With more than 74 million installs worldwide, Wordpress is the most popular CMS and blogging system available on the web. It’s not surprising it has become so popular. After all, the tool is freely available, easily customisable and simple for almost anyone to use.
All good, right?
But is the platform really the best option out there for new website builds, or just a quick, cheap fix for those looking to get their site up and running?
Here are 8 reasons we think you should think twice before choosing Wordpress for your hotel’s new website and consider iLaunch, our sleek, powerful and infinitely customisable CMS instead!
1. Wordpress was created with blogging, not ecommerce in mind
Although Wordpress has evolved somewhat overtime to keep pace with the changing face of the internet, it was originally created as a blogging platform, not as a complete content management system. It found popularity in a time when there was very little choice for small business owners who wanted to publish content for their online audience and played an integral role in the rise of blogging in the early days of the web.
But while Wordpress remains a useful blogging tool, it lacks the features, functions and flexibility needed to create a truly great ecommerce site. This is particularly true when it comes to the ‘behind the scenes’ administration areas of a Wordpress site which offer very limited options in terms of managing content, page layouts and menus.
iLaunch, in comparison, has been designed with a full range of features and functionality to help you manage, update and customise every piece of content you add to your website – from your latest blog post to your new photo gallery or video tour showing off your recent refurbishment project.
2. Security Risks
Because the platform only offers limited functionality, most Wordpress site owners install a variety of plugins to enable extra functions on their website. These third party themes and plugins can come with a myriad of security risks, spam links and malware files, and what’s worse, you probably won’t even know about them until it’s too late.
At eTourism, we constantly monitor our client’s websites to keep them secure around the clock. System and security updates are automatically rolled out free of charge as part of the iLaunch website hosting plan and your website is automatically backed up at the end of each day.
3. No Automatic Upgrades
As you’ll be aware if you’ve ever used the platform, Wordpress regularly releases upgrades to implement new features or address security vulnerabilities. However, these upgrades are only rolled out automatically to users who pay for the company’s cloud platform, for everyone else; upgrading involves a complicated process of backing up your database and wordpress files and deactivating various plugins before running the install process.
With iLaunch, new features and fixes are rolled out regularly and automatically with no downtime – so no lost bookings.
4. Want Control of Your SEO? Bespoke Design is Best
SEO is changing all the time, and it’s important that your website is easily adaptable to meet the needs of every new algorithm change Google rolls out. Bespoke websites give you this flexibility, but the same can not be said of sites built through Wordpress. Although Wordpress plugins are available to help website owners optimise their sites, if you want close control of your SEO, a professionally built website is your best bet.
All aspects of the iLaunch CMS have been developed with the latest SEO best practices in mind. This ensures your website can be indexed by the search engines and rank highly in the results pages – without plugins.
5. User Experience May Suffer
Speaking of SEO, Google rewards websites that provide a great user experience with higher search rankings. Central to a great user experience is page load speed, and since Wordpress sites invariably contain multiple plugins, this can slow your whole site down, leading to frustration among your guests and lower search rankings.
6. Your Website Won’t be Original
Originality of design is an area where a bespoke website will always come out on top. In an online world full of hotels trying to make their mark and win the attention of online travellers, a Wordpress site won’t get you noticed. A professionally built website, carefully designed and constructed with the needs of your unique audience in mind has a far better chance.
7. The iLaunch Assets Library Makes Managing Your Content Easy
The iLaunch Assets library has been designed to make managing your content as simple as possible. You can upload a video, image or piece of text content once and reuse it in multiple places, while resizing, thumbnails and caching is automatically taken care of. Whatever you’re uploading, your content will be displayed with the correct dimensions, with no plugins or extra coding needed!
8. iLaunch Helps Your Website Grow With Your Business
Your website should be flexible enough to grow and evolve as your business does. With Wordpress, every time you want a new feature, you have to add a new third party plugin, which may or may not communicate with the rest of your website and may or may not come with security risks.
iLaunch comes with an array of ready built modules that work straight out of the box, including:
- Blogs
- Newsletters
- Galleries
- Dynamic Animated Banners
- Enquiries Management
- Members Area
- Google Maps and Google Analytics integration
- Content Management
- Youtube and Vimeo integration
We can also custom-build functionality into iLaunch for you, so you have exactly the CMS you need to meet the changing demands of your business.
What do you think? Have we persuaded you of the pitfalls of Wordpress? Let us know in the comments below!
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