Every Website is built on one platform or another: the tool used to build and maintain the website. In years past it might have been FrontPage, Dreamweaver, Cold Fusion (CFM), ASP or even old-fashioned html.
During the last 10 years WordPress has slowly become the world’s single most popular, dominant and widespread platform for website development and maintenance. By 2014 nearly 25% of all existing websites will already be on WordPress. During 2014, 50% of new websites built will be in WordPress.
There are top reasons that smart businesses choose WordPress:
- WordPress is Free. Anyone can download WordPress for free at www.wordpress.org, install it on their server, and get started.
- WordPress is Non-Proprietary and Industry Standard. This is a big deal! Many web designers and website platforms try to convince you to use their platform and may even make the bold claim that it is better than WordPress. The dirty little secret: their system is proprietary and once you sign up with them, you are stuck with them! Their business strategy is actually to hold you hostage… and that is why they don’t use WordPress. Make sure that if you are getting a system that is not WordPress, that it is at least “open-source” and that you “own the code” and can use any web developer you want in the future to maintain and host the website.
- WordPress has the Largest Community of Developers. There are hundreds of thousands of developers locally, nationally and internationally. If your current webmaster builds your website in WordPress, you will have the freedom to hire a different webmaster in the future, if your current one doesn’t work out. Additionally, as a web designer myself, I like knowing I can find help and expertise easily if something in WordPress stumps me! There is a giant community of WordPress developers out there, ready to help.
- WordPress is Easy to Host. Every major website hosting company now supports WordPress. I suggest you pick a company that specializes in WordPress. You can tell if they specialize, because they only host WordPress. I like www.getflywheel.com and www.wpengine.com. These specialists tend to have a much better hosting environment that makes your website faster and more secure. They may cost a few dollars more a month, but, they make your life much easier.
- WordPress if Faster to Build a Website With. Because WordPress is fast and easy (relatively speaking) to build a website with, you save money!
From a professional website designer’s standpoint, whose job it is to deliver a powerful and beautiful product that works, I find five additional factors that make WordPress an obvious choice:
- WordPress is Feature Rich. This means that I can add features to a website upon a customer’s request, quickly, easily and cheaply. Whether you want an Ecommerce shopping cart, calendar of events, multiple languages, videos, social media integration, contact forms, beautiful image slideshows, photo galleries, etc. … WordPress makes it easy.
- WordPress is Beautiful. It is easy to design beautiful websites that are easy for the user to navigate in WordPress! I can make your website look just the way you want it to look! This usually means great photography, effective call-to-actions, and meaningful text content.
- Clients can Easily Edit their own Websites. This is a great feature! Why pay your webmaster $100 per hour to make easy updates? With WordPress, you or your employee can just log-in and make an edit or add a page. Easy Peasy.
- GREAT SEO. WordPress is easy to search engine optimize and performs well in search engines. Nothing is better! If you want great rankings in Google, choose WordPress and your website marketer will thank you!
- Mobile Responsive. A typical website gets more than 25% of its visitors from a mobile device or a tablet. WordPress makes it super-easy to have a mobile version of your website! My customer appreciate this.
WordPress is creates beautiful mobile-friendly websites. It is free and powerful. But, best of all, if you have your website created on the WordPress platform you will have the flexibility to upgrade or redesign your website easily in the future. You will be able to hire any developer you want to continue working on your website and will not be “locked in” to anyone.
Photo Credit: Creative Commons Photo
