Open source software is not owned by any corporate entity. Popular open source website platforms like WordPress and Magento are backed by massive, passionate communities — hundreds of thousands of programmers from around the world who contribute to their codebase every single day. The full codebase is available for editing, allowing for complete development flexibility.
Reasons Why We Prefer Open Source CMS
Community Support is Key
Well-supported open source software like WordPress and Magento stays up to date with Google’s ever-changing requirements better and faster than any proprietary platform can.
WordPress is THE Best CMS for SEO
WordPress, in particular, benefits from one of the largest developer communities in the world, meaning patches and updates that address Google’s new requirements arrive quickly and are typically low or no-cost. Proprietary platforms simply cannot match the speed at which a thriving open source community can respond to shifting search engine requirements.
YOU Own Your Own Site
Open source platforms do not put the client at risk of losing their website should the platform publisher go out of business or discontinue that particular offering.
Open source platforms are more portable. A website built in open source software can be easily transitioned to another hosting company and/or developer should either of those business relationships fall apart. (But clients should pay attention to their web design contract terms to ensure that they own their own content.)
NO Technical Limitations!
Most importantly, open source software is fully editable. There are no parts of the code or database that are locked down as intellectual property of the publisher, which makes it so that we will not encounter roadblocks when trying to implement technical SEO enhancements. Speed optimizations and certain other technical SEO enhancements are extremely difficult, or often impossible, to execute on proprietary platforms like Squarespace, Wix, etc. (We go more in depth about those in this WordPress vs. Wix vs. Squarespace article)
We are able to do our best work in open source environments where no such restrictions exist, and clients can fully realize the return on their investment.
We strongly prefer to work with clients whose websites are powered by an open-source CMS.
For those reasons, we strongly prefer to work with clients whose websites are powered by an open-source CMS.
- For non-transactional websites, WordPress is our first choice, and for good reason. It powers over 40% of the entire web and is supported by an absolutely unmatched global community of developers, designers, and contributors.
- For e-commerce, Magento or WooCommerce (the e-commerce add-on to WordPress) are most preferable; however, we can work with Shopify sites as well. In that case, we recommend that Shopify power the e-commerce portion of the site, and WordPress be added to power the blog.
Common Objections to WordPress
Addressing Common Developer Objections to WordPress
You may have encountered a developer who pushed back on WordPress. This is very common, and while developers often have valid technical preferences, it’s worth understanding the sources of these objections and how to evaluate them.
“WordPress is a security risk.”
This objection is partially rooted in truth but is largely a maintenance issue, not a platform issue. Because WordPress powers such a large share of the web, it is a more visible target for hackers. However, a properly maintained WordPress site, with updates applied regularly, quality plugins chosen carefully, and a solid hosting environment, is very secure. The same massive community that builds WordPress also identifies and patches vulnerabilities faster than virtually any proprietary platform ever could. In most cases, compromised WordPress sites can be traced back to neglected updates or poorly coded third-party plugins, not WordPress itself.
“WordPress can’t scale.”
This is a myth. WordPress powers major publications, enterprise websites, and high-traffic e-commerce operations around the world. With proper hosting infrastructure and performance optimization, things we help implement as part of good technical SEO practice, WordPress scales extremely well.
“WordPress is just for blogs.”
WordPress began as a blogging platform, but that was a long time ago. Today it is a full-featured content management system capable of powering almost any type of website. Its flexibility is precisely what makes it so well-suited for SEO work.
“[Other platform] is cleaner / faster / easier to build on.”
Developers sometimes prefer proprietary or newer platforms because they’re more enjoyable to build on, or because they specialize in them. That’s a legitimate preference, but it doesn’t always serve the client’s long-term SEO interests. A site that’s pleasant for a developer to build may be one that locks you into restrictions you’ll feel later, when you’re trying to implement technical SEO improvements and hitting wall after wall.
“But [Other Platform] Is Fully Flexible and I Can Edit Anything.”
That may well be true, and we respect that level of development skill. But here’s the real question: at what cost to you, the client?
WordPress benefits from one of the largest developer communities on the planet. That community has already solved most problems you’ll ever encounter, and packaged those solutions into free or low-cost plugins. Need advanced SEO meta tag control? There’s a free plugin for that. Need schema markup, XML sitemaps, redirect management, page speed optimization, or image compression? Free plugins for all of it, built, tested, and maintained by thousands of developers worldwide.
When a developer builds your site on a proprietary or niche platform, even one they can edit freely, they are often starting from scratch on functionality that already exists for free in the WordPress ecosystem. That means more development hours, which means more cost to you. And unlike a WordPress plugin that is continuously updated and improved by a global community, custom-built solutions depend entirely on that one developer to maintain, update, and fix them going forward.
The flexibility argument is really a developer convenience argument. It may be easier or more enjoyable for them to work in their preferred environment, but the client often ends up paying a premium to recreate what WordPress already offers out of the box, for free, backed by a community of hundreds of thousands of contributors.
The Bottom Line
The bottom line: When a developer objects to WordPress, it’s worth asking whether that objection is truly in your best interest as the site owner or whether it reflects their own preferences or specializations. We’re happy to have that conversation with your developer directly if it’s helpful.
A quick note about hosting:
There was a time when we believed that a client’s hosting provider was a secondary concern, as long as the platform was open source. However, we encountered several situations where clients were on inferior hosting platforms that were so poorly configured for performance that, even with a well-optimized WordPress site, their speed scores were abysmal. It forced us to re-evaluate the critical importance of the hosting environment itself, not just the CMS, and to be much more selective about who we partner with for hosting. Ultimately, after evaluating several options, we chose to partner with WPEngine. Our partner link often offers discounted pricing and can be viewed here: https://wpengine.com/partnerspecialoffer/?w_agcid=CwxpfpAJ
Contact Us
If you need expert help with your WordPress site, check out our WordPress Maintenance Services.
Looking for a WordPress SEO consultant? Work with us via our coaching program or check out our full-scope SEO services.
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