I get asked a lot why I chose to work exclusively with WordPress in my website design business. The main reason I only design websites with WordPress is simply because I want the best for my clients so I only work on the best platform.
So, I wanted to share what makes WordPress the best platform for designing websites and what I consider its benefits to be over other website building platforms.
First a bit of background on WordPress.
WordPress powers over 35% of all websites on the internet which makes it the most widely used website platform on the Internet! Let’s put that statistic in perspective. You’ve probably heard of Squarespace and Wix and you may have even considered using them for your website. But, only 1.5% of all websites are Squarespace with Wix coming in at only 1.3%!
WordPress is not just a blogging platform, though that’s how it started back in 2003. However, it quickly grew to become the go-to platform for building a website and is used by both advanced programmers to those with little to no tech experience. In fact, around 500 new websites are created every day using WordPress.
So, let’s take a look at the top 5 reasons why your website should be built using WordPress.
1. It’s SEO friendly
Google and other search engines love WordPress! WordPress sites tend to rank higher than other sites because WordPress is known for having SEO (Search Engine Optimization) built into the platform. WordPress automatically generates title tags and meta descriptions for all of your website’s pages and posts. This helps get your site indexed and moved up higher in the rankings while also letting search engines know about your content. Since WordPress is so customizable there are plugins you can utilize to help even more with SEO.
2. It’s free
Yes, that’s right…WordPress is free! WordPress is free to download, install and use. It’s an open-source project which means it’s developed by a collection of contributors and has a large community. While WordPress itself is free, you will need to spend a bit of money on a few items before you can actually start using it. First, you’ll need to purchase a domain name. Those are usually around $10 per year. I recommend Namecheap as a great place to purchase your domain name. To find out about domain names, you can read this blog post. Second, you’ll need hosting. WordPress.org is self-hosted which means you can use any host you’d like. My recommendation for hosting is Siteground and they have plans that start under $7.00 per month. For more information on Siteground and why I use them as my host, you can read this blog post.
3. It’s flexible and customizable
While WordPress was developed as a blogging platform in 2003, users quickly saw how robust it was and over the years it has morphed into something much more than just a blogging platform. WordPress can be used to create business websites, portfolios, forums, e-commerce sites, membership sites, chatrooms, galleries, personal websites, business directories, e-learning modules, job boards, non-profit websites for collecting donations and so much more. Additionally, WordPress supports various media types such as images, documents, audio and video. By using themes and plugins you are able to customize your website as much as you want to because, after all, who wants their website to look like everyone else’s? WordPress is adaptable to a company’s changing needs and it can grow with you as your business grows.
4. You have full control of your website
There are lots of website platforms out there – and they’re all perfectly fine for making websites. However, the non-open source ones like Squarespace, Shopify and Wix will limit your control to whatever features they offer in their premium packages. What do these limitations mean for you?
You’re stuck with whatever hosting they provide. You don’t have the freedom to compare hosts and go with the cheapest or the best or the fastest. With WordPress you can use whatever host you want and you can also easily switch hosts and your website comes with you.
You will have minimal capabilities to adjust code. Now you may not want to ever code anything on your website, but with WordPress you always have the option to do whatever custom coding you’d like to in order to enhance your website. It’s just a nice option to have, in case you need it.
Technically you don’t have full ownership of your website or content because you’re essentially renting the website from these companies. If you stop paying, those files and pages can be lost or held by that company. With WordPress you own your website’s files and no one can stop you from transferring them to any other host.
5. Easy to use
You can start using WordPress as soon as you install it. And, installation is simple as well since most hosts provide one click install. You can be up and running with WordPress in a matter of minutes. It’s easy to learn how to use it and because it’s the most widely used website platform there are tons of helpful resources and a wonderful community available to help. In fact, WordPress itself has a well-maintained support forum that contains questions and solutions to many problems.
I hope you found this post on the 5 reasons why your website should be built using WordPress helpful. If you did, please share it using the icons below.
If you don’t have a website or if you have a website on another platform and you’d like to switch to WordPress, please click here to fill out my contact form so we can discuss options for you.
