Strategy | WordPress | 02.19.2019

12 Benefits of Using WordPress

On the fence with what CMS (content management system) to use with for your website? Considering WordPress but not sure if it’s the right fit?

Well, I’ll get right into it. Here are 12 benefits of using WordPress for your organization’s website.

1. WordPress has Market Share

Have you heard the rumors that WordPress is just for “blogging websites”? While this may have been true a decade ago, this understanding of WordPress is completely false. In fact, of the top 100K websites in the world, Builtwith shows that WordPress owns about 28% of the market.

Why does this matter? Well, because it creates other benefits of WordPress (like support) that I’ll talk about more down the list.

2. WordPress is Widely Supported by Agencies

Another great benefit of WordPress, because of it’s market share, is that many, many, many agencies providing professional web design services use WordPress to develop their client websites; or have at least used in the past. Now, don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t mean that all agencies will do an amazing job with WordPress, but at least you aren’t having to travel far and wide to find someone who can help.

Additionally, there are great resources out there like Codeable for finding a WordPress developer in a pinch.

For best results, I would try and find a web design agency that specializes exclusively in WordPress.

 

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3. Great Hosting Options

As WordPress has evolved over the years, a few great hosting providers have decided to specialize specifically in WordPress. For instance, WPEngine, as its name suggests, does precisely this and their offering is amazing.

Whenever a business chooses to niche it makes it easier for them to become superior in their market. WPEngine is one of the best options on the market for WordPress hosting simply because they made their business much simpler by not hosting other platforms. Here are some features I love about WPEngine:

  • Automatic daily backups with one-click restore
  • Incredible security – they’ll even notify you if any of the plugins your website is using have known vulnerabilities. It’s easier for them to keep their hosting secure because they really know the WordPress platform.
  • Speed – with WordPress being their only platform, WPEngine has been able to hyperfocus on speed and even has caching software ready to use out of the box

4. Over 54,000 Plugins – A Great Benefit of WordPress

No, that’s not a typo. A huge benefit of using WordPress is that the platform has over 54,000 plugins that can range from simple feature enhancers to full-fledged applications that can help you run your website and your business.

Though you’ll want to be choosey – i.e. use the most reputable and supported companies – a few strategic plugins could save you thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars by not having to develop custom solutions.

[blog_related url=”https://www.jordancrown.com/blog/how-to-select-great-wordpress-plugins/” label=”How to Select Great WordPress Plugins”]

5. WordPress Theme Options

In addition to plugins, WordPress has thousands and thousands of themes. In fact on Theme Forest alone, WordPress has over 11,500 themes for purchase. For companies that are strapped on cash, themes can be a great way to save money while getting a website that can meet their requirements.

While saving money in the early stages of your business can be super beneficial, themes certainly come with limitations. Because they’re made for mass consumption, it can be hard to get the exact look you’re going after. It can also be challenging to get the right features you’re needing without patching together a hodgepodge of plugins.

For companies with cash to invest, I’d suggest more of the custom route that I’ll describe next.

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6. You Can Create Custom Themes on WordPress

In addition to purchasing a theme, organizations can also hire an agency to build a custom WordPress theme. By going this route, you’re still using a sophisticated framework with innumerable features built in, but you’re also extending it and creating a design that’s on brand.

Instead of asking “what can this theme do and can we make this work?” you can ask “what do we want to do with our website?”. With custom WordPress theme development, there really aren’t much for restrictions… you can pretty much do anything and that’s a huge benefit of going with WordPress.

[blog_related url=”https://www.jordancrown.com/blog/what-is-custom-web-development/” label=”Custom Web Development: What It Is & Why You May Need It”]

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7. WordPress can be made Really Secure

Though it’s true that WordPress sites can be hacked – after-all, the bigger the market share, the bigger the target – but another benefit of WordPress is that there are many fairly easy-to-implement strategies for making your WordPress site very secure.

In general, strong passwords, keeping your software up to date and choosing a solid hosting company will remove the lion’s share of risk for your company. But after that, there’s still a plethora of security measures you can take. Here’s an in-depth article on this subject.

[blog_related url=”https://www.jordancrown.com/blog/3-rules-for-wordpress-malware-protection/” label=”3 Rules for WordPress Malware Protection”]

8. Content Creation is Easy On WordPress

Though the platform has moved far beyond simple blogging, WordPress still has a strong edge over other platforms because of those initial roots. Here are a few features that make content creation easy on WordPress:

  • Built-in word count for targeting long-form content requirements
  • Autosaving feature
  • Easy to switch between WYSIWYG and text editors
  • Distraction-free writing mode
  • Simple insertion of media

And of course, this just scratches the surface. I also like the ability to use plugins like Yoast to create focus keywords and to optimize your on-page SEO.

9. WordPress is Search Engine Friendly out of the Box

In addition to creating content easily, another benefit of WordPress is that it has great Search Engine Optimization (SEO) out of the box. This is important because more than just creating quality content, you want to make sure that your content can actually be found by search engines like Google.

Here’s an article on this directly from WordPress.org.

10. No Costly Licensing Fees – A Cost-Saving Benefit of WordPress

Unlike alternatives like SiteCore, that can cost as much as $40,000 in initial licensing fees, WordPress is open source which means that there are zero initial or ongoing licensing fees. In addition to low-cost, reputable hosting being anywhere from $20-100 a month, this makes WordPress a very cost-effective solution for companies that don’t want to spend a fortune.

But just because it’s free, that doesn’t mean it’s not up to snuff. Here are perhaps some surprising brands that you may or may not have realized are using the WordPress platform.

 

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11. WordPress is Scalable

Are you still with me? Okay, so for benefit number 11, WordPress is also very scalable. With a nice feature called “custom post types”, developers and agencies can extend your website so that you can have limitless collections of data and individual interfaces for each type. What do I mean by this? Well, what if you could easily add to the following “collections of data” on your website?

  • Staff members and staff profiles
  • Case studies or project descriptions
  • Job postings
  • Testimonials
  • Products

With WordPress, and a competent developer, it’s fairly easy to create as many of these custom post types that an organization could need. When these are set up properly with custom WordPress development, it’s easy to add new entries in a scalable fashion.

12. WordPress Keeps Evolving

My final benefit of using WordPress keeps growing and evolving. And when it does, you get all of the new features for free. Just like I mentioned above – regarding no licensing fees – WordPress updates and patches are also free of charge. For many companies, using a developer to walk through these upgrades may be advisable, but in most cases, these costs should be pretty minimal.

 

Well, there you have it. 12 benefits of using the WordPress platform.

Did I miss anything important? Do you have a benefit that you really like? Share it in the comments below. I’d love to hear from you!