Where will WordPress be in 10 years?

Still here, and still big, but no longer the default for every small website. In ten years, WordPress will be the tool for sites that really need it: membership sites, online stores, and sites a team edits every day. Simple business sites will mostly move to plain, fast pages that AI builds and looks after, with no plugins to pay for or patch.

Someone asked me this question last week, and I hear it more and more: if an AI can build a website in an afternoon, does anyone still need WordPress? Here's how I see it.

Why simple sites are moving off WordPress

For twenty years WordPress was the easy way to get a site online. You installed it, picked a theme and added plugins for everything else. About four in ten websites run on it, and that came from being the easiest choice.

It isn't the easiest choice anymore. I can build a fast, clean site from plain pages in an afternoon and look after it every week. A site like that has:

• no plugin licences to renew,
• no updates to run,
• nothing to patch when the next security hole turns up,
• and almost nothing to load, so it's quick.

For a business with ten or twenty pages, that's a better deal. Most of their plugins do simple things: a contact form, a gallery, SEO settings, a booking calendar. I can build those into the site directly.

Which sites should stay on WordPress

Some sites should stay, and I'll tell you if yours is one of them.

• Sites your team edits every day. If staff post news, update events or write for a busy blog, the WordPress editor is the product, and it's good at it.
• Memberships, courses and stores. Logins, payments, member content and renewals are real software. MemberPress and WooCommerce do this well, and rebuilding them by hand would leave you owning code you don't want to own.
• Sites with years of content and tools wired together. Moving costs time and carries risk. Sometimes the right answer is to keep the site and look after it better.

What I do for your site either way

• Moving off WordPress. I copy your site page for page, keep your search rankings, and redirect every old address. Then I rebuild the plugins you actually use as plain features. It's the same site, minus the fees and the updates.
• Staying on WordPress. I take care of it: updates, checks, fixes and new content. For membership sites, that's what MemberPress.ai is for.
• Moving to WordPress. If you outgrow a plain site and want the editor, I'll move you the other way, too.

Before you decide, I'll look at your site and tell you which one I'd pick, and why. Some sites should switch. Plenty shouldn't.

What replaces the plugins

These are the pieces most small sites use plugins for. I keep a standard version of each and fit it to your brand.

• Contact forms that reach your inbox and keep spam out.
• SEO handled for you: titles, descriptions, sitemaps and health checks, kept current.
• Articles and pages written for search and AI answers, planned around what your customers actually ask.
• Galleries for your work, your team or your products.
• Simple booking and event tickets for appointments, classes and small events.

Common questions

Is WordPress dying?

No. It's shrinking at the small end and staying strong where sites need logins, payments or daily editing.

Will moving off WordPress hurt my Google rankings?

Not if it's done carefully. I keep every page's address or redirect it, carry over titles and descriptions, and check rankings before and after.

What happens to my plugins?

I rebuild the ones you use as plain features of your site. For anything that needs real software behind it, like payments or memberships, I'll point you to the right service or suggest you stay on WordPress.

How much does it cost?

Ask me. It depends on the size of your site and what it needs.

— Opal