Back in 2003, WordPress emerged in the web development world merely as a blogging platform. But today, it’s a content management system (CMS) that powers nearly 40% of all sites on the internet. WordPress keeps holding a leadership position even though a variety of other website-building tools have appeared in the market since its release. And it’s not just a coincidence. Businesses of different sizes and types can find many benefits of using WordPress when it comes to establishing their digital presence.
Below we outline the main advantages of WordPress. So, if you’re planning to create a website, and the question “why should I use WordPress?” has ever popped up in your mind, this blog post is for you.
WordPress is open-source and free
WordPress is open-source software. It means that users can download and use it without paying any fees. You’ll still need to spend some money on hosting provider services, a domain name, and paid add-ons. But even if you factor in all these additional expenses, WordPress will remain a more cost-effective option than, for example, subscription plans offered by most site builders.
The reason is that website owners don’t have to pay for the functionality they don’t need. The absence of regular charges and the opportunity to choose what to buy (or not to buy) allows WordPress users to keep site maintenance costs under control. Of course, there are some premium plugins that require recurring payments. But if you want to stay completely independent of pricing decisions made by third parties, you can always invest in developing custom feature-sets for your WordPress site
WordPress is easy-to-use
Although WordPress isn’t a drag-and-drop builder, it’s a user-friendly platform. To manage a website at a routine level, you won’t need deep technical knowledge or a lengthy training program. WordPress is intuitive, so learning the ropes will suffice for most day-to-day tasks like adding new content. Besides, a large WordPress community has generated a variety of quality how-to resources, so you can easily find a solution to most typical issues.
More complicated site maintenance tasks such as adjusting the code, updating plugins, and advanced SEO optimization will probably require the involvement of professional developers. But these works are done on occasion, so they don’t affect the overall WordPress usability. In general, installing WordPress, setting up a theme, and using an admin board to manage the pages can be done without any technical expertise. That’s why WordPress is considered one of the most optimal options for non-tech-savvy people.
WordPress is customizable
The modern digital space is an extremely crowded place. No wonder that many businesses want to have a unique website design that would strengthen their brand positioning and make them more memorable for customers. One of the main benefits of WordPress is that it gives you full freedom in determining how your website will look and feel. Unlike other site builders that often limit the choice of designs to the predefined list of options, WordPress has literally no restrictions.
The WordPress theme directory contains 8,000+ free design templates, and there are a variety of premium themes offered by third-party designers. Most of them can be adjusted to your specific business requirements with theme customization settings. Besides, you can build a custom WordPress theme if no option that meets your needs is readily available in the market. Such broad design customization capabilities usually play a decisive role for business managers who are still doubting and looking for additional reasons why use WordPress.
WordPress is flexible and versatile
Like with the design, the core WordPress functionality can be adjusted and extended however users wish. That’s why when it comes to the key benefits of WordPress, themes and plugins usually go hand in hand. Simply put, plugins are separate pieces of software that can be added to a WordPress website. The official WordPress plugin directory contains almost 58,000 free plugins. On top of that, there are thousands of premium plugins that can be found on other marketplaces. You can also develop bespoke plugins in case you want something unique or innovative.
All these plugins and themes make WordPress the most flexible content management system available today. Basically, you can use it to build any kind of website, from a simple corporate blog to an online store and an e-learning platform. Such versatility is one of the most important benefits of WordPress that allowed it to become a popular choice among businesses operating in completely different industries.
WordPress is SEO-friendly
SEO capabilities are also a huge WordPress advantage that practically none of its competitors has. Some people even say that ‘search engines love WordPress,’ meaning that it’s relatively easy to make a WordPress website rank high on SERP. Advanced SEO optimization will probably require some extra effort and resources. But WordPress has many built-in features and characteristics that enable good site searchability.
In particular, it automatically generates SEO components (e.g., title tags, meta descriptions) for all pages. But if you don’t like what’s offered by the WordPress platform, you can easily customize each element. For example, you can edit URLs of all blog posts to make them shorter and more readable. In addition, there are many plugins for SEO optimization that can help you extend the reach of your WordPress site. So, if you want to have a website that potential customers can easily find, WordPress is definitely a good fit.
WordPress supports different media types
WordPress accepts all possible formats of images, documents, videos, and audios. There is a long list of file types that can be uploaded to a WordPress site by default. But if you need to add a media element with an extension that it doesn’t cover, you can use a free plugin (e.g., File Upload Types plugin) to overcome this restriction.
Media management is also simple. For example, all images that users upload to a website are stored in the Media Library. The platform also offers basic editing tools that you can use to make some minor tweaks to pictures. This benefit of WordPress matters a lot when it comes to blogging, either as an independent activity or as a part of the company’s content marketing strategy. It allows users to spend much less time on the publication of fresh content.
WordPress is perfect for ecommerce
We’ve already mentioned that WordPress is a versatile CMS that is widely used in different business sectors. However, the benefits of WordPress for ecommerce are so outstanding that we want to outline them separately.
To create an online store that is based on WordPress, users need to install a free plugin called WooCommerce. Statistics show that WooCommerce is the most popular solution for ecommerce businesses worldwide. Its market share amounts to 28.24%, while the closest competitor, Squarespace, has only 17.69%. Why is the gap so big? The matter is that WooCommerce offers online retailers a lot of advantages that are really hard to beat.
More precisely, WooCommerce allows for a high level of customization while keeping store management simple and straightforward. Also, numerous WooCommerce themes and plugins help internet merchants develop their businesses in whatever directions they want. Another benefit is that WooCommerce is the most cost-effective option in the relevant market. Since there is no subscription, it doesn’t require regular payments. And there are no extra transaction fees, either. Finally, WooCommerce doesn’t limit users in any fashion -- they can sell products, services, memberships in any amount.
WordPress has a huge and active community
This list of WordPress benefits wouldn’t be full if we didn’t include the extensive community support in it. Since WordPress is a mature platform (i.e., it was launched 18 years ago), many programmers have been working with it for years. It means that you’ll be able to easily find a software engineer specializing in WordPress development at any time.
Also, an online base of WordPress-related resources such as blogs, forums, social media groups, and guides is constantly growing. So if you don’t want to contact your technical partner regarding some minor issue, you’ll probably be able to find some information about it on the internet. Besides, the active community drives forward the WordPress development, so it’s always updated and meets the current market demands.
Wrapping-up
WordPress is the best option you can find in today’s market if you are looking for a platform for building your site. It’s cost-effective, flexible, customizable, easy-to-use, and SEO-friendly. Besides, the WooCommerce plugin makes WordPress a perfect fit for the ecommerce sector. So, as you see, millions of businesses all over the globe have chosen this CMS for a good reason. If you want to join them, our team is ready to help. Flexi IT is a reputable WordPress development company. We have a proven record of successfully completed projects and can cover any WordPress-related request.
