When it comes to a content management system (CMS), WordPress is seen as #1.
Although there are dozens of competitors out there, WordPress is the most widely known and used.
This is because there are many benefits of WordPress that other CMS’s just don’t have.
Let’s discuss.
What Is WordPress?
WordPress is an open source content management system that allows you to build websites on it.
In fact, it is the most commonly used CMS in the world, taking up over 76.4% of CMS market share.
Started in 2003, WordPress is older than both Facebook and Twitter.
With almost 2 decades in operation, WordPress has become adopted as the go-to CMS on the web.
Let’s look into the reasons for how this happened and why this is the case.
Who Does WordPress Compete Against?
WordPress competes among the likes of Wix, Squarespace, Joomla, Drupal, Magento, Weebly, and so on.
Although there are a lot of competitors, none of these competitors come even close to the market penetration that WordPress has.
WordPress is the clear winner in CMS market share, as its next closest competitor doesn’t even take up 5% of the market.
Why Is WordPress So Popular?
WordPress is popular for many, many reasons which we are about to discuss.
By being present in the market for so long, they know what their customers and users want.
They have done such a great job at this that the advantages of using WordPress far outweigh the disadvantages of using the CMS.
Before we get into it, here is a short video explaining just a few of the many benefits of WordPress.
26 WordPress Benefits And Advantages
There are many advantages of WordPress – this is in no way an exhaustive list.
1. Easy To Install And Setup
WordPress is meant for both the very beginners and the seasoned professionals.
For both parties, WordPress is extremely easy to setup and install.
It comes down to a simple one-click installation with no coding required.
2. Simple, Straightforward, And Easy To Use
WordPress was created for even the most non-technical to use.
It comes with intuitive design, directions, and tutorials to get you started and keep you going.
So easy your grandmother could use it!
3. Cost Effective And Cheap
You can even get WordPress for free!
That’s right – for free!
Even if you opt for a paid version or use hosting or plugins that cost a few dollars here and there, the total all-in cost for using the WordPress platform will most likely cost you less than $100.
This is extremely cheap compared to other alternatives.
4. Search Engine And SEO Friendly
Another WordPress benefit is that it is built and structured with search engines and SEO in mind.
Most people aren’t just creating a website for themselves.
They want to share their content with the world and have eyeballs and traffic on their website, too!
To do this, you need an SEO-friendly site.
This means that your website needs to be easy for search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing to crawl through and parse your data.
With WordPress, this comes built-in.
By building your website on WordPress, you can get lots of search engine traffic to your site over the long run.
5. Responsive Website Design
In 2020 and beyond, you need a website that is responsive to a large variety of different devices.
You don’t want to have a website where the words get cut off on an iPhone, the design looks poor on a tablet, but on a desktop everything looks great.
You want your whole website to look amazing no matter what devices your visitors are using.
With WordPress, they have responsive website designs and themes built into their platform for you to choose from.
6. Mobile Friendly
WordPress is also mobile friendly.
Now that more than 50% of the world’s internet traffic comes from mobile devices, it is of the utmost important that your website is mobile friendly, legible, and easily usable for mobile users.
Because of this fact, search engines also use mobile-first rendering.
Meaning, your website is first and foremost judged by its mobile version by search engines.
So if your mobile usability is poor, your rankings will also be poor.
Therefore, both the front end user experience and back end technical components of a website are taken into consideration when it comes to mobile friendliness.
WordPress knows this, and have given you mobile-friendly themes to choose from.
7. Access Your Site From Anywhere In The World
You can access your website from any computer in the world, so long as you have internet connection.
This is extremely important if you’re a travel-minded person – as you could realistically travel anywhere in the world and still work on your website!
Digital nomads and travelling website owners have grown in popularity over the past decade because of this functionality.
8. Regular Automatic Updates
As the internet is ever-changing and evolving, website CMS’s need to keep up with the changing environment and update their platforms accordingly.
WordPress is always on top of this and continues to update their platform to stay line with technological advances and best practices.
The best part about this is that the updates are automatic, quick, and only require one click.
9. Easy, One-Click Updates
As stated above, updates are as simple as a click of a single button.
This is convenient for website owners who can have peace of mind that they are operating their business on a fully updated content management system.
10. Most Plugins And Apps
WordPress has over 54,000+ plugins.
Plugins are applications that help you customize and run WordPress however you like.
They include email marketing plugins, design plugins, speed plugins, and more.
WordPress has the most available plugins by far, and allows the most customization among all other CMS’s.
11. Website Security
Some of these plugins are also security plugins, allowing you to enhance the security of your website from hacks, vulnerabilities, etc.
Although, WordPress even comes with security measures such as “ built-in should you so choose.
This will give you peace of mind knowing that your website is free from hackers and other security mishaps.
12. Lots Of Design Options
WordPress also comes with many different website themes.
These themes allow different functionalities for your website, and different looks and feels based on the theme you choose.
This will allow you to choose a theme that perfectly matches your niche and what it is exactly you’ll be using the website for.
13. Built-In Blog
Blogging is an important part of SEO, as well as a great addition to most websites.
WordPress websites come with a blog section available should you choose to use it.
This is convenient for anyone who wants to add extra content to their website – for businesses and bloggers alike.
14. Flexibility
With all of the apps and themes available, WordPress websites provide virtually unlimited flexibility.
This is great for businesses and those who are more advanced and would like to build their website whichever way they want.
This eliminates most excuses by those who want to hard-code their website from scratch for pure flexibility.
In most cases, WordPress can attend to these website developers’ needs.
15. Functionality
As with the flexibility in the way you wish to build your WordPress website, WordPress also allows for much functionality.
This comes in the form of plugins, where 54,000+ applications will get your website to do pretty much anything you want it to.
16. Speed And Convenience
Another WordPress advantage is that it is both speedy and convenient to create or make changes to your website.
Both the flexibility and functionality of the platform allows you to create a website almost instantaneously and make changes and optimizations immediately.
This allows you to create many websites at once (if that’s of interest to you) or create a new website and build it up from scratch really fast and conveniently.
17. Intuitive Interface
The backend interface of WordPress is very intuitive.
Easy labels, navigation, and design allows anyone to get started with relative ease.
After playing around in the backend for an hour or two, even the most novice beginner will become confident in building their new website for the first time!
18. Large Community
WordPress has a large community behind it.
With over 1.2 million Facebook followers and 631,000 Twitter followers, you’ll never be alone if you need any help with your website.
Jump into the community forums and ask a question – somebody will surely get back to you in no time!
19. Support Forums
WordPress also has support forums, where frequently asked questions are pinned for those who have the same problem.
This is convenient for you if you do need help with you website – before you ask a question to the community, chances are that somebody already asked a similar question and had it answered!
This makes troubleshooting your website very easy and convenient.
20. Open Source
Open source simply means that the WordPress’s code base is public and any developer can go in and make changes.
This is great, as the collaborative effort of the smartest computer engineers in the world combine their expertise to provide you with the best content management platform platform possible.
21. No HTML Or Code Editing Needed
Since WordPress is create with beginners in minded, there is absolutely no changes to the code necessary to build your website.
Of course, the option is there should you need it, but 99% of users will be happy that they need zero coding knowledge to build their website from the ground up.
This allows for an extremely low barrier of entry for website development and creation.
22. 100% Customizable
No coding necessary, but the option is there!
Should you want to customize your website to your own specific preferences – you can.
WordPress allows for complete customization of their database, making both beginners and experts happy in the process.
23. Infinite Scalability
Although most website owners and small businesses will have small websites with very few pages, should they ever want to expand their business and blowup their website with more pages – again, they can!
WordPress allows you to continue to make your website larger and larger with more and more pages with zero compromise to site performance.
This is great for anyone that wants to take their website to new heights.
24. Multiple Users With Different Permission Levels
If you do decide to grow your website and compete with the bigger players, you may need help from others.
This, or you may be a small business who hires others to help work on your website.
Either way, having different website permissions and access levels helps you to mitigate risk from bad actors.
By having these different levels of owner access, manager access, editor access, etc., you will be able to have many people work on your website without ever having to compromise sensitive backend information.
25. Self-Hosted Platform
WordPress also allows you to self-host your website.
Meaning, you can build your website on WordPress, but then host it with a third-party company.
This can help further improve website speed and performance, and gives you the flexibility to use any hosting provider you want with your website.
26. E-commerce With Woocommerce
WordPress is also competitive in the e-commerce arena.
By allowing you to connect your website with Woocommerce, WordPress competes with the likes of Shopify, Magento, and other exclusively e-commerce related content management systems.
If you wish to run an e-commerce store, WordPress essentially allows you to receive all of the advantages listed in this article, along with the benefit of running an e-commerce store on their platform.
WordPress Advantages: A Summary
There are many advantages and benefits to using the WordPress platform.
From ease of use and intuitive interface, to scalability and speed, WordPress is the perfect all-in-one platform for virtually any website.
If you’d like a WordPress website build for your small business, contact Active Business Growth today.
We look forward to hearing from you!
