From it’s beginnings as a blogging platform, WordPress evolved into a fully-featured content management system that became increasingly popular for business and portfolio websites. WordPress is now become the most popular CMS on the market and is used by 12% of the 1,000,000 biggest websites in the world.
One of the major problems that businesses will encounter with owning static websites is that even small changes to the content will require the involvement of a web developer or at least someone with technical skills in HTML. A far easier solution is to build the website around a CMS such as WordPress.
There are a whole host of reasons to choose WordPress…
It’s easy to manage a WordPress website.
The WordPress dashboard is it’s administrative area. From here it easy for clients to add, remove or edit content on a website, without having to pay a web developer to do it for them. There is no need for any web development skills – creating new content is as easy as writing a Microsoft Word document.
WordPress uses page templates to control the look and feel of the website. This means that clients are able to easily add new pages that look exactly the same as the rest of their website. All the users need to do is choose the kind of page they want to add, enter the title of the new page, then the text and images they want on it in the simple editor. WordPress does the rest.
WordPress is extendible.
Working with WordPress is a dream for web developers. It seems like there is nothing that cannot be done with it. There are also thousands of plug-ins that extend the functionality of WordPress. Whatever the feature, someone has probably made a plug-in that delivers it.
WordPress can be simple or complex.
Your WordPress website can grow with your business. You may start out with a simple 4 or 5 page website, but as you raise your online profile you can add additional features and functionality to your site.
Multiple users can contribute to the website.
WordPress gives you the ability to manage the users who can access the administration area of your website. Users can be set up with usernames and passwords by an administrator and their access to certain features easily controlled.
WordPress is a blogging tool.
WordPress was originally developed as a blogging tool. Since then it has evolved into a full content management system but retains all it’s blogging features. A blog is great for:
- Reaching out to customers and potential customers
- Posting news and special offers from your company
- Keeping your website fresh, lively and interesting, meaning that visitors will keep coming back
- Allowing your visitors to interact with you, leave comments and discuss your products and services
- Building a ‘following’
- Ultimately driving more traffic to your website
One thing to remember is that blogging is only effective if you are prepared to spend the time making regular posts. A blog that only gets updated once every few months won’t give you any of the benefits listed above.
It’s easy to sell products.
A WordPress website can be turned into a powerful online shop with one of several e-Commerce plug-ins. It’s just as easy to add products and manage an online store as it is to manage the pages and content of a WordPress website.
WordPress is secure.
Upgrades to the security and functionality of WordPress software come along now and again. Applying an upgrade is a one-click process, though it is recommended that you back up your website first. You don’t need involvement from technical specialists, just click a button and WordPress will do the rest.
As a huge fan of WordPress I’m always preaching it’s benefits to new clients. I’ll probably direct them to this post in future, but I’d also be interested in comments from other web developers.
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