AgilePress

Tag: Performance

  • The Page Builder Trap: Why We Said Goodbye to Elementor and Divi

    If you ask 10 WordPress agencies for a quote, 8 of them will propose a website built with Elementor, Divi, or WPBakery.

    It is easy to see why. These tools are visual, they allow for rapid prototyping, and they lower the barrier to entry for designers who don’t know how to code. For the agency, it is profitable: they can drag-and-drop a site together in a few days.

    But at AgilePress, we don’t build for our convenience. We build for your long-term success.

    And that is why we have banned heavy page builders from our development stack. Here is why reliance on these tools is a business risk.

    The Performance Penalty (DOM Bloat)

    Page builders work by wrapping content in layers of code. To display a simple headline, a builder like Elementor might wrap the text in a section, a column, a widget, and an inner-section.

    This creates what developers call Excessive DOM Size.

    Instead of clean HTML, your browser has to render thousands of nested tags.

    • The Result: Slower rendering times, lower scores on Google Core Web Vitals, and a sluggish experience on mobile devices.
    • The AgilePress Way: We use native WordPress blocks. If we need a headline, we render a headline. No wrappers, no bloat, just the code required to show the content.

    The “Shortcode Graveyard” (Vendor Lock-in)

    This is the most dangerous trap for a business owner.

    Page builders often store your content inside proprietary “shortcodes.” If you build your site with Divi or WPBakery today, and two years from now you decide to switch themes or uninstall the plugin, your content disappears.

    Instead of your beautiful text, you will see a mess like this: [vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]...[/vc_column_text][/vc_row]

    This is called Vendor Lock-in. You are held hostage by the software. To leave, you have to rebuild your website from scratch.

    AgilePress builds natively. We use the standard WordPress Block Editor (Gutenberg). This means your content is stored as clean HTML. If you stop working with us, or if you change your theme, your content remains perfectly readable and editable. You own your data, not the plugin developer.

    The Security and Maintenance Headache

    A page builder is a massive piece of software sitting on top of WordPress. It introduces:

    1. More Attack Vectors: Popular builders are frequent targets for hackers because they are installed on millions of sites.
    2. Dependency Hell: When WordPress releases a major update, you have to wait for the page builder to update. If they break compatibility, your site breaks.

    By removing this massive dependency, we reduce the surface area for bugs. We rely on WordPress Core, which is maintained by the best engineers in the world.

    The Future is Native (Gutenberg)

    Years ago, page builders were necessary because the default WordPress editor was too simple. That is no longer true.

    With Full Site Editing (FSE) and the modern Block Editor, WordPress now offers a powerful, visual way to build layouts natively.

    • It is faster.
    • It is built into the core (no extra plugins).
    • It is the standard that every future WordPress update will support.

    Using Elementor in the era of modern WordPress is like installing a separate operating system on top of Windows just to open a folder. It’s redundant and resource-heavy.

    Conclusion: Engineering vs. Assembling

    There is a place for page builders. If you are a DIY hobbyist building a personal blog on a Sunday afternoon, they are great tools.

    But for a professional business website where ROI, speed, and longevity matter, they are a liability.

    At AgilePress, we don’t just assemble parts. We engineer solutions using the native power of WordPress. It takes more skill on our end, but it delivers a faster, safer, and more profitable asset for you.

  • SEO Without Steroids: Why We Choose The SEO Framework Over Yoast

    If you have managed a WordPress site in the last decade, you know the drill. You install an SEO plugin, and suddenly your dashboard lights up like a Christmas tree.

    Banners asking you to upgrade to Premium. Notifications about Black Friday sales. A sidebar menu with 15 sub-items. And, of course, the obsessive “traffic light” system judging every sentence you write.

    At AgilePress, we refuse to work this way.

    We believe that SEO tools should be invisible infrastructure, not a billboard inside your website. That is why, for 90% of our projects, we choose The SEO Framework (or Slim SEO) over the industry giants like Yoast or Rank Math.

    Here is why “boring” and lightweight is better for your business.

    1. The “Green Light” Fallacy

    The most popular feature of Yoast and Rank Math is the content analysis tool—the famous green, orange, and red lights.

    It is also the most dangerous.

    It gamifies writing. It trains site owners to write for a robot, not for humans. We have seen countless clients destroy perfectly good copy because they were trying to force a keyword into the first paragraph to get a “Green Light.”

    Google does not rank you based on a plugin’s traffic light. Google ranks high-quality content that solves a user’s intent.

    The SEO Framework removes this distraction. It handles the critical metadata (titles, descriptions, Open Graph tags, canonicals) perfectly, and then it gets out of your way. It allows you to focus on creating content for your customers, not for a checklist.

    2. Performance: Stop Paying the “Bloat Tax”

    The giants of the WordPress SEO market have become software suites in their own right. They load heavy CSS and JavaScript files on your backend (slowing down your editing experience) and often inject unnecessary code into the frontend (slowing down your site for visitors).

    In contrast, The SEO Framework is built on a strict philosophy of efficiency:

    • No database bloat: It doesn’t create custom tables that linger even after you uninstall the plugin.
    • No frontend footprint: It doesn’t leave “Powered by” comments or aggressive branding in your source code.
    • Faster admin: It uses native WordPress interface guidelines. It feels like part of the core software, not a third-party app hijacking your screen.

    In the AgilePress philosophy, every millisecond counts. We cannot justify a plugin that adds weight when a lighter alternative exists.

    3. The “Silent” Admin Experience

    Your WordPress dashboard is a workspace. It should be clean, focused, and professional.

    When you log into an AgilePress site, you won’t see advertisements. You won’t see “upsell” notices.

    • Yoast/Rank Math: their business model relies on converting free users to paid users via constant in-dashboard marketing.
    • The SEO Framework: It is free, open-source, and white-label by design. It respects your screen real estate.

    For our clients, this means less confusion (“What is this error message? Do I need to pay for this?“) and a more professional feel.

    4. Intelligent Automation

    Minimalism doesn’t mean “less capable.” It means “less manual work.”

    We prefer The SEO Framework because it automates the tedious parts of technical SEO intelligently. It generates titles and descriptions based on your content automatically, protects you from duplicate content attacks, and sets up your sitemap without you having to configure 50 different toggles.

    It follows the “Decisions, not Options” philosophy that made WordPress great in the first place.

    The Verdict

    We do not choose tools based on popularity or download counts. We choose tools based on ROI and Performance.

    While Yoast and Rank Math are powerful tools with their own place in the market, for the high-performance, minimalist websites we build at AgilePress, they are overkill.

    We choose The SEO Framework because it respects your server resources, it respects your writers, and it respects your wallet.

    Minimalist SEO. Maximum visibility.