3 big reasons why solopreneurs should not use WordPress

If you’re a creative entrepreneur who wants to create a website to sell your services or products, a casual search on Google would probably bring up articles with recommendations that trumpet: “Use WordPress!”

I think WordPress is a great content management system (CMS). I’ve used it for years. However, if you’re a solo entrepreneur like a freelance writer, artist, coach or an indie author, WordPress may not be the right CMS for your needs.

Instead, I’d recommend small businesses to use web builders like Squarespace, Weebly or Wix instead. (Web builders are often drag and drop applications. You select your website design via a number of templates, drag and drop elements on the page and wala – your page is created. Coding knowledge not required.)

I wrote about why I ditched WordPress for Squarespace years ago, but because I’ve been asked by solopreneurs to recommend CMSes so often, I felt it was time for a more detailed post about this.

Here’s why you should not use WordPress for your small business website:

1. You’ll be spending a lot of time setting up and maintaining your website

Time is a big deal for creative entrepreneurs, especially if they have a day job and their creative business is a side hustle. When your time is limited, you’d want to optimise the time you spend on your business. Fooling around with code or spending a lot of time with your website’s maintenance may not be the best use of time (well, unless you love it!). Because, believe you me, if you have a WordPress website you are going to be really involved in terms of maintenance.

In my experience, it takes at least a couple of weeks to set up a WordPress website. You have to find the best:

Host for your WordPress website
Plugins
Theme (look)

Selecting a theme can be a laborious process. There are thousands of themes out there. Generally, a free theme is not a great way to go because it could have security problems. And if you’re a person who likes individualised designs, you’d probably need a developer to tweak it for you.

And even if you hire a developer to do all this for you, it will also take time. A developer will have a certain amount of time for turnaround, and if you want it quick, you’ve got to pay premium.

It just took me a week to set up a client’s website on Squarespace, and that’s because I was not working on it full time. If I was, I’d probably set it up in three days.

WordPress maintenance is also a huge time suck, which I will explain in the next point.

2. Back-end maintenance is complex and time-consuming

One of the major reasons why I left WordPress for Squarespace was because of the effort it took to maintain my WordPress website.

In its early years, WordPress was very user-friendly and intuitive. Over the years, it became increasingly big and bloated as more and more third-party developers created themes, plug-ins and more for the platform.

Each of these plug-ins, themes and yes, even WordPress itself, will have updates. And when you update your WordPress, prepare for things to break down because all the themes, plug-ins and whatnots that you’re using may not be in-sync with the latest version of WordPress.

Worse, some plug-ins, especially the free and less reputable ones, may have security issues that will allow hackers to come into your website and cause some mischief.

During my WordPress years, I didn’t have the budget to hire developers, so I did all the backend stuff myself. Fortunately, I knew how to code, but it took a lot of effort.

And it’s very, very tedious work. Once upon a time, my website was hacked and spam flooded my blog posts. Hundreds and hundreds of spam. This resulted in me being blacklisted by Google. (It took me nearly a month to fix the problem and get Google to remove that red mark.)

And that’s just WordPress. Sometimes, your hosting platform will cough up a problem or two. Bandwidth problems. Server problems. If you’re doing the backend work yourself it could mean hours and hours with tech support trying to sort the problem out.

Worse, you may have to deal with hackers. You could be one of few lucky ones that can avoid this, but I find that with WordPress websites, it’s inevitable. This is due to the fact that WordPress is open-source (code that is open to all) and used by millions.

So, unless you know your stuff, you’d need a developer at hand to sort these problems out for you.

3. It can get really expensive

You’re probably going: “Hey, I can get WordPress web hosting for only RM200 a year!”

Yes, you can start with a cheap hosting option that costs that much (or even less). And if you just need a static website where you’ll be updating infrequently, that could work well for you in the long run.

However, if you’re looking to grow your website and increase traffic over time, expect costs to go up as you pay for:

Bandwidth: it will increase over time as your website grows. Cheaper hosting options often come with a certain amount of bandwidth. So, if you want more people to access your website. You will have to pay more.
Space: As your website grows you will need more space.
Themes: It’s important to choose a good theme with great security, functionality and flexibility
Plugins: There are lots of free plugins out there, but some of them have security issues and are questionable. So, many WordPress developers would recommend you to buy reputable ones.
Security: A lot of these cheap hosting options do not come with great security. Heck, some of them don’t even have security, so do read the fine print when you purchase a plan. If you do choose WordPress and don’t want to spend too much time dealing with this, I would recommend that you go for WordPress managed hosting where they will take care of these issues. This is usually more expensive than the cheap options out there.

With Squarespace, I don’t have to worry about bandwidth because they adjust it for me (without additional cost!). They also deal with back end issues, and because it’s a proprietary, limited system like Apple, I don’t have to watch my back for hacks like I did when on WordPress. And even if my Squarespace website is hacked, the support team will help me resolve it.

Better, the cost of hosting my website on Squarespace has been consistent. I bought my Squarespace plan in 2015 for US$95 per year, and I’ve been I’m locked down for that price since then. That’s about RM500 per year and my website has grown in bandwidth and size since then.

The case for web builders

WordPress can be a nightmare if you’re a one-person business with limited time and no coding know-how. It can also get really expensive to set up and maintain. These are the questions you’d need to ask yourself before using WordPress as your CMS: .

Do I have the knowledge to fix things when things go wrong on WordPress?
If not, do I have the budget to hire a developer?
Can I afford the time it takes to fix issues or set up the website?
If you want to DIY your WordPress website, are you ready for the learning curve and time it takes to get up to speed with the CMS?

Here are reasons why solopreneurs or creative entrepreneurs will find web builders a good option:

You can make changes to your website without relying on an expensive developer
You can save time and cut back on stress because they handle back-end management for you
The cost remains consistent
It’s easy to set up a professional-looking website with them

Still not convinced? Read these articles, many of them written by experts of the industry:

The case for WordPress

Use WordPress if:

You are a mid- to large-sized business that is looking to customise their website
You have plans to grow it massively into something more complex (for example, add a membership section to your website or an ecommerce section)
You prefer a developer to take care of the side of things or are a developer who wants full control over the design and build of your website
You have the budget for it

Final word on my favourite web builder: Squarespace

Personally, I highly recommend Squarespace if you’re a creative entrepreneur that needs a fuss-free web presence. For example, It’s great for copywriters, artists, freelancers or indie authors who want a digital home to advertise their wares and services. I’ve used it since 2015 and I’m really grateful for the time it has saved me from dealing with the WordPress headaches I used to deal with. The CMS is user-friendly and their templates are gorgeous and easy to customise.

I’m also very thankful that I don’t have to keep upgrading my plan or adding plug-ins and security plans every year as my website grows, and that has been really cost-efficient for me.

What do you use for your business website? How has it been working out for you?