If you’re looking to have a website built, you probably realized that there is one name that keeps popping up – WordPress. As the most popular CMS (content management system) in the world, many of the biggest blogs and websites are powered by WordPress.
But why?
There are several advantages to using WordPress, and you may not recognize them unless you’re a web developer or web designer. Most website owners don’t worry about the intricacies behind their website; they just want it to work.
It’s Open Source and Free
WordPress is open source and free. Being open source, the source code itself is available to developers. Continuously updated, when you use WordPress, you’ll know that the world’s best developers have a chance to look at the source code to make it more secure, optimized for speed, and ensuring best practices were taken when coding the platform.
Larger websites, like eBay, will use their own proprietary platform. This is a platform designed specifically for a particular website. If you don’t know how to update your website or your main developer leaves the project, it’s a lot harder to maintain and update a proprietary platform. This means that you’ll spend more money, time and resources on your website.
And, most websites don’t require such a costly yet robust platform.
WordPress is completely free, and you’ll notice, as I will mention shortly, that you can do virtually anything with WordPress. From e-commerce to a simple blog, WordPress can do it all.
WordPress is Great for SEO
When building your own website, you need to think about search engine optimization. This allows your website to be found on Google, Yahoo and Bing. WordPress allows you to easily SEO your domain.
This is mainly done using one of the many plug-ins available to you as a WordPress user.
You’ll find several tools at your disposal that will allow you to follow the best SEO practices, such as:
You can also choose a caching system that will ensure your website loads quickly for both search engines and your users.
You Can Extend WordPress
WordPress can be extended through plug-ins, which we’ll cover shortly, and can be extended in other ways. You probably already know that WordPress is the leading platform for bloggers. But WordPress can also be used for e-commerce, membership sites, image galleries and virtually any other website type you can think of.
For example, you may use WooCommerce to add a store to your blog. This plug-in extends the capability of WordPress so that you can sell your own products on your website. And, you will still have all of the functionality of WordPress to create pages or blog posts.
WordPress is an all-in-one solution for your website needs.
WordPress is Secure
WordPress is very secure. You’ll notice that it’s updated frequently and there are many plug-ins that you can download to further enhance your security. As a website owner, this allows you comfort in knowing that your website is always secure for you and your visitors.
You won’t need to worry about data breaches or your website being hacked. While it can happen, it is less likely due to the frequent updates to WordPress.
If you have proprietary software, it may not be updated resulting in a major data breach.
The ability to use a platform that’s used by millions of people allows you to use a trusted, tested and always updated software without having to pay a dime. It’s the right choice for security, and the availability of security-related plug-ins is massive.
Plugins to Customize Your Website
The use of plug-ins cannot be underrated as a web designer or website owner. Plug-ins allow you to extend the core functionality of WordPress. If you want to add social buttons to your blog post, all it takes is for you to download a plug-in to add this functionality to your website. And, most of these plug-ins are free.
If you don’t find a plug-in for the functionality you want, you can have it created.
It allows you to use all of the core functionality and security that is built into WordPress, and build on it. This is where the true power of WordPress exists. You’ll find plug-ins that allow you to easily integrate Google analytics, or plug-ins that will help you combat spam, such as Akismet.
In terms of rapid development, WordPress allows you to get a website up and running as fast as possible.
Thousands of Templates
There are two types of templates available for WordPress: free and paid. The free templates are not the most aesthetically pleasing, but they have been improved in recent years. From a business standpoint, it’s more practical to pay to have a WordPress theme either created or to buy a pre-existing theme. There are thousands of high quality, professional themes that can be downloaded and installed directly on your website. And, many of these themes are used by the world’s biggest brands – they’re professional and affordable.
The final advantage is one of the most important: WordPress is very simple to use. Not only is the CMS intuitive, but there is a lot of documentation available to you that enables you to learn the WordPress platform without the technical jargon that complicates content management systems.
Here at Elev8 Media we give people the option of using a WordPress theme or us creating a custom WordPress website from scratch.