Maintenance
The question every business owner has a few months after setting up their beautiful new website is:
“How do I keep this complex piece of tech moving forward successfully”?
This can be a challenging task, especially if you don’t have extensive knowledge about web architecture.
While Wix, Squarespace, and Shopify make it easy to create new websites, they do not make it easy to scale and maintain.
If you’re a business owner that relies solely on your website to generate revenue, then it is imperative that you have flexibility with technical solutions.
Open-Source
The platforms previously mentioned do not leave you many options to transfer data away if you are displeased with their services.
WordPress allows you to export your data and move freely to any hosting environment that you like with no restrictions. What is great about this is you do not get stuck with site creators that don’t mesh with your needs as a business.
Some website builders pigeonhole you into using their hosting, plug-ins, and support solutions which may not be the best for your business. WordPress allows for complete flexibility, leaving you with full creative freedom to implement exactly what you need.
Availability
With other website builders troubleshooting can only be resolved through their respective support channels. Since WordPress is open source the help community is vast and knowledge is freely available.
It is likely that you can find a WordPress expert even in your town or city.
Bringing new features to market is what gives you a competitive advantage as a business, which can be difficult to do with modern website builders.
Since their platforms are not open source you are forced to use the network of available developers that they have approved. This usually leads to higher cost for a specialized developer and longer wait times for feature releases.
No Restrictions
Some platforms restrict you on how you can theme and design your website. With WordPress there is a vast availability of different templates you can use out of the box and multiple page builder plugins to give you the ultimate flexibility for your creativity.
For instance on Themeforest.net there are more than 15k WordPress templates alone. Most themes are focused around a niche which provides additional flexibility and less development effort for your business.
Themes are also ideal for small businesses and startups that want to quickly bring their brand and product out into the world without breaking the bank. There is also a community that helps startups out of the confusion in developing and managing their website.
There are so many great resources available for business owners trying to navigate the harsh waters of running a profitable business.
A great place to see how other entrepreneurs succeed: indiehackers.com
No Extra Fees
Some platforms take a cut of your profits, on top of processor fees!
These fees can vary greatly depending on the industry.
A great example of an unnecessary headache business owners face with Shopify is not being able to withdraw the money in their account.
CAUTION: BAD NEWS FOR SHOPIFY AHEAD!
Do a simple search for “shopify holding my payment” and see for yourself. You can also see a support issue here on the shopify site itself:
Shopify is holding my $12,661.24 for no reason!
It is sad to see business owners face these issues with their site providers.
Business owners can avoid these risks and fees all-together by using an open-source platform such as WordPress.
Did You Know...
- WordPress & WooCommerce are FREE
- Whitehouse.gov uses WordPress and is an essential piece of US infrastructure
- WordPress powers 39.6% of the internet in 2021
- WooCommerce has over 75 Million Downloads and 5 Million installs
- WordPress is the most popular CMS in the world
- Over 1.4 million live websites are using WooCommerce right now
