Why choose a WordPress site?

WordPress is the world’s most popular CMS, and with good reason. Using WordPress gives you the highest level of flexibility, whether you want a simple blog, a full e-commerce site, an informative business website, or a combination of them all, WordPress can handle it.

Whether you’re a novice just starting out for the first time, or a company with a team of web designers, the open source software gives you the best chance of creating a user-friendly website that is unique. Approximately a third of all websites are built using WordPress, no other CMS even comes close to having a market share like it.

What is WordPress?

WordPress is an open source CMS (Content Management System) created by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. However, countless other people have contributed to its development since. As well as the core platform being free, Matt also created WordPress.org. The support pages on the website quickly grew into a community of WordPress users and developers.

Over the years WordPress’s features, usability, and processes all continued to evolve. The focus has always been on aesthetics, web standards and usability.

WordPress is the best platform for SEO

Companies spend a fortune ensuring everything on their website is optimised for search engines. Moving up the rankings is the Internet equivalent of winning the lottery. Most people use a search engine when looking for services or businesses, but only a small percentage of them will bother to look at page 2 of the results, and even fewer will venture any further down the list.

This means if you don’t show up in the results they do look at, it’s unlikely you’ll be spotted. Thankfully, search engines like the responsive and logical design of WordPress. It gives every page and post unique meta information and keywords, which allows designers to be a lot more specific. The spiders belonging to search engines are fond of WordPress’s simple code, which makes it easy for them to crawl and index content.

WordPress also has several SEO focused plugins available. These can provide even more insight and a deeper level of control for professionals.

You can do anything with WordPress

While there are millions of smaller sites built using WordPress, you only have to look at some of the bigger sites to understand just how usable and flexible WordPress is. Yelp, Etsy, GoDaddy, UPS Global, TechCrunch, Disney Books, Microsoft Blog, and Facebook newsroom. All these sites use WordPress.

The fact so many of these large companies choose to use WordPress is a testament to how capable it is.

There are countless plugins

There is a plethora of plugins available for WordPress. They add a variety of features to your site. Because WordPress is open source, developers are free to make their own addons. For example, if you want to be more informed about how your site is performing for SEO, there are several free and paid plugins that will provide additional insight, suggestions, and tools to make it easier. The quality and suitability of plugins varies, but each one is accompanied by user reviews, so it’s easy to get a feel for its capabilities before installing.

While plugins are undoubtedly useful, not all plugins will work for every setup. Some only work with certain themes or will need unique code adding to keep things running smoothly. This isn’t a problem for web developers but could become too technical for a novice website builder. You also need to be aware of updates to WordPress and how they relate to your plugins. Some free ones might not be as quick to be updated, or might not be updated at all, while paid plugins are usually updated in line with the platform so subscribers can continue to use them without any hiccups. This can be crucial if a plugin is running a certain aspect of your site you are reliant on.

WordPress is easily scalable

WordPress is the most flexible CMS on the market. It manages to offer simple setup and themes for inexperienced users, while being capable of anything in the hands of an experienced company. This level of flexibility makes it ideal for companies as they expand, as it’s easily scalable without attracting big fees for extra size or services.

Adding functionality to a WordPress site is easier than on other platforms. There are usually several plugins to choose from for any given feature. This means it’s easier to make your site unique, use the full scope of multimedia content, and get found on the Internet.

Security is more important than ever

WordPress is an easy platform to maintain the security. As the most popular CMS on the planet, it’s important that WordPress and any third-party add-ons are secure. Some WordPress software and plug-in updates can be set to automatically install. Some people opt to manage them manually, but if you have several plugins, you’ll need to check for updates regularly to make sure your site is always secure.

There are also additional options that can help immensely if the worst is to happen. You can create a backup of your website locally or choose one of the backup services. This minimises downtime if your website is ever subject to an attack.

Conclusion

WordPress is the most popular CMS for a reason. However, the level of flexibility can also be confusing for novices. If you want to create a simple personal blog, then using WordPress yourself could be a cheap and ideal solution. If you want to create a professional website with top notch SEO optimisation that utilises all forms of media, and is unique and looks the way you want it to, then WordPress is still a great solution, but you would be wise to seek the help of professionals.

For a website that’s the best it can be, we believe our award-winning team are your best option. Juvo is a Dublin based web development company that has been pushing the boundaries for local businesses for more than a decade.