security issues. It wasn’t that long ago when over 50% of all existing installations were found to have an exploit in terms of security, which left a lot of WP websites and installations vulnerable and susceptible to cyberattacks. Fortunately, this issue was quickly resolved and a patch was introduced, but this event goes to show that even with the software being open-source, there is no guarantee that security issues won’t surface.

Finally, installing a large number of plugins will also result in your website ultimately slowing down your website. However, search engine algorithms recently changed to include website loading speed as a key ranking factor when it comes to user experience, meaning that having a slow website can negatively influence your ranking position on Search. If you wish to know how you can improve your WP website’s speed, you can check out our article on 8 steps to speed your WordPress website.

However, all of these disadvantages shouldn’t deter you from using WordPress. With enough time and effort on your behalf you can easily create a website that can be easy to manage in terms of content and plugins as well as perform well in Search. You just need to ensure that you keep your WP installation, theme and plugins up to date.

Is it worth using WordPress as a CMS?

Overall, WordPress as a CMS allows you to easily create and manage a website. The CMS is a fantastic option not only for beginners without any previous technical experience, but also for seasoned professionals due to its versatility and the abundance of online support.

The WP community will only continue to grow with time as more and more themes and plugins are created every day in order to meet the demand of both WP administrators and Web users.

Ultimately, the software has many advantages, making it the perfect choice when it comes to creating a website regardless of whether it is for a personal project or for a business venture.

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