WordPress is a popular content management system (CMS) that lets you modify and market all your content. Like any other CMS, it gives you the creative freedom to have full control over how you want to customise and update your website. However, this freedom can be limited when themes are put into consideration.
Now you may have heard about the convenience and other seemingly good stuff that come from using themes in WordPress. However, themes or templates have plenty of problems that arise only a little later, most of which occur after you’ve downloaded them and realise that they are not compatible with your website and brand settings.
Let’s deep dive on the most common problems that come along with using themes for your website.
5 Worst Problems with Using Themes for Your Website
1. Poor Codebase
The Software Engineering Institute states that 90% of all reported security incidents happen because of exploits and defects in the design or code of the software. Many of these defects have been caused by poor coding practices on a website.
Poor coding practices can easily reveal system vulnerabilities or error information that hackers can use against your site. Once this results in frequent errors, addressing them to avoid and minimise potential threats can be a real hassle for your website.
2. Slow Loading Speed
There are many reasons why your page takes some time to load. However, a few of the most common factors that affect your page loading speed are the number of plugins, uncompressed images, outdated WordPress tool and a bloated codebase, as mentioned above.
Having too many customisation options results in a bloated codebase, which slows your website down and adding a level of complexity that your website doesn’t need. Many of those off-the-shelf themes are powered by plugins that allow your site to function exactly the way it does in the demo website. It shouldn’t take as much as ten plugins for your WordPress to be functional. This won’t always be the case though. The use of plugins isn’t always harmful to your site; just that learning to use particular ones you really need should be enough, instead of choosing themes that require plugins that weigh more than the actual content.
3. Design Limitations
People have different senses of style. And there are those who are keen on showcasing their unique tastes through the designs of their outfits by going directly to a tailor who can customize their clothes rather than opt for ready-made ones.
The same way goes for design templates. Designs that aren’t specifically tailored for your site do not take your user base and your target audience into account, and this causes a small chance for users to convert. Customising your WordPress takes time and is a process where you need to pay attention to every detail to help make your website stand out. How your site appears to users also plays a role in increasing the traffic to your website. Therefore, your main goal should be to make your site eye-catching and distinctive in order to maintain your branding online.
Learn the basics on how to do branding on your website in this article we wrote.
4. Low Site Security
Running WordPress and maximising its utilities mean making use of plugins to make its themes more functional. However, themes are more vulnerable to malware because of plugins that are required to make them work. Breaches on your site security may be caused by the following:
- Out-of-date core software
- Out-of-date plugins or themes
- Poor hosting environment
- Malware
- Not updating WordPress, plugins or themes
- Using plugins and themes from untrustworthy sources
Picture yourself using a padlock bought off-the-shelves at the market to lock the front door of your house. It isn’t so smart to rely on the security of your home on a lock with duplicate keys that can easily be purchased by just anyone.
Off-the-shelf templates do not provide the custom security measures with your website needs. This is why it is important to find web professionals who can tweak the “padlock” to your WordPress in order to avoid security breaches that may harm your valuable business data.
In this article, we discuss the necessary steps businesses should take in ramping up their website’s security.
5. Lack of Web Professional Assistance
This for sure is one critical reason. Having no relationship with a design agency or a web professional can be disadvantageous if any problems arise from the lack of functionality of the WordPress theme you chose for your website. Pre-made templates can be hard to fix especially if their designers are often times anonymous, and the only way you can contact someone to get in touch with how to remedy this problem is in the comment sections of the WordPress theme store.
It’s always more convenient to tap a web professional or a design agency who can create and personalise your WordPress website from scratch and according to how you want them to turn out.
Fix up your WordPress CMS with Verz Design
Themes exist for a reason and that is to cater to a company’s specific purpose. Using off-the-shelf themes may be convenient with how easy it is to just drag and drop the features you want to equip your website with, and you don’t have to be a web developer to use them. However, this kind of convenience comes with a price at the expense of your business’ reputation online.
Verz Design offers web services that help boost the quality of your WordPress website for better functionality and user experience. With our web expertise, we can customise your WordPress to prevent the mentioned factors above and help you build your business online.
