My Problems With WordPress

by Paul Colligan on September 12, 2009

Update #2 – The Teleseminar is over. Link to the WordPress notes are here. If you would like a recording of the event, send a blank email to wordpress@paulcolligan.com. REMEMBER – CLASS CLOSES FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 18TH, AT 5P EASTERN.

Update #1 – The interest in this event was a lot bigger than I thought it would be. You can stream/listen to it here live on 9/16/2009 at 5p Pacific. It will go about 90 minutes I guess.

As I write this post into a WordPress Blog, I have to tell you something, … I’m really frustrated with WordPress.

Don’t get me wrong, I love it for what it is. I’m even spending money this month to attend an event for the main reason of meeting Matt Mullenweg later this month.

But the frustration is this … keeping up to date with WordPress – plugins, versions, updates, security issues, databases, etc., is more work than anything else out there. It’s even easier to keep a stable copy of Windows running these days.

Yes, I know it’s free and open source and wonderful (again, I’m using it right now), but it takes way too much time to maintain and, let’s face it, you have to be a bit of a “geek” to keep it running.

For us technical types, that’s fun, but for people like my Dad (making very decent money on his Gluten Free Celiac Web Blog by the way) it’s a big of a pain in the butt.

Do we have alternatives? Yes. There’s Squarespace. They ain’t WordPress – but they’re darn close and they keep track of all of that stuff. Throw in the fact that they host in the cloud and you’ve got some real insurance on your content being “up” when it really counts.

Yes, less plugins, themes, etc. Certainly a cost associated with. But, friends, THEY DEAL WITH THE TECH NONSENSE and you can focus on creating content.

And, sure, you could outsource management of your WordPress blog – but that will cost far more money than a SquareSpace account would, and you get none of the uptime benefits.

And, if you’ve been reading this blog for any time at all, you know where I believe the real money is.

So, that’s my problem.

My friend and student Christina Hills thinks it’s “worth it all.” She’s currently running a class on running WordPress for yourself that will be going live this weekend. She asked me if I’d offer it to my list and I agreed – but only on this condition …

Christina needs to first defend the concept that WordPress is for everyone.

So, this Wednesday night at 5p Pacific, on a LIVE STREAMING AUDIO EVENT (you can listen on your phone – or I’ll give you a Web page as well), I’ll have Christina “prove” her concept.

If she does, I’ll let her offer the class to you.

If she doesn’t, she leaves without mentioning the link.

Fair enough?

Want to attend the event live (or get a recording after the event?), send a blank email to wordpress@paulcolligan.com. Our automated system will handle everything else.

Don’t worry, we’re fully Can Spam compliant and you can unsubscribe at any time with the simple click of the mouse.

I’d love your thoughts below – but if you want to attend the event, I need to you send that blank email to wordpress@paulcolligan.com to get your access directions.

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Tagged as: christina hills, matt mullenweg, squarespace, wordpress

  • WallyJ
    well... I sent the email, replied to the confirmation, clicked the new link to get to the mp3, listened to you guys jabber for 3 minutes about nothing... and argue about whether Christina could professionally introduce herself or not, then she sums it up with "Big Brother???".

    I felt the oxygen being wasted, so I clicked "Stop" and moved onto something productive.

    Paul, I usually like your stuff, but this one got the "Delete" before it even finished.
  • I'm glad it's not just me who finds the updates a hassle - I don't bother with them often, but it makes me feel like I'm missing out.
  • yes, i'd like any webinar or recording info you have
    on wordpress ..thanks

    also..can you give me any help on how to monitize my blog ??

    Robbie
  • I have given up with wordpress, purely because it's easier to flip a traditional site, no databases to transfer or mess up.
    I now use XsitePro for all my sites, it's easy and gets the job done the old way.
    The constant updates and security issues used to be a worry but not for me anymore.
    Onwards and Upwards
    Ian Hagerty
  • THANK YOU! My mentor, Linda Hughes of IEmpowerU Online Entrepeneur, suggested that I put my new website, http://www.Home-Decor-Genie.com up on WP because it's all the rage! However, I have never been so frustrated in all my life!! I'm turning over most of the tech-work to my very tech-savvy husband so I can concentrate on writing my ebooks on home staging, home decorating and color for your home. (of course, he's extracting a price for all this....)

    I have struggled for several weeks to learn how to use it, and how to add all those plugins, widgets, etc. If I had just put it up on my old host, it would have been done a month ago!!! G-r-r-r-r-r-r-r!

    Thank you for letting us know that you also struggle with WP! I'm sure there are others out there like me - not quite a tech-geek; want to have control over my stuff and content; but don't want to spend all my time setting up the blog, website, merchant accts, etc, etc!!!!

    Thanks!
  • I agree with everything you said Paul, but I will have to say that WordPress has actually changed my life for the good. A tweaked out WordPress blog saves me hours of work as an SEO specialist. I can't believe how powerful it is for ranking on Google, only a wildcard YouTube video can beat it if you hit the sweet spot.

    Leo Laporte is constantly singing the praises of Squarespace as well as some of his prominent guests, so I'm going to have to try it. I would right now, but I've got to go update all my WordPress blogs to the latest stable versions, update my themes, plugins, then do all my database backups. : )
  • jasonvo
    I find your frustrations with WordPress to to be a bit overstated. These problems are easily solved with the right freelancer on board to help (and with the new automatic updates).

    Your argument is that by hiring help (which comes extremely cheap) "this is no longer a free blogging solution." Why does it need to be a free solution? This is for business after all.

    In the end the ROI is significant for me given the time-savings, flexibility and features that WordPress offers. You yourself also preach that the free solution is usually not the way to go.

    So I was surprised at your to this webinar. The message seems incongruous.
  • I'd like to know where all the "cheap" techie help is ?? can you give me some advice on this ?
    i use wordpress but am not a web techie and will never be one. i can do the simple stuff but the rest is beyond me. i want to concentrate on getting the word out, not on what widgits to use.
    help if you can
    Robbie
  • paulcolligan
    jason, you know this, we've had this conversation before a bunch of times. yes, i could hire a geek or a consultant to run this and manage all this but if there are solutions that don't require such management, i want to consider those as well.

    set it and forget it is what i like. wordpress is a lot more hands on than i like and, i'd dare say, than it needs to be.

    yes, you could pay someone to keep on top of it, or push the buttons, but i got sites i haven't touched in years (nor has another geek) that make me money. i won't more than that.

    yes, in turns of roi, this is simple. in terms of headache - not so much.

    right, the "free way" isn't always the way to go and i think, all to often, the 'free' way of wordpress gives us a lot more work than we need.

    i'm still frustrated and christina is still teaching a class on the topic. i thought i'd introduce the frustration and have a little fun here.

    but that's just me.

    paul

  • jasonvo
    Fair enough. It's worth discussion. I'm not trying to be a WordPress fanboy.

    It's good to question the norms now and again. It just felt like the argument needed some balancing.

    In the end it is indeed a question of ROI for each individual to consider.

    If the extra flexibility of using WordPress on your own domain isn't worth the additional cost (or headache), then using a hosted version is certainly a viable solution.

    I have a friend that uses Squarspace, had his side slammed and it held up great. Even the owners of the service were impressed. At the same time, he's asked about features just to find out that he doesn't have the flexibility to do them on a hosted solution.

    On another note, I'm discovering that as cool as Disqus is, it's not very iPhone friendly. Logging in was messy.
  • Yes, Paul, Keeping WordPress updated IS a pain and SemiOlogic makes it 3 times as hard. Some days I spend literally hours on WordPress management. So I do dream of how much easier it would be to "settle for" a more static traditional website. I was unable to attend the streamed event. Any chance of an mp3 Download link, so I can listen as I drive (with an occasional peek at my iPod?) Will be interested to see what the class is all about.
  • You know I resisted Word Press for years. Well, I recently transferred my blogger blog to a word press blog, and yes there have been problems. But, all in all I am quite satisfied that I did it. Its strange however because although my blog is online and works - people are signing up for it. at http://countyfairgrounds.net/videoblog - I can only log into it through my Yahoo account - I cannot log in on the word press site. Tehey said I had the wrong password and said they would send me an email with a new password... -- never came of course... Well, I log in as CoolKay to a word press page every time I log in on Yahoo. weird? and then there iare the plug ins. Some work some don't - I would really like to know which ones work best.
  • Look for the plugin "Wordpress Automatic Upgrade" it makes upgrading the Wordpress software about a 4 click operation (there is alos an uatomatic backup plugin). Kim from the Wordpress podcast mentioned a "One Click Plugin Update" plugin that basically looks at your plugins and if any of them need updated - it updates them. Those should take a lot of the hassle out of it.
  • leanneking
    It's not that hard to update wordpress you can use a vmb situation or use an autoinstaller and click a button, have a coffee and update all your blogs at once. You can also just run the blog off the one install so you update one blog instead of hundreds. It takes me about 10 minutes to update 60 blogs so it's not a biggie at all.
  • Bob
    Matt will tell you that people like your dad should be using WordPress.com.
  • I couldn't agree more.

    I use Squarespace for my gadgetboy.org blog to relieve myself of the burden of maintaining another Wordpress blog. However, you just can't beat the flexibility of Wordpress given the number plugins, themes, etc.

    It's this flexibility that led me to run Wordpress for http://socialmediahacks.com

    I've always thought that if Wordpress.com allowed custom themes, some additional plugins and embedded widgets as premium features that people would pay for the privelege. I certainly would.

    -jf.
  • Bette_H
    With the recent troubles I have experienced with Wordpress - can't upload pics, can't get embed links in the text, I, for one would love a blogging platform that is more easily managed. When it works, Wordpress is so simple, but when it doesn't, that is hair pulling time. And even more so if you are not a 'geek'!
  • I met Matt at WordCamp Dallas 2009. What a nice guy. However, I agree with all the updates. Even operating systems (OS) don't update this often! When the attacks hit the other day and I had to update all of them it took me an entire day to get all my sites functioning correctly (an entire day I could have been working on content creation). These updates don't just effect your OS for your blog as they frequently conflict with your plugins, cause your theme to be inoperable and sometimes just flat out screw up the entire site. I would hate to be a plugin developer!

    Open source doesn't mean you send out an update for every stinkin' little improvement you make. I think the WordPress team needs a mission statement for their development team. If the update doesn't meet the requirements of the mission statement then you hold on to it and keep making improvements until it does. Updates once a quarter would even be nicer than these constant tiny changes.

    I digress.

    Blessings,
    Wendy
  • I feel your pain Paul! When I heard about the latest security scare with Wordpress, I rushed to patch my blogs - all seven of them. What a chore.

    I agree with you that self-serve Wordpress is for techies, not the blogger who just wants to, well, blog. I love the control and fine tuning ability you have, but it is very time consuming. I would not give up on WP, but them I am a bit of a techie.
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