I’ve been using WordPress as the foundation of my website projects for many years now. It’s a good fit for me and my clients for reasons that I’ll get into later in this article, but first, let’s look at some WordPress stats^*:

• 35% of websites are built on WordPress
• Over 500 new websites are built on WordPress daily
• WordPress powers almost 15% of the world’s top 100 websites
• Almost 6 million sites on the internet use WordPress

These numbers are really eye-opening. They display just how much of a major player WordPress is on the internet. But why? What makes so many website designers and developers gravitate to this platform?

First, let me say that in this article I’m describing the wordpress.org platform. There is also a wordpress.com platform, which is a hosting service for WordPress sites. WordPress.com is more of a plug-and-play solution, but has a ton of limitations which I covered in another article: WordPress.com or WordPress.org: Which is Better?

4 Benefits of WordPress

Ease of use

WordPress is very easy to use. The content management system (CMS) is easy to navigate, so at a glance you can easily find your website pages, your blog posts, and your image and document library. You can easily adjust the appearance of the website, manage comments that are posted to a page or blog post, and add additional functionality. And adding content to a post or page is simple. If you can write and send an email, then you can add content, format it, and publish it on WordPress. WordPress uses the same visual editor and formatting tools that you would find in Outlook or gmail.

Open-Source Functionality Plugins

WordPress is open-source software, which means that the basic code foundation is open and available for anyone to study and use. This enables software developers, code geniuses, and computer geeks to use that code to create additional functionality. This functionality can range from search engine optimization help, to cool visual effects to add to your homepage, and everything in between. This functionality comes in the form of a “plugin,” which is code that you simply install on your website and then activate for use.

Resources/Support on the Internet

The immense popularity of WordPress means that any problem you have has probably already been encountered by someone, and any question that you have has probably been asked and answered. A search about your problem/question on your favorite search engine will likely bring up many search results serving up answers or solutions, many of them provided in layman’s terms.

The Price Is Right

WordPress is free. It costs nothing, and updates and software patches cost nothing. Which is pretty great. Not sure what else I can add to that.

So those are the reasons I use WordPress in my web design business. It has been a fantastic website launching pad for me and my clients. I hope you’ll reach out to me and we can use WordPress to build an amazing website.

*Statistics courtesy of wpclipboard.com