While WordPress is a popular platform for building websites, it may not be the best choice for your organization. What you gain in low price and possibly familiarity with WordPress, you lose in headaches and poor functionality. Here are seven reasons why WordPress may be holding you and your organization back.

1. Limited integration with payment processors

WordPress has limited integration with payment processors, which can be a problem for organizations that rely on donations or need to process payments for products or services. The majority of donors of all ages prefer to give online, so it's very important you have a smooth process to capture donations online. While there are plugins available to integrate payment processors, they may not be reliable or secure. This can lead to lost donations or compromised customer information.

2. Limited engagement tools

Engagement is key to building a strong relationship with your active and potential members. Unfortunately, WordPress is only built for blogging and has virtually no engagement tools to help you create meaningful connections with your members. While there are plugins available to add engagement features, they may not be as effective as tools built specifically for engagement and WordPress plugins often break.

3. Poor member management

Understanding your active and potential members and how they're interacting with you is very important for building meaningful relationships. Unfortunately, WordPress does not have tools to help you get meaningful insights on how your members are interacting with you and your organizations, nor the status of their memberships. This can lead to lost members, missed opportunities, and poor communication.

4. Limited customization

While WordPress is known for its flexibility, it can be difficult to customize. This can be a problem for organizations that need a unique look and feel for their website and don't have a resident web developer on staff. Even simple errors in customizing your WordPress website can cause your entire site to crash. Customization can also be time-consuming and potentially very expensive, especially when you need to repair a broken website.

5. Difficult to manage

WordPress can be difficult to manage, especially for organizations that do not have a dedicated IT team. Updates, backups, and security can be a challenge, which can lead to downtime and lost data. WordPress websites are particularly vulnerable to digital attacks because hackers are more likely to build malware for open source technology like WordPress than they are for a proprietary and more secure platform. Managing your WordPress website can mean cleaning out thousands and thousands of spam comments and form submissions instead of building value for your members.

6. Limited analytics

Analytics are essential for understanding your audience and improving your website. Unfortunately, the only way to receive meaningful analytics on WordPress is to install a series of many different plugins to track many different analytics. While these plugins are functional, they are not as comprehensive as tools built specifically for comprehensive analytics across your website, social media and email campaigns. Keeping track of many different applications is a tremendous waste of time, especially for small teams, and adding more WordPress plugins increases the risk of plugin crashes taking your entire website down.

7. Limited community support

While WordPress has a large community of users, it may not be the best choice for organizations that need dedicated support. Trying to find exactly the support you need with WordPress can feel overwhelming and not specific to your needs. There are also many predatory web developers and technicians who know that those without IT experience can easily get into trouble trying to manage WordPress websites on their own. The community can be helpful, but it may not be able to provide the level of support that organizations need.

While WordPress is a popular platform for building websites, it may not be the best choice for your organization. Your website should be a valuable member of your team, not a challenge interfering with building relationships with your audience. If you are experiencing any of these limitations, it may be time to consider a different platform.

NationBuilder is a platform that is specifically designed to help organization leaders build deep and meaningful relationships with active and prospective members. It has robust supporter management tools, engagement features, customization options, and analytics tools. It also has dedicated support to help you every step of the way. Plus, when you join as a member of the Disruptive Strategies Group NationBuilder Alliance HQ, you will enjoy special savings and additional members-only support. Click the link to download your complimentary book and learn more about how NationBuilder can help your organization.

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