A lot of local businesses around Charlotte and Lincolnton run a WordPress site someone built for them years ago. Some of those sites are fine. Some are quietly costing the owner calls. Here is how to tell which one you have, and what to do about it.
What WordPress is good at
WordPress is free, it runs a huge share of the web, and almost any developer can work on it. If you publish a lot, like a news site or a blog with several writers, its editor is hard to beat. There is a plugin for nearly everything.
That last part is also where the trouble starts.
Where it goes wrong for small businesses
Plugins pile up
A typical small business WordPress site has a page builder, a form plugin, an SEO plugin, a security plugin, a slider, a cache plugin, and a few more nobody remembers installing. Each one is code from a different company, updated on its own schedule.
Updates need an owner
WordPress, the theme and every plugin need regular updates. Skip them and you fall behind on security fixes. Run them and sometimes a plugin breaks the layout or the contact form. Somebody has to own this job. On most small business sites, nobody does.
Speed suffers
Page builders and stacked plugins load a lot of code on every page. On a phone over cell data, that shows. A slow page loses visitors before they see your phone number. Core Web Vitals explained shows how to measure yours.
Hacked sites are usually neglected sites
Most WordPress break ins come through an outdated plugin or theme, not WordPress itself. An abandoned site with old plugins is an easy target for bots that scan the whole web for known holes.
Five questions to ask about your site
- Who updates it, and when did they last do it?
- How many plugins are installed, and do you know what each one does?
- How fast does the homepage load on your own phone, on cell data?
- Does the contact form still reach you? Send a test today.
- Do you have your own admin login, or does only your old designer?
If the answers are "someone does, monthly", "a handful", "fast", "yes" and "yes", keep your site. It is working.
When it is time to move
Moving makes sense when the site is slow and patching it keeps failing, when nobody maintains it, or when it has been hacked before. It also makes sense if you only change a few things a year and are paying for upkeep you do not need.
The sites I build are custom and pre-built into plain files, so there is no plugin stack to update and no database for bots to poke at. That is not the only good option, but it removes the upkeep job most owners never wanted. If you are worried about making changes yourself, read how updates work without WordPress.
How to switch without losing Google rankings
- List every URL on the old site before anything changes, including blog posts and service pages.
- Redirect every old URL to its closest new page with a permanent (301) redirect. This is the step that protects your rankings.
- Keep the content that ranks. If a page brings in visitors now, move it over and improve it. Do not throw it away.
- Watch Search Console for errors in the weeks after launch.
Skipping the redirects is the most common reason a new site loses traffic. It is also the easiest mistake to avoid.
