Why we chose WordPress
So you need a website. You are probably weighing all your options on what platform to use—there are so many possibilities these days. You may tell your friends you are thinking about using WordPress and they may say, “Isn’t that a blogging site?” Actually, it’s so much more. WordPress, although it may have started as a blogging platform, has evolved into a content management system. In a recent survey, WordPress has been found to be used on almost 30% of all websites. Here are 8 reasons why we use WordPress to design all our client sites, and why they thank us for it!
- Flexibility: In my opinion, WordPress is the most flexible platform with over 52,000 plugins, an extensive number of themes available and its ability to integrate with most tools like PayPal, MailChimp and others. It’s easily, dare I say, the most versatile platform. Not only that, but you can still use HTML and CSS until your heart’s content.
- User-Friendly: Our clients are typically small businesses, so although they don’t have time/knowledge to create their own website, they usually want the ability to make small text or image edits or additions and add blogs on their own. After a quick 1 – 2 hour tutorial with them, they feel very comfortable with making their own edits. Its possible to customize colors, design and even features with the right theme and you don’t need to be a developer! In fact, you don’t need to know how to code at all. All the settings you need to style your site are provided in a control panel within the WordPress dashboard and its interface is very simple to figure out. The best part, they never have to write code! Editing text in WordPress is as easy as using Word.
- To Code or Not to Code: In the world of website design, WordPress tops my list for ease of use while still having robust functionality. On the other hand, if you are a dabbler of code or an expert, you can customize the theme however you desire.
- Support Community: WordPress has a very well-maintained support forum which contains a massive community of active users and developers. If you search, chances are you will find an answer to your question (usually, several). And if you don’t it’s easy to add your inquiry to the mix and get some great feedback from the community. There are also a number of “unofficial” WordPress forums run by developers where you can post questions and find great solutions. There are also many resources out there for beginners. Here is a link to my favorite.
- Open Source: Did you know the WordPress platform is not only open source but free, as well? Open source means the original source code is publicly available, has the freedom to be modified, built upon and redistributed. So how do people make money with it? That’s where the hosting and domain come in, as well as purchasing a theme and possibly plugins (some themes and plugins are free to use) to get you started. However, these costs are minimal.
- Search Engine Friendly: WordPress is very friendly when it comes to Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It’s written using standard compliance high-quality code and procedures semantic mark up, which is a fancy way of saying it’s like candy for search engines. For the most part, it has a fast loading speed, it’s easy to create and submit a sitemap, social media integration is easy…the list goes on. If you want to give your site a little boost, here is my favorite SEO Plugin!
- Responsive: A responsive website means the design will work across all devices whether it’s a smartphone, computer or tablet. WordPress allows you to build custom themes and many themes are responsive out of the box. Before purchasing a theme, make sure that it’s responsive.
- Safe and Secure: Let’s face it—the internet can be a scary and uncertain place. WordPress has regular updates that are focused on strongly protecting you from hackers looking for loopholes to get into the site. There are also several ways you can add security to your site, such as limiting logins, 2-factor authentication and security plugins (including firewalls).
Bonus Reason: The Queen B herself Beyonce uses WordPress… just sayin‘.
To see how other top businesses use WordPress, check out the WordPress Showcase site.