It might have launched in 2003 but WordPress is now a far cry from the simple blogging tool it was originally designed to be.

26% of the world’s websites are hosted on the platform, which equates to a market share of 59.4%, it has also been the fastest growing CMS system for more than six years so why should you be considering WordPress for your next website?

Easy to use

When we say easy to use, we’re not going to lie and say that everyone can set up and launch a website in a couple of days, but you could make a start and do your research.

As well as being well documented (and free, did we mention that bit?) the support available online is frightening. If you type WordPress into Google right now it will throw up more than 603 million results in less than a second and most of those will be packed full of advice or will even be step by step guides to set up your site.

No matter what problem you encounter there will always be someone on hand to help.

Even more important than being easy to set up is the fact that the Content Management System (CMS) is easy to use – meaning you are more likely to update and give your website the care and attention it deserves.

There’s no point paying for a custom-built website with a bespoke CMS system if you then have no idea how to edit and maintain the site.

Google loves WordPress

According to Newlabs.co.uk WordPress “takes care of 80-90% of the SEO mechanics” to make sure your website is found and crawled by ‘bots.

This means just using the basic software will see you ranking higher than some of your competitors but there are also thousands of plugins to help improve your ranking even further – but only if you know what you’re doing!

As well as the ability to alter permalinks, post tags also help search bots find what they’re looking for, WordPress also allows images to be optimised using alt and title tags.

Finally, the fact that WordPress boasts clean code, which is correctly formatted, means it is easier to crawl. So, as long as the site has been set up correctly, which you can make sure you achieve with help from the experts, you will get the results you want.

Yoast is one of the more downloaded WordPress plugins of all time and offers a simple and intuitive way to improve a website’s SEO.

On every page and post, Yoast allows you to set a focus keyword and then add an SEO title and meta description which include the keyword.

It also scores every single page and tells you what you can do to improve your internet search ranking.

Free

WordPress as a general rule is free – well except for the domain name and hosting. It is free to download, there are thousands of free themes and even more free plugins.

That is not to say though you will get everything you want though at no cost but if you know what you’re doing you can get a fully functioning site with no real outlay.

If you use a web developer to create your website for you, WordPress will certainly be one of the more cost-effective options.

Rather than starting from scratch they can customise functionality which already exists, saving you time and therefore money.

It’s here to stay

There’s no chance of you waking up one day to discover that your website technology is all of a sudden defunct as the platform continues to grow in both size and popularity.

Because WordPress is ‘open source’ it means it is looked after by thousands of developers worldwide who are constantly striving to make it better for themselves and therefore other users as a result.

The vast popularity of the platform means that it’s going nowhere.

Safe & reliable

The ‘open source’ functionality means the platform and plugins are constantly being coded and tested.

Any bugs and threats are identified and eradicated quickly meaning downtime is kept to an absolute minimum, unlike many other options which are out there on the market.

Some of the biggest websites across the world use WordPress and the following would not risk downtime.

• New York Times
• People Magazine
• National Geographic
• Forbes

Scalable

When you start your business you always work on the basis it will be a success but that doesn’t mean you want to spend money before you have it or before you have to.

Another big advantage with WordPress is the ability to scale your website accordingly. Whether it’s adding booking systems, membership options or an eCommerce solution they can all be added to a WordPress website as the need arises.

So you don’t have to go for a complete overhaul, just by using available plugins your website can continue to do everything you want and need it to do.

Cloud-based

We have already talked about the ease of use but the fact that you can update your website from any device anywhere in the world means your website can be as flexible as you.

There are also apps you can download for phones and tablets so you can make quick easy changes in a matter of minutes, without the need for installing any additional software or adjusting any firewall settings.

Perfect for teams

If your business involves collaboration and various people accessing the backend of the website then WordPress is perfect as it offers a range of different user roles.

So you can allow team members access to different areas, so they can do what they need to without being left with complete access and the ability to make any huge changes.

It also means you can outsource website content writing and the authors can set the pages up ready for you to launch.

Conclusion

While there are various options out there when it comes to choosing your website platform, there’s a reason why nearly 75 million websites are built using WordPress and why they are the number one choice of web developers worldwide.

It’s free, simple to use, robust, secure and most importantly here to stay but to make sure you achieve the results you want then the simple solution is to use a good web developer, who can take the platform to a whole new level.

Call us now on 0800 644 2640 or click here to use our contact form.