Why you should go with WordPress custom development instead of a visual composer?

If you’re here, then you’re probably wondering how to build your new website or modify an old one. You can use a visual composer to more or less recreate a custom template from your graphic design for the site you want. Or, commission a frontend development of your design in HTML5 and CSS3. But first, what exactly is a visual composer and why it might be not the best choice for you?

It’s a WordPress plugin, drag-and-drop editor available for WordPress website development. The best known would be Visual Composer, Divi, or Elementor. These plugins are for folks who don’t know how to code. Great solution, you might think! Sure, if you’re planning a small and simple project that won’t be expanding anytime soon. However, for something bigger that will be growing in the future, reconsider a visual composer, please. Here’s why.

First, say goodbye to your beautiful design — you won’t be able to recreate it in VC as it doesn’t allow custom themes. You’ve gotta work with what you’ve got: ready templates and a complicated user interface that likes to freeze. Lucky for you, they added an “undo” button not long ago. Have we mentioned the funky scaling yet? If the website looks okay on your Mac, check your phone, your friend’s phone, your mother’s laptop too. Chances are, your VC website will go a bit bonkers on other devices. Want to change it or expand it? Sorry, no go, remember? Unless you have time and money, then a WordPress developer can fix it for you.

Your WordPress website built in the Visual Composer Builder (kind of) works. Now, you’d like to show it off to the world. You need SEO for that. VC troubles with SEO had been going for a while. But last year Raitis Sevelis, Product Manager at Visual Composer has claimed that their VC websites are optimised for SEO and compatible with Yoast plugin. A look at their release notes confirms that but only for the Premium accounts (And Yoast also has something to say about it). Sevelis also claims that Visual Composer “generates clean and static HTML,” so it should load fast and therefore positively affect your SEO rankings. He does warn about the amount of content influencing the speed. While that is always true, here’s the catch with VC: you need to add all sorts of plugins and blocks to generate content at all, and that means lots of code and lots of time to load the site.

Layers of code can be troublesome in a more dangerous way. If you’re considering using an editor, then you’re probably not a developer. You can’t check if the code is safe and doesn’t hide anything nasty like malware. And let’s not forget that VC loves shortcodes. Don’t think about migrating your website or uninstalling VC — the shortcodes will become unreadable. And don’t count on the support: the pre-sale support seems to be nonexistent, and you need a dose of luck to contact them even as a client.

Here at CODETOWP.com, we want you to contact us. Working with us means building a long-term relationship as partners. That means we give you a guarantee of support. We’re all about communication and transparency. If you have any questions, doubts, ideas — give us a shout! CODETOWP.com is a custom development agency. As the name suggests, we specialise in developing projects from scratch with HTML and CSS to make sure that your design is recreated down to a T, and your vision is fulfilled. We are experts in such technologies as PHP, React, JAVA, and Angular, and use such tools as Advanced Custom Fields to create custom plugins and themes. And it’s not a one-time deal — we’re here to stay and to help expand your website as your business grows. Custom code also means the safety of you and your clients — we’ll make sure of it.

Are you tired of dealing with Visual Composer, or maybe you decided to not go with it after reading this post? In that case, let’s talk! We’ll take care of your website better than any VC and without any problems for you. Hit us up and let’s talk about your project.

Piotr Tabor

CEO

Appwise CEO and new technology lover. Over 10 years experience in software testing and development. Want to find out how I can help? Contact us and let’s schedule a call!