WordPress is currently the leading software available for bloggers. It is free, well-designed and easy to navigate through. Due to it’s rapidly growing popularity, tens of thousands of web developers have produced themes and plugins that work with WordPress, many of which are completely free to the user. If your business or eCommerce site runs on another platform, you should still opt to utilize WordPress as your blogging software and here’s why:
1. WordPress Leads the Industry
WordPress is leading the market in content management, blogging or content creation, open source networking and free software packages. It is the most popular web publishing system worldwide and it’s reputation is growing. In fact, 23% of all websites utilize this software.
2. WordPress is Free
Unlike other platforms, WordPress is free to everyone. Naturally, there have been themes and plugins developed that you might feel inclined to pay for; however, there are thousands of themes and plugins that won’t cost you anything.
3. WordPress is Easy to Setup, Run and Update
Setting up your site is as easy as visiting WordPress.com and signing up for a free account. You can host your domain there for a small fee; however, that is not a necessary measure for setting your website up. You do not need to be an HTML coder or online expert to operate this software (and thank God for that)!
4. WordPress is Seasoned
When I say seasoned, I don’t mean like adding salt to your fries. I am talking about the maturity they have developed with over 11 years of being around. Over the last decade, WordPress has developed, refined, tested and improved upon their web publishing system.
5. WordPress is Open Source
What does that mean? To put it simply, it means is free from commercial limitations and restrictions. You are free to use the software however you choose and host your website wherever you decide. This allows you to have complete control of your website.
6. WordPress Offers Responsive Themes
In this day and age, mobile-friendly or responsive websites, are crucial for successful business. Many people access the internet through Androids, iPhones and tablets. If your site is not user responsive, they will quickly hop off your site and onto another. In addition, the WordPress dashboard is designed to benefit your mobile access; meaning, you can make changes or updates to your site on any mobile device. There are tens of thousands of WordPress themes available and many of them are free. Once you have selected a theme, if in a few years you want to makeover your website, you simply download another theme and go from there.
7. WordPress is Search Engine Friendly
Google engineer, Matt Cutts endorsed WordPress saying, “WordPress automatically solves a ton of SEO issues.” As a content marketer working in SEO, I couldn’t agree more.
WordPress was designed for extension and many developers have extended upon it with thousands of quality plugins. There are plugins that allow for you to run eCommerce sites, produce contact forms, optimize RDFa, enable Facebook comments and social media shares.
9. WordPress Has Widgets
In addition to the thousands of plugins, this software has several widgets. You can add a Facebook or Twitter widget to the page, a photo gallery, archives, social media connections and so much more. Widgets are easy to install and depending on the theme you can have them on the sidebar, top or bottom of the page. The layout is in your hands.
10. WordPress Has Permalinks
With permalinks you have the ability to index each post with it’s title rather than a random number. For example, instead of post-234 you can link the post to read 11-Reasons-to-use-WordPress. This makes the page easily understood by the readers and for search engines such as Google, who are coming in to index the site’s content and give you rankings.
11. WordPress Support
With it’s popularity and growing community, WordPress has gained a network of people dedicated to helping each other make their sites better. You can visit the WordPress Forum to ask questions and exchange ideas.
Creating a WordPress site is quick, free and easy. While I have outline 11 reasons why you should be utilizing this web publishing system, there are plenty more. The video below outlines how to build a WordPress website in an hour. It was published in 2012, so some information may be a little outdated; however, with over 3 million views, I recommend it as a valuable tool in helping you to get your website up and running!