20 Reasons Why (or WHEN) WordPress is No Longer the Best Solution for Your Website

Ouch! That hurt to say. Probably difficult to read too. WordPress has become the top CMS (Content Management System) for websites among business owners and professional speakers & authors and has dutifully served its purpose for the past 15 years.

Security holes, malicious code infecting website visitors, just WordPress being the elephant size target that it is, and a declining economy to add to the pot, the time is right for a better solution for websites going forward. And I've found that solution. But, let's take a step back first so that you know where this is all coming from.

A 20-Second History of My Marriage with WordPress

WordPress was launched in mid-2003. Finally there was a new solution evolving that showed promise for getting us out from under the hamstring of Dreamweaver, FrontPage and straight HTML coding.

It's been so long that I'm having trouble remembering, but I'm pretty sure 2006 was when I finally decided to convert my entire Here Next Year company website to WordPress. Over the next 10 years as an agency, we (my team and I) would convert, redesign, setup, launch, support, advise and/or host more than 500 WordPress website projects for speakers, authors, affiliate marketers, conference venues, events, vacation destinations, tourist attractions, sports entertainment, charities, consultants and traditional brick & mortar retail stores and probably a few more I haven't thought of.

For one heavy equipment manufacturer I remember, we converted their hand-coded website with more than 4,000 pages...to WordPress. We sure pushed the limits of WordPress back in the day, but still today that company enjoys better search engine results positions (SERPs) on Google search than they had in the history of their company prior.

I was such an evangelist for WordPress, that I had an extensive blog post featuring more than 40 reasons why WordPress was the best solution for almost every business. The post dominated the #1 position on Google search for about six years under the search phrase "why WordPress" and had more than 400 comments from readers (which certainly helped with the SERPs back then).

I even spoke at the Carolinas chapter of National Speakers Association and then NSA's national conference where I provided a list of what meeting and event professionals were looking for in speaker websites at the time. And, of course, to make all those things happen...I recommended WordPress.

What Changed?

You never know true panic until you get that first client to call you at 1am on a Saturday demanding you "DO SOMETHING!!!!" because their beautiful website is suddenly just a big white screen.

The cost to the client would be $1,200 for my PHP expert to go line by line through the code to find the maliciously inserted code and fix it. [And you thought adding ball bearings into skateboard wheels at a factory must be the most tedious job in the world!] The cost was not to just fix the website, but for the lucky person on my team willing to sacrifice their weekend plans to stay up all night to fix the problem right away or we lose the client.

In 2008, there were nowhere near the preventative measures to stop or fix a WordPress breach like there are today.

The Good, the Bad and the Truly Gut-Wrenching

Fortunately, multiple plugin suites exist today to keep your WordPress website protected. You just have to know which ones work and what it means to "lockdown" your WordPress website...or pay the right people who really know how to do it right.

Unfortunately, far more malicious invaders are actively trying to break into WordPress websites than ever before.

Here is an example image taken from a continuous monitoring system I use for one of my websites. This all happened just two days ago (at the time of this publishing) during a single 10 minutes in the middle of the afternoon, on April 20, 2023. I really want you to digest this...a single 10 minutes!

Fortunately, no break-in was experienced because my websites are hardened like Ft. Knox!

This literally happens to practically every WordPress website ...every...single...day.

Most people are not so fortunate as they have no monitoring, no update and no maintenance schedule for their WordPress websites. When I ask people if they do have something in place, I get a blank stare in return.

If you haven't been paying attention to this at all, your website is quite possibly already breached in some way and you just don't know it. So, contact your web developer or virtual assistant and ask that person to run a scan of your website for malicious code and lockdown that website!

**If you don't have someone to help you to do this, reach out to me please!**

This post is not about helping you lockdown your WordPress website. It's about inspiring you to consider moving AWAY from WordPress so that you don't have to worry about this anymore...and still have all the power, control and customization WordPress provides.

Here are 20 reasons why I'm recommending you consider moving away from WordPress:

Leave WP Reason #1: Security Vulnerabilities are Increasing.

WordPress has always been a huge target for brute force login hackers and automated scripts that attempt to add malicious code to thousands of WordPress websites at the same time. Advances have been made to allow for auto-updates of plugins and WordPress versions so they remain current. But, this automation presents version compatibility problems of its own...eventually. When even the tiniest update doesn't agree with one of your other dozen or more plugins, WordPress version or even your website's PHP version, bad things happen! And, you wind up having to drop everything to get it fixed. That means paying your v.a. or WordPress developer or finding a new one to help you and taking unexpected time out of your day.

Leave WP Reason #2: Complexity.

You hear so many people brag, "WordPress is so easy! I set it up myself!" That's all fine until YOU try to set it up yourself. WordPress continues to grow in complexity, especially for users with little technical knowledge.

Leave WP Reason #3: Expect Unexpected Expenses.

While WordPress offers a range of customization options, it can be difficult to make significant changes without technical expertise. You still wind up with unexpected expenses beyond the initial setup of the website.

Leave WP Reason #4: Even More Plugin Conflicts.

Installing too many plugins can cause conflicts that may slow down or crash your website.

Leave WP Reason #5: Maintenance Requirements.

WordPress requires ongoing maintenance to ensure that it runs smoothly and doesn't break. You can't just update your plugins and WordPress version numbers with the update button anymore. You have to backup your WordPress site files and the database, then run the update, then make sure nothing broke along the way. If it did break, someone has to spend the time to fix it. Some years ago, I started charging a mandatory $500 a year on top of annual hosting fees on my dedicated web server so that I could pay my team to perform updates and upgrades as they arose instead of the client potentially damaging the site.

Leave WP Reason #6: Limited Scalability.

WordPress may not be the best solution for businesses that require high levels of page or post growth. Using tools like SEM Rush, you can run diagnostics on your website to find errors. When you find reports of 20,000 errors on a website, the process to fix can be a daunting one.

Leave WP Reason #7: Performance Issues

Poorly optimized WordPress websites can suffer from slow page loading times, which can harm the user experience and negatively impact search engine rankings.

Leave WP Reason #8: Growing Lack of Trustworthy and Capable Support.

While there is a large community of WordPress users and developers, business owners may struggle to find reliable, cost effective and trustworthy support for their specific needs. I remember rescuing a client's website because somebody they hired from Fiverr diverted a portion of every transaction that came through their website to the developer's bank account! Finding support help you can truly trust is a big challenge.

Leave WP Reason #9: Hidden Pitfalls of Cheap Hosting.

Most people only hear about hosting with GoDaddy or giant mega hosting companies with terrible support structures. Cheap hosting will have in excess of 10,000 websites per web server. If just one of those websites hogs the server's resources or practices malicious marketing resulting in IP blacklisting, your website's performance is compromised. The higher level of performance and reliability you require, the more you'll pay for adequate website hosting.

Leave WP Reason #10: Content Management Limitations.

While WordPress is a great platform for blogging and adding page content in blocks using Elementor or other data managers, you'll eventually want to tweak something structurally to get it to appear the way you want it to look. Sometimes the smallest format shifts become the most challenging tasks in WordPress!

Leave WP Reason #11: Compatibility Issues.

WordPress may not be compatible with certain software or systems, which could limit your options for integrating with other tools. Software providers will often have their own WordPress plugin but fail to update it quickly enough when WordPress versions, other plugins, or your web server's PHP version changes. What's the result? You got it...another reason the dreaded "white screen" can occur.

Leave WP Reason #12: SEO Challenges.

Google used to LOVE WordPress websites. At one point, I believed you'd get higher positions on search just because Google knew you had a WordPress website. If there every was a time that was true, that time has passed. If appearing on search is important to you, which it should be if you are a professional speaker or author, or provide a specific product or a local service, you'll need an ongoing SEO program in place to monitor many technical bits and pieces inside WordPress that Google penalizes you for if they are not optimized and functioning properly.

Leave WP Reason #13: Remaining Mobile Responsiveness Issues.

One of the greatest benefits of WordPress came along when WordPress themes were developed to display properly on any screen without any additional programming. I remember the days when we used to have to make two websites for clients. One was the main website and the other was m.whatever.com for the mobile version. WordPress fixed that problem...if you purchased a mobile responsive WordPress theme.

Some clients have reported to me their websites are experiencing over 90% of their market using their cell phones or mobile devices to visit websites. You can tell by looking at your Google Analytics reports.

I'm amazed how many WordPress websites I come across that look like total crap on a phone! I don't know what these cheap developers are doing, but what they are NOT doing is properly developing WordPress websites with best practices structure for content appearing correctly on multiple devices, screen sizes and browser versions. Of course, the result is negative impact of user experience and search engine rankings penalties.

Leave WP Reason #14: Theme Failures and Required Upgrade Purchases.

If WordPress themes are so important, you'd think there would be a better system in place to support them. If there ever was a good process for gaining support for themes, it was ended with Covid. Very rarely will you find a purchased theme supported by immediate online chat. You always have to send in a support ticket, if you have support at all, and you'll wait for days for a response.

The other problem with WordPress themes is that they need to be constantly updated and upgraded. The result is usually your need to assure the new updates to the theme are compatible with your suite of plugins. Every year or so, you'll probably receive a notice that significant changes have been made to the theme requiring you repurchase it entirely or pay an upgrade fee.

I wouldn't normally be so against upgrade purchases. But, part of my solution removes that problem entirely. So, yes, I am now against the idea of paying for WordPress theme upgrades when you don't have to do that anymore.

Leave WP Reason #15: Usability Challenges.

Going back to basics for a minute...WordPress can still be challenging for novice users to navigate and manage the admin interface to add new pages and blog posts, especially if they don't have technical skills or experience. They wind up spending so much time trying to learn how to manage the content themselves that they lose focus on what they should be doing; building their businesses.

Leave WP Reason #16: Limited Functionality.

WordPress, out of the box so to speak, may not offer all the functionality you need to edit and operate your business website, which could require additional customization or integration with other tools. Data managers like Elementor, Divi Builder, Visual Composer and WPBakery are the most common examples.

Just like WordPress itself, these tools are great to have and easy to use...until they're not. Themes are requiring upgrading that is not compatible with the data manager! So, you wind up paying someone to go into your website to upgrade the data manager and get it working again.

My one caveat to this reality is the use of an HTML-based theme. You'll likely still require a developer if you're not capable of setting it up initially on your own. But, the production time is 20% of a normal theme-based WordPress site. Additionally, HTML-based templates are great for one-page sales letter style websites like this one we just completed for a for a women's retreat here in Colorado in June: Be All You Can Be Women's Retreat.

Leave WP Reason #17: Plugin Replacements.

Not only are plugin updates annoying, but having to replace a plugin can be hazardous to the rest of your website! WordPress relies on third-party plugins and themes, which can be challenging to replace if the plugin developer decides to no longer support and evolve the plugin.

Since WordPress and plugins have been around for so long, I'm definitely seeing the trend of plugin developers aging out of their interest of maintaining the plugin and keeping up with security breaches. Instead of letting you know, they just wind up stopping the production of updates...and again, you discover one day...the dreaded white screen for your website and have to drop everything and call your WordPress expert for 911 help.

Leave WP Reason #18: Comments to Blog Posts on WordPress is Toxic.

One of the great early additions to WordPress blogging was the ability to accept comments to posts from visitors. The built-in feature for this function in WordPress has been greatly breached by malicious marketers who figured out a long time ago how to add fake marketing promotions and links to comments on blogs by the tens of thousands at a time.

Even though they don't get posted until you approve them (if you have this requirement set properly in your settings so they don't automatically post to yoru blog), fake comments clog up your hosting account with thousands of comments you'll never approve.

Somebody has to eventually go into WordPress admin to delete them. That will probably be you...again wasting time away from your business...because you don't want to pay that $20 to your v.a. to do something you could do yourself.

I hear this complaint at least once a month from WordPress users. The only two things you can do with this problem is to stop the ability for visitors to add comments by turning off the feature, or hire a developer to add a Facebook comments feature (or something else) to replace the built-in WordPress comments feature.

Leave WP Reason #19: SSL/HTTPS Requirements.

A few years ago, Google put their foot down that all websites listed on Google search must include the SSL/HTTPS component or Google will supply a warning message to the potential website visitor before they click through. Rarely will you find a website on google, click on the link supplied and get to a website where the domain name reads https://thewebsite.com without seeing a warning message first. They're almost always httpS now.

The requirement is a good thing. The drawback is that some websites have not yet converted their WordPress websites to include the SSL/HTTPS feature. So, in the possibility someone does find the website in search, they'll see a warning that the website might not be safe to visit.

This isn't exactly a WordPress issue but more of a website hosting issue that greatly effects WordPress websites. Most website hosting companies are still charging for annual renewal of SSL certificates. Personally, I find this to be gouging the customer! With the new solution I'm presenting to get you out of WordPress, the SSL/HTTPS comes standard. No extra charge...as it should be.

Leave WP Reason #20: Cost Consistency.

One thing is for sure about WordPress. You really have no idea what you're truly going to spend from year for design, redesign, updates, upgrades, maintenance or fixes from year to year.

You could neglect your website completely and spend nothing but hosting fees. But, then you run the very real risk of malicious code getting attached to a page or post on your website that causes problems for your website visitors. Are you willing to risk that liability?

Or, one or more of your plugins, purchased theme, or WordPress itself could become outdated to the point that it's either incompatible with one of the other plugins or WordPress versions and your website pukes.

Or, malicious code penetrates one of those outdated versions and attaches itself deep in the bowels of your database or files and triggers a few months later when you don't have a backup to go back to prior to the breach!

Whatever the cause, you wind up with unexpected rescue costs.

What Other Website Builders are Out There?

You've probably seen Wix, GoDaddy, and Squarespace website builders advertised on television. Personally, I get nauseous knowing GoDaddy even tries to host websites, let alone have a website builder. The minute you have a website with a database, get ready for one slow load website and many other challenging days ahead with support...especially on weekends!

Squarespace is quick to get going, but extremely basic, and continues to get bad reviews for the aesthetics of their websites. If you're a speaker or author, you know how important it is to have a website that looks great.

Wix has structurally and functionally improved over the years. Where they fall short is their greed for money and control. A recent post on the Better Business Bureau website had a user complaining of Wix deciding one day to scale back the users' allotted disk space and trying to inspire (force) the user into upgrading to a higher price bracket of $200/month. When the person attempted to export their blog posts to move to a different hosting platform, only 20 (out of 200+) were allowed to be exported. Plus, Wix has some sort of built-in setting so that all viewers know you're using Wix because their logo accompanies every post you make on your website and every sharing to social media.

There are others. Trust me: I've been looking for a replacement of WordPress for some years now. NONE of the solutions above have met my stringent requirements...except one.

My Recommended Solution to the WordPress Conundrum for 2023 and Beyond

Last week, (4/14/2023), we launched Vidya Raman's new website. It's our prototype...a showpiece...for this new website platform I'm introducing to my community. I suggest that you go have a look at the future of speaker, author and business owner websites. And, watch just how fast that sucker loads up in your browser when you get there!

Just because it's my first experience with the platform or the team of experts I've partnered with to produce and support the website, that doesn't mean the website builder or the team I've partnered with to produce and support these websites is having their first rodeo here.

Far from it!

The website building tool has been around almost as long as WordPress. It's just implemented more often by marketing agencies for their clients than the clients trying to setup the website from scratch on their own.

The team is right here in Denver and I've known the president for more than 20 years!

WANTED!!! FIVE New Website Projects!!!

If you're tired of dealing with the complexities and limitations of WordPress, now is a great time to consider a simpler, more reliable, more predictable and less in cost solution for your speaker, author, coaching or service provider website.

With our platform, you'll enjoy a streamlined, user-friendly interface that makes creating and managing your website so easy...without all the technical headaches.

Plus, you'll have access to a range of powerful features and tools that can help you grow your online presence and inspire more decision makers to hire you for your speaking than ever before.

Why not make the switch today and experience the benefits of a better website platform designed for the needs of tomorrow...today?

Request a Quote or More Information Here >>

One Final Question: Is There ANY Reason I Suggest WordPress Still?

Like all software, there is a best fit scenario. I believe WordPress has had its highpoint and now there is room for a new system to provide what WordPress has grown too complex and popular to offer. But there is one case where I still feel the benefits of WordPress outweigh my new solution for speakers, authors and business owners...at least at this time in 2023.

If you want to, or already do, have an online store to support your business, where you're selling your books, t-shirts, other products or multiple packages of services, WordPress and WooCommerce together is still a difficult match to beat with any other system. But only if you have the right architect to setup your online store and support WordPress and WooCommerce and provide proper hosting for the two. Contact me for the person and solution I recommend.

CHARGE FORWARD!

None of these suggestions are worth the space they're taking up in the cyberverse unless you're willing to take action. But, taking just any 'ol action isn't enough anymore. You need to learn what works for others, filter what you're comfortable with implementing, and then charge forward like a lion chases after its dinner! Charge forward today and make 2023 great!

About the Author: Marty Dickinson works with speakers and sales agents who want to use speaking on stages to attract red hot leads by the dozens so that the sales process is easy and natural, producing long-term customer loyalty. He is the #1 Amazon Best Selling Author of?Lions Always Win: How to Spot What You Want in Your Speaking Business and Life...and Get it Too.?

Now Available on Amazon Here >>