10 myths about WordPress.

02.

All WordPress sites look alike.

Many believe that all WordPress sites look alike. Thousands of themes exist to control the visual appearance of any website run on WordPress. Many of these themes are free, but there is also a big collection of premium themes for WordPress. Themes come with customisation options, so it is possible to change colours, the layout, and generally do whatever you want with your theme.

We often use the popular theme Divi, which is a powerful WordPress site builder with a good and intuitive visual builder to enable building directly on the frontend of the website. There is an unlimited number of possible combinations, and thus, it is only the imagination that limits what you can build. For all our solutions, we always create custom CSS to achieve a specific look fit for the client. All in all, WordPress websites can look exactly as wanted.

04.

WordPress is not secure.

Another popular myth is that WordPress isn’t secure. However, WordPress is very secure and it’s one of the reasons behind its popularity. WordPress is an open-source software which means that the source code is available online. This also means that everyone can examine the source code and find any potential security gaps.

WordPress is very flexible, and the security can be further improved with a couple of extra steps. Brute force and malware attacks are common on the internet and not limited to WordPress. However, because WordPress is the most used CMS, it is often where hackers attack. It is therefore important to regularly update WordPress, plugins, and themes to protect the website against attacks. By default, it is very easy to update these modules as it’s simply done by clicking an “update” button. However, the site will change to a certain degree when updated, which can ruin design or some functions on the website. Nevertheless, the modules must be updated to keep out hackers. Because of this, we offer all our clients update solutions to ensure that the site is regularly and safely updated to keep the website secure against attacks without breaking.

Furthermore, it is very important to use a proper password that’s difficult to read and impossible to guess. Additionally, you should take backups of your site and database, so it is always possible to roll back if push comes to shove. Finally, there’s a multitude of security plugins which can increase the security further as needed.

06.

WordPress integrates poorly with Danish economy and administration systems.

Due to its popularity, WordPress is the system there has been made the most integrations for internationally, and it of course also works with the integrations made here at home for Danish systems. Examples of integration options include IEX for the big Danish economy systems, Shipmondo for shipment, as well as Quickpay, Epay, and Onpay on the payment front. All these solutions require an ongoing subscription, whereas international payment solutions like PayPal and Stripe are pay per transfer.

One might consider it a lot to have to pay for a subscription for your integrations, but it comes with the huge advantage of not being responsible for the maintenance. Doing so yourself can be both extensive and difficult. Furthermore, you often get stuck using the first version without being able to update because it’s both cumbersome and expensive in developing hours. Integrations are thus not a hindrance but an advantage when building a website in WordPress.

08.

The available support for WordPress is very limited.

A common worry, new users might have, is that because you’re not paying anyone to use WordPress, there is no help to find, when you need it. On the contrary, there is plenty of free WordPress support available online. The official WordPress site, WordPress.org, has a very active support forum, where you, free of cost, can ask questions and get help from other WordPress users. Because of its popularity and widespread use, you’re very rarely going to be the first to encounter a given problem, which also means that, most of the time, you’re quickly going to find a solution online. Furthermore, developers of plug-ins, especially the popular ones, are swiftly notified of any issues, so as long as you keep your plug-ins up to date, you are unlikely to encounter any problems.

Additionally, there are loads of WordPress developers, agencies, and companies, who offer paid support. All in all, there are plenty of ways to get help and support, when working in WordPress.

10.

WordPress is slow to load and unsuitable for high traffic.

This myth typically stems from developers, who work on other platforms and refuse to acknowledge, that WordPress run some of the most popular, high traffic websites on the internet. Because WordPress is a platform you host yourself, you’re also responsible for its performance level and to scale the dedicated server resources as the website grows.

As with many other things, price and quality go together. If you use one of the cheapest hosting options and don’t optimise, the results will be accordingly. The faster the hosting, the faster the site loads.

Next, you should use the correct image size and format, avoid having unnecessary code and plug-ins, as well as use a caching plug-in. This is also very important in order to have a fast website capable of handling high traffic.