By far the most popular website publishing platform, WordPress powers 32% of the world’s websites. WordPress’ dominance is a result of its adaptability, and the fact it can serve as the backend for many online solutinos.
- Stand-alone web pages
- Landing pages
- Simple brochure websites
- Lead-generation websites
- Scheduling websites
- Membership websites
- Ecommerce websites
- Standard blogs
- Limitless combinations of the above
WordPress core software is free and open source available to all. It provides the bare bones for any kind of website one can dream up.
As for management, WordPress is not difficult. At the same time, should something go wrong, novices can quickly encounter confusion when it comes to taking care of the platform’s auxiliary parts, namely the theme and an assortment of plugins.
There are many reasons that WordPress is a superior platform to other options.
- Widely supported
- Built on common technology (PHP, MySQL, Javascript)
- Choice of web host
- Choice of web designer / developer / marketer
- Functionality and enhancements through plugins
- Built For SEO
- Fully customizable themes
- Free core software
- Multiple contributors, event customizable levels of permissions
- Trouble-free ecommerce integration with WooCommerce
- Membership opportunities
- Integrates with countless third-party systems (Facebook, Instagram, ActiveCampaign, MailChimp, etc.)
WordPress Is Widely Supported
Many web hosts also have helpful WordPress support pages, which include specific tips about dealing with the parts of WordPress that interact with the web host’s infrastructure.
You Can Choose a Web Host
Choosing your own host also means you can shift providers and/or hosting plans as the traffic and storage demands on your site increase.
Premium hosting becomes more critical…
Plugins Add Functionality and Enhancements
The jewel in WordPress’ crown is the wealth of plugins it offers, which enhance the functionality of users’ sites. Most WordPress installs come with an anti-comment spam plugin already installed, while you can add features such as Jetpack for website performance and statistics.
Other favorites include plugins to add user registration (for sites that want to include visitor memberships), ecommerce support in order to sell items online, VaultPress for automated backups, and MailChimp for adding a newsletter subscription form to your site. There are thousands of free and freemium WordPress plugins, as well as paid plugins from private companies and independent developers.
WordPress Is Built for SEO
WordPress is already primed for search engine optimization (SEO). Plugins, however, can further enhance your site’s search engine chances. A popular choice is Yoast, which can analyze a new post’s SEO and help you improve the likelihood of better results from Google and other search engines. Yoast even has an extensive guide on its website, guiding you through the process of improving your entire WordPress site’s SEO.
There are also many other plugins you can use besides Yoast to up your SEO game. Google XML Sitemaps, for example, creates a sitemap in the XML markup language to make your site more readable by Google.
Customizable Themes
A new WordPress installation will begin with a bare site design. It features a simple site title, a sample blog post, a comments section, a post archive section, and a few other parts. Suffice to say, very few people leave their WordPress site as is, because it’s too generic.
That’s where themes come in. Themes are one-click solutions that completely overhaul the look of your site. They are also customizable, meaning you can personalize your chosen theme to separate it from the hordes of other users who liked the same design.
There are numerous free themes, and a fresh WordPress install comes with a few basic choices. WordPress also features a theme marketplace right inside the CMS, while numerous web designers will offer their services to create a custom theme that’s to your specifications.
WordPress Is Free
WordPress offers tons of support options, more customizability than you could hope for, and heaps of website tools via plugins. It’s an incredible system, and the basic platform is one hundred percent free in two very important ways.
First, WordPress is open source software, meaning anyone can look at its source code. In fact, anyone who has the knowledge and ability could also modify it if they wished, and redistribute the source code on their own. While most people won’t even bother to look at the code, the fact that anyone can read and discover flaws helps make WordPress more secure, and encourages the platform to add new features.
On top of that, WordPress won’t cost you a penny, with no one-time or monthly fees required to install the platform. You just download it, and it’s yours.
Most Web Hosts Offer One-Click Installs
Most web hosts (such as Bluehost and HostGator) offer one-click installs, making it very easy to get started with your new site. You’ll still need to spend time tweaking your theme and installing plugins, but getting up and running is relatively quick and easy.
You can find one-click WordPress installs on most major web hosts, as well as specialized VPS providers such as Digital Ocean. However, before you sign up, make sure that a one-click WordPress install is available. Otherwise, you’ll be stuck prepping your own LAMP stack, as well as setting up your own MySQL database.
Multiple Users Can Contribute to a Website
If you want multiple users updating a website, adding new users is easy as pie. You just open up the WordPress CMS, go to the Users section, and add a new user. These people then get their own username and password, which administrators can suspend or delete if necessary. You can also assign users specific roles, such as Contributor, Author, Editor, or Administrator.
For most people, Contributor is probably the best option to use. It allows others to contribute their own posts, but they cannot delete them, nor can they publish them. That will mean extra work for the administrator or editor, but it’s better than giving people permissions they don’t need.
The Cool Kids Use It
WordPress isn’t just for people trying to start up a fanfic website or an Etsy side business. It’s also a popular choice for celebs – superstars including Katy Perry, Snoop Dogg, and Chris Brown are all rocking WordPress sites, while if music stars aren’t your thing, chess legend Garry Kasparov is also a fan.
Seriously, though. Copying superstars is not a reason to opt for WordPress, but it does show that even people with major audiences are happy to use it.
