Since WordPress first arrived on the scene in 2003, it has evolved from a blogging platform to a full-blown website development and content management system. In fact, an estimated 30% of all websites, including big name brands like CNN and eBay, are built on WordPress. It certainly has come a long way.
If you are researching your website options or looking to switch platforms, you should be considering using WordPress. Here are seven advantages it can offer you:
1) WordPress is easy to use
With WordPress, you can build a website without knowing any coding languages. The platform is easy to install and all customization and content management can be handled through the WordPress dashboard simply by logging on via a web browser. You can add posts, pages and media with a few clicks and customize the appearance of the site on the fly.
Even though WordPress’s original content editor was simple enough to use, Automattic – the company behind WordPress – have recently made things even more intuitive by switching to the block-based Gutenberg editor.
2) WordPress is great for SEO
Having a superb looking website is not going to get you anywhere if it doesn’t rank well on the search engine results pages (SERPs). Fortunately for WordPress users, the clean and simple code is search engine friendly and Google have even gone so far as to recommend WordPress as a website platform.
Even better, you can fine tune your search engine optimization (SEO) through the freemium Yoast SEO plugin. Yoast packs in plenty of useful features, even in the free tier. Webmasters can set individual meta titles and descriptions per page and post; analyze pages for keyword optimization and even check that their content passes readability metrics.
3) WordPress can be whatever you want it to be
Unlike many website platforms, the WordPress codebase is open source. This means that anyone can use and modify the code for their own purposes. This has led to the growth of a huge community of talented WordPress developers and the creation of high quality free WordPress themes and plugins to suit any industry and design spec. From real estate websites and eCommerce stores to artist portfolios and non-profit sites, there is bound to be an industry specialist out there who can help you create a suitable WordPress website. Or you can browse for a theme yourself and do it all for free.
Having an open source platform also means you can more easily move your website files from one host to another without being restricted by intellectual property disputes.
4) WordPress is mobile responsive
More people now connect to the internet via mobile devices than through laptops or desktop computers. Businesses have had to adapt by creating separate mobile versions of their websites or recoding their sites to be ‘responsive’ – adapting to the screen size of the device and browser being used.
All WordPress sites are automatically responsive so you can be sure that your website looks as good (and functions as well) on a smartphone as it does on a bigger screen.
5) WordPress has a built in blog
WordPress may have developed from its early days as a blogging platform but it hasn’t forgotten its roots! By selecting the relevant options, the home page of your website can be converted into a blog format. Alternatively, you can dedicate a separate page as a standard blog.
6) WordPress offers thousands of themes and plugins – many for free
One of the most impressive things about WordPress is the ability to drastically alter how the platform looks and works via themes and plugins. Themes are customized WordPress website templates while plugins are modules which can extend the functionality of a website. If none of the themes in the WordPress repository are suitable, there are many more free and premium WordPress themes available through specialist WordPress theme vendors.
7) WordPress can grow with your business
WordPress posts and pages are stored as database objects which means that the size of your website is practically unlimited. It is possible to host hundreds of thousand of pages without affecting performance.
Final thoughts
As you can see, building your website on the WordPress platform makes a lot of sense and we haven’t even mentioned one of the biggest advantages of all –
WordPress is absolutely free!
About the Author
Maruti Makwana is a co-founder of Fortune-Creations who offers a premium WordPress themes. His design skills cover investigating client requirements, identifying best user practices in emerging market environments, conceptualization and development of web page designs, user interfaces (UI) designs, and other custom built design solutions as per the business domain. Twitter: @FCThemeDesigns
