WordPress has dominated the CMS market for years and with a 65% market share (and growing!), it's showing no signs of slowing down. It's easy to see why it's so popular, with a drag-and-drop editor, thousands of plugins, widgets and themes, all combined to enable users of all skill levels to put a functional website together.

Even though WordPress has its benefits, it also has some downsides. Before we go into alternatives, let's explore why you'd consider an alternative CMS to WordPress.

The most glaring weakness in WordPress is the security, this isn't because WordPress itself is poorly developed; almost all security issues in WordPress are down to plugins and themes from third-party developers, for example, a critical plugin bug that left 320,000 websites open to attack - because of this, WordPress accounts for 94% of CMS infections according to a 2019 report by Sucuri, not great...

So if you're going to use WordPress, make sure it's up to date and not overly reliant on plugins!

WordPress' main function is blogging. Unfortunately, to take full advantage of this, you must install third-party plugins to have a website with the slightest amount of complexity, which is an issue we mentioned earlier.

Having said this, WordPress has improved flexibility in authoring with the release of the Gutenberg editor back in 2018. As well as more built-in flexibility regarding SEO, so you don't have to rely on Yoast so much.

So to get enough functionality which you typically find in an enterprise or headless CMS, you have to rely on third-party plugins.

According to a CMS benchmark by Yottaa, WordPress is the mainstream CMS with the slowest performance. WordPress is typically slower than other CMS platforms because each plugin requires several JavaScript files to be loaded, thus bogging the performance.

To summarise, WordPress is a good CMS if you're a small business that requires a website with little functionality and uses barely any, if any, plugins. But if you want something more or don't like WordPress for any of the reasons listed above, here are some alternatives you should check out!

Prismic is a headless CMS; our go-to for small website developments that don't require much functionality. What we love most about Prismic is the simple, intuitive interface and unique page builder that uses a feature called Slices. Slices make it easy for authors to mix and match components as well as customise them whenever they’re editing or creating a page. The way we design in Figma, utilising a component structure, works seamlessly with our development team when building out Slices, creating a much smoother process. 

As much as we love Prismic, it does have its limitations, so we generally build smaller sites that don't require much functionality.

Headless CMS for speed, scale and security.

Content slices for easy content authoring.

Craft CMS is an open-source content management system for building custom websites, it's a blank slate that puts your content first and provides a flexible, tailored experience for developers and content authors.

Craft has a great interface, a more stripped back version of WordPress that's built and tailored to your needs and requirements. The simple interface makes updating and adding content a much more enjoyable experience.

A further advantage is the handy live preview feature Craft CMS offers. Authors can view the content edit section and a live preview next to each other at the same time, allowing you to see your edits in real-time, which makes updating content a far better alternative to WordPress!

Security and performance in Craft eclipses WordPress, with no need for a vast number of third party plugins that often result in heavy and unorganised code. Craft is a flexible and lightweight CMS that can be tailored around your current and future business offerings; it's a great choice and one you should seriously consider.

Highly customisable, tailored around you.

Flexible for both developers and authors.


Shopify is one of the best eCommerce platforms on the market today, designed to allow merchants to build and launch their online store, Shopify provides a great platform that's easily scalable to grow your business.

As you're dealing with sensitive customer information, your site needs to be fast, secure and always online. One of the big advantages of a hosted solution is the reliability it provides, meaning that all of your functionality comes to you from Shopify's servers. So you don't need to worry about installing software or buying web hosting, unlike a self-hosted WooCommerce website. 

Shopify will take care of all server maintenance and upgrades to keep your store and shopping cart available at all times, you don't get that with WooCommerce unless it's hosted through WordPress - even then, it's more susceptible to attack than Shopify.

Security & performance are much better than WooCommerce.

Another headless CMS alternative, Ghost is for businesses or individuals more focused on blogging. Ghost is a minimalistic blogging platform that lets you focus only on writing without distraction, the sole purpose of Ghost is to create a publishing platform.

Ghost comes with great SEO functionality built-in, so you don't need a plugin to optimise this like you would with WordPress. Other integrations are also available if you'd like to extend your content offering, for example, paid subscriptions can be activated easily through Ghost and integrated with Stripe.

Ghost is super lightweight and is available as hosted or self-hosted, just like WordPress. As Ghost runs on NodeJS, a modern technology stack, it is considerably quicker than WordPress - no need for boated plugins!

Interested in learning more about Ghost and why it's better than WordPress? Learn more about it here.

More affordable than a WordPress alternative.

So, do we still use WordPress? As a digital transformation agency, we are always looking to use the best technology for any given project. We want to offer our clients the best on the market, so we've explored many different ways of building websites and we've found that there are much better alternatives to WordPress. Not every website is the same, so we like to use different tech stacks and CMSs depending on the functionality required for each project.

While we always recommend any of the CMSs above over WordPress, we do occasionally use WordPress! Sometimes it's the ideal CMS for the job as a low cost, easy to use solution for a small business on a budget, or the client may prefer using it; but when we do use WordPress, there is no reliance on a plethora of plugins, we prefer custom-coded solutions as to not affect security or performance.

Regardless, a good CMS will enable you to build and manage a site that meets the needs of goals of your business over time. So whether you’re trying to generate brand awareness or convert visitors, any of the tools above will help you bring your business online. The key to selecting the right one for your brand is figuring out what you’re trying to achieve.

If you want something more or don't like WordPress for any of these reasons, here are some alternatives you should check out...

4 Best WordPress alternatives & why you should consider them

Monolithic CMS architecture has been the standard for years, but companies are now looking for increased security, performance and scalability provided by a headless CMS. Should you adopt this new approach to content management? Or stick with a monolithic system? Let’s dive right in and find out.

So, what is a headless cms? Well, the “head” relates to where your content ends up, and the “body” is where your content is stored and authored. A headless CMS is a type of content management system that provides an alternative to authoring content over a traditional monolithic CMS, the CMS or “body” is decoupled from the presentation layer “head”. Content that is stored in a headless CMS is delivered via APIs and can be displayed across different devices simultaneously. 

A monolithic or traditional CMS has to be self managed, or managed on a server environment. These sort of systems are called monolithic as they pack everything into a single system and only have one context for presenting content, this is usually a webpage; for example, a “What You See Is What You Get” type of interface. 

A Headless CMS can have content displayed across multiple devices and platforms at once, without the functionality and assumptions for how you want to work into a single system; giving you more freedom of choice.

There are so many benefits to choosing a Headless CMS over monolithic, here are a few:

The presentation layer is separated from the content meaning developer tools can be changed at any time, and benefit from sending your content to high-performance cloud-based hosting and build services like Vercel.

As mentioned above, your content is completely separate from the presentation layer so it’s a much smaller area of attack.

As a headless CMS doesn’t come bundled with unnecessary features or a requirement for plugins to do the most simple task, so it’s considerably faster than a monolithic CMS. Another added benefit to headless is the ability to create statically generated websites, meaning all the pages are created at build time; no database requests for visitors!

It's not very well known that Google uses page speed as a ranking factor for both desktop and mobile searches. 

Using the Google PageSpeed Insights tool you can test your website against many parameters including: 

The benefit of using headless CMS is that it would be hard not to score high with page speed providing the code structure and images are optimised correctly. 

Using our own website as an example, with Prismic for content management and React on the front end, our website loads super fast especially as our site is quite image-heavy. 

As content from a headless CMS is served over APIs, developers are not limited to what front end they can use. You can also change stacks completely without affecting the CMS. 


Headless CMSs are best used for websites and web apps, they integrate seamlessly with static-site generators like Gatsby and Next. Headless can also be implemented with eCommerce sites, for example, it’s possible to integrate headless content with Shopify, WooCommerce or SAP Hybris.

Conclusion - should you be using a headless CMS?

So, should you be using a headless CMS? Well, it depends on your project requirements. We’ve found that most websites can use a headless CMS over their current monolithic system, and the results are night and day; we even built our own website this way using Prismic as the CMS, speed, performance and content editing has improved immensely compared to our previous website using WordPress.

If you’re interested in using a headless CMS for your website? Set up a chat with our team today!

A headless CMS is a content management system that organises and manages content without a connected front end, this massively helps improve performance, security and scalability. 

Headless CMS: What is it and should my business use it? 

CCS Group is a commercial cleaning company focusing on the catering, medical and construction sectors. We provided marketing support, website development and lead generation to take their growth to the next level.
 

Grow online enquiries through various advertising campaigns.

Due to the number of specialist services that Cater-Clean Solutions provide, we decided to restructure the company into 3 sections, catering & food production, medical & emergency and construction cleaning. This meant we were required to create a sub-brand for each company along with its own website, along with the umbrella brand 'CCS Group'.

This enabled us to create more effective advertising campaigns which would have a higher conversion rate due to each brand being specialists in their own sector.

Our team undertook thorough competitor analysis testing cleaning business websites across a range of different browsers and devices. We then created an outline of the information we wish to present on each page and what key components and functionality will be required. We then presented wireframes for the new websites and group website and once these were approved we created the design for the homepage and internal pages.  

We created a WordPress Multisite network which is a version of WordPress that allows you to run multiple sites off a single installation of WordPress. This allowed us and the client to manage the content plugins and core theme files from a single login. 

We created ad group-specific landing pages with a strong CTA focus, such as positioning forms above the fold, clear contact and call buttons. This increased conversion rates across all ad groups which we ran to each specific service. In total there were 13 landing pages created. 

Prior to working with Folifi CCS Group had tried running Google ad campaigns before but were not seeing a positive ROI. Having a poor account structure, lack of negative keywords and uncontrolled bidding strategy can cost businesses money on irrelevant clicks especially cleaning businesses. 

We first installed conversion tracking across all 4 websites this way we can tracking which ads are leading to contract form submissions, phone calls or call back requests. This also helped us optimise the campaigns by split testing, turning off non-performing keywords and increasing budget in ones that were performing.

We worked on a series of Facebook interest targeting, lookalike and retargeting campaigns for the kitchen extract cleaning side of the business, using well-designed graphics, Facebook built-in lead forms and our conversion landing pages we were able to bring in a high-quality number of leads. 

They have played a pivotal role in the design, build and rollout of the new websites and brand image as well as offering comprehensive back-office support and lead generation.

A large increase in sales pipeline throughout the UK

Sector diversification providing further income streams

CCS Group is a commercial cleaning company focusing on the catering, medical and construction sectors.

Cleaning business marketing for CCS Group

Fast, Secure, and Cost-Effective Bespoke Recruitment Web Design.

We're a recruitment web design agency that design & build bespoke recruitment and staffing websites for organisations in the UK & USA.

Our talented and creative recruitment web design team work alongside you in collaboration to create a website that reflects your agency, has great functionality across latest devices, and is built with a search-first approach so you attract the right clients and candidates.

Jamstack is the modern approach to building fast, secure, and cost-effective recruitment websites. By decoupling the front of the website with the CMS, it opens up more integration possibilities, so you're not limited to where you can send or store your content.

Our website is built using a Jamstack approach, so you can see first hand how much quicker it is!

Craft is a wonderful CMS that enables us to build easy to manage websites, so our clients and can publish, edit and create content on the go.

Highly customisable, Craft is ideal for recruitment websites; managing and tracking applications, jobs, CVs, and more - there is little that can't be done with Craft as your CMS.

Built using a search-first approach, we utilise the latest technologies to create timeless designs and great recruitment websites.

We do! We’ll take a look at your current website and outline what we think needs improving, this then gives you the option to redesign your current site, or start from scratch.

Every website is different. Each brief we work on has different requirements that alter the specification of the job, once we've received a brief we can give you an indication of the cost and timescale.

We want to work with anyone of the same vision. If you understand the way we work, want to improve your website, and we're of mutual understanding - we'd love to work with you. As for the budget, the best way to find out if a project is possible is to let us know what your budget is! We can then advise the best way to allocate the budget.

We have a limited budget, will you still work with us?

Bespoke Recruitment Web Design Frequently Asked Questions

Universal Search Group, a global contract recruitment and executive search specialist, approached us because they were looking for a recruitment website that didn't follow the crowd - search-first, well designed and built to convert.

Contact our team of recruitment web design experts today

Read up on the latest news from our recruitment web design studio

With a wealth of experience in building websites, we're a recruitment web design agency that takes a search first approach - are you ready to make your next project a reality?

We're a digital agency that design & build bespoke recruitment and staffing websites for organisations in the UK & USA.

Recruitment Website Design | Recruiting Web Design | Folifi

We're a results-driven SEO agency based in Leeds that create relevant content to get your business noticed - we earn you links through high-quality coverage in the publications you want to be seen in. 

Have a new website that doesn't rank? Or An existing site that you need to improve rankings? We offer a range of SEO services to help your business. Starting with an SEO Audit, we'll analyse your website so we can advise on a content and marketing strategy that best suits your goals.

Drive your SEO strategy to help your business grow with our high-performance SEO services.

New WordPress website, combined with an SEO campaign, drives 86% increase in search engine visibility for Automotive Group.

Not ranking as well as you want? Our SEO Leeds team are ready to help.

We're an SEO agency with a wealth of experience in building & promoting websites - are you ready to make your next project a reality?

We're an SEO agency based in Leeds specialising in search campaigns for businesses in various industries, cover mobile SEO, technical SEO, local SEO, eCommerce SEO and more. Through high-quality, relevant content, we catapult your rankings to get you in front of your audience.

Technical SEO, Link Building, On-Site SEO or Off-Site SEO, your SEO campaign will have a bespoke strategy based upon research. As a results-driven SEO agency team based in Leeds, you'll have the confidence that we can make the necessary SEO improvements in conjunction with our web design team to ensure you get the best results.

If you want to have an online presence, you’ll need a great SEO strategy. The SEO strategy will enable the business to reach their target audience and turn visitors into customers. As both on-site and off-site SEO are strategised from the outset, the website will have a high quality code-base and structure that search engines approve of. 

SEO is super important if your website is used to generate business, whether that be selling services or products, locally or nationally - you can't not think about SEO. Our Leeds based SEO team have extensive experience managing SEO campaigns for businesses looking to outrank competitors and compete in search engines for relevant search terms. 

SEO Agency based in Leeds with over 10 years experience in Search Engine Optimisation - we're a results-driven SEO Agency that create high quality SEO campaigns. 

Increase the visibility of your website in search engines to increase traffic and revenue.

We're a passionate web design agency based in Leeds with a wealth of industry experience in building websites that not only look great, but attract your desired customers.

No matter your business, our creative web design team will work with you to create a site that reflects your brand and fulfils your ambitions.

Creative web design agency that doesn't "just" build really good websites.

We understand all aspects of a successful website, from wireframing and design, through development and launch, to crafting a content strategy and a great SEO campaign. We tailor our services to serve each client as best as possible, we're the digital partner you've been looking for. 

We're a team of web design experts that help you design and build a website to be proud of.

Some of the exciting projects we've worked on for some wonderful clients.

With a wealth of experience in building websites, we're a web design agency that takes a search first approach - are you ready to make your next project a reality? 

We're a web design agency based in Leeds, working with clients in the UK and USA,  helping them with everything digital, including hosting and security, maintenance and support. This means you have a single point of contact for all of your website needs, so you know that your website will be up-to-date and well supported round the clock.

At the beginning of every website we build, our web design team take time to map out the project, starting with architecture, wireframes and user flow. Our web designers, using Figma and other design tools, will then gradually progress with the prototype to create a final design to be handed over to our web developers once approved by the client. 

Once approved, our web development team in Leeds start creating the new website. Depending on the scope, level of complexity and technology, this can take a few weeks or months.

When the website is finished by our developers, it’s then put into a review and quality assurance stage. Here, our QA team “stress test” the website to make sure there are no bugs, leaks or issues with it. The web development team then resolve any of these before the website is handed over to the client for a further round of testing and approval prior to launch.

When the design and development of a website is complete, the website is then handed over to the client for review and to add their content, we often add content in if a content strategy has also been created.

Once content and review is all signed off, the website can be made live! This is when our crack SEO team get to work on the visibility of the website based on recommendations found in an SEO audit and strategy that would have been done prior to the website going live. 

When live, our clients elect us to maintain and support their website going forward, so they can continue to succeed online. 

We're a web design Leeds based agency with a wealth of industry experience in building websites that not only look great, but are built to convert.

Make your website functional and attractive, it's the most important marketing tool you have.

We're a Shopify agency based in Leeds helping brands design, develop and optimise outstanding Shopify websites all over the world. From creating new websites from scratch or optimising existing ones to increase website performance and sales our specialist Shopify team can do it all. 

Impress your customers with a beautiful store.

If you're looking to revamp your existing store, or start a store from scratch, we're here to help you along the way and get you selling online; we give you all the features you need with none of the hassle, so you can impress your customers with a beautifully designed and easy-to-manage store. 

All the eCommerce features you want with none of the hassle, that's Shopify.

A new identity and Shopify website for V&F Home, curators of beautiful and unique home accessories and furnishings that stand out from the bland at affordable prices.

With a wealth of experience in building Shopify websites, we're a Shopify agency in Leeds that takes a search first approach - are you ready to make your next project a reality? 

Shopify Agency Leeds | Shopify Developers | Folifi

We're a Shopify agency from Leeds that specialise in delivering Shopify eCommerce solutions which outperform expectations across eCommerce strategy, Shopify development, Shopify design, and Shopify SEO.

Our Shopify developers can build you a website from scratch, modify an existing theme, or create an custom app to improve your store; it's never been easier or faster to scale your eCommerce business thanks to Shopify.

Our dedicated Shopify agency team can build you a fully functional custom Shopify eCommerce website in as little as a few weeks.

Sell products to your customers through the best eCommerce platform around, Shopify.

Our PPC agency team based in Leeds sets you up to advertise on the most powerful search and display platform - Google Ads. We help businesses make more money through smarter Google Ads Management.

By blending data analysis, creativity, psychology and great website design, we offer our clients a truly unique managed Google Ads service.

The fastest ways to drive high quality traffic to your website.

Google Ads offers a measurable and trackable solution. By using this service in combination with Google Analytics, you can clearly see what was spent and, more importantly, what it drove in terms of conversions and results. You’ll see high-level account activity details which are vital when looking to learn and continuously improve in order to drive performance forwards.

154% increase in conversions through PPC and CRO for a UK based heating engineer.

Get in touch with our PPC agency Leeds team today.

No matter your ad budget, our PPC agency Leeds team are ready to work with you.

PPC Agency Leeds | Pay Per Click Agency | Google Ads Agency

We're a digital agency based in Leeds that run successful PPC campaigns for companies across various different industries. With a wide range of different budgets, from as little as £350 all the way up to £600,000, our team of PPC experts ensure your Google Ad campaigns are well optimised and generate conversions from desired keywords.

Unlike other PPC Agencies, our sole focus is on Google Ads; we don't manage social media campaigns. With years of experience under our belts, we stick to what we're best at with the results to show for it! No matter if you’re completely new to Google Ads or you've been running them a while, we work with you to create some key performance metrics, and build or tweak campaigns that are focused on achieving your goals.

We're a PPC agency based in Leeds specialising in Google Ad campaigns. We help businesses make more money through smarter Google Ads Management.

The fastest way to drive high quality traffic to your website.

We analyse your website to understand what your visitors are looking for, this allows us to improve user experience, value proposition and design to make your website more intuitive and persuasive using A/B testing and user testing to evaluate impact.

By investing in CRO services, and optimising your website, you can make your existing traffic work harder. We work with you to discover parts of your website where you may be losing traffic and run tests to find ways to improve them, helping to maximise the return on your marketing spend!

We're a team of CRO experts that help you maximise your website's performance. 

With a wealth of experience in conversion rate optimisation, we help you increase your revenue.

CRO Agency based in Leeds | Conversion Rate Optimisation Services

We're a CRO agency based in Leeds and we make your existing traffic deliver better results with our conversion rate optimisation services.

What does a CRO agency actually do? Well, by optimising your website we make your existing traffic work harder, that allows your users to convert more easily.

We analyse how your audience is interacting with your website, create tailored features to meet the needs of the audience and convert them into customers.

Creating tailored features to meet the needs of your audience to convert them into customers.

Fast, Secure, and Cost-Effective Bespoke Recruitment Web Design.

Built using a search-first approach, we utilise the latest technologies to create timeless designs and great recruitment websites.

Jamstack

Craft

Bespoke Recruitment Web Design Frequently Asked Questions

Do you redesign existing websites?

How much does a website cost?

We have a limited budget, will you still work with us?

Contact our team of recruitment web design experts today

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PPC Management

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Cleaning business marketing for CCS Group

With a wealth of experience in building websites, we're a recruitment web design agency that takes a search first approach - are you ready to make your next project a reality?