WordPress is a great website building platform. This article explores the many advantages and some of the cautions you should know about before deciding to build a WordPress website.
1. WordPress is the Most Popular CMS in the World
It may be surprising to many people but WordPress is one of the most used CMS platforms in the World. According to W3techs.com 30% of all websites are now WordPress.
2. WordPress is Open Source
WordPress is Open Source, which means you can get the code for free, install it, and use if for free. Plus, the community of Open Source developers are active in updating and securing WordPress on a consistent basis. So, you’ll find WordPress is a great, user friendly and secure platform.
3. Highly Customizable
There are a wide variety of both paid and free plugins you can add to WordPress to expand the functionality at very low cost as compared to custom programming. You can find a plugin for pretty much any application you can think of. Here are some examples:
- eCommerce sites with Woocommerce Plugin
- Contact Forms
- Event Calendars
- Email Marketing
- Membership Sites
- Photo Galleries, sliders and video galleries
4. Easy to Use and Update
The back end of WordPress is more or less like MS Word. Once your web designer sets it all up for you, it’s easy to add or update your content without getting a developer involved. This is the real power of a content management system (CMS) like WordPress. You can easily add photos and videos to your pages through simple drag and drop.
5. It’s secure… Yes, it is!
Many IT departments have the misconception that WordPress is insecure. Like any other application it really depends on how it’s installed and set up. WordPress community developers are on top of any vulnerabilities and WordPress.org releases many security patches throughout the year. Do a lot of WordPress sites get hacked? Yes! However, the problem isn’t WordPress, it’s how its installed and managed. Installing WordPress on a $5.00/month shared hosting plan, without taking simple lock down precautions, and not updating WordPress or Plugins for an extended period of time is definitely a recipe for getting hacked. Because WordPress is so easy to use there are many inexperienced “developers” who do not understand the technology behind the website they are building. WordPress can be made very secure with simple things like, limiting login attempts, moving the standard login page to a different URL, and giving the files proper file permissions in your file manager. In addition, a reputable host and updating WordPress and plugins on a regular basis is a must.
6. WordPress is SEO Friendly
WordPress is designed and built with SEO in mind. Plus, with a few simple plugins you can do things like:
- Increase page load speed
- Create an XML Sitemap (for Google Crawling)
- Add SEO Titles and Metas
- Keyword Target pages, categories and Tags.
- Use ALT Tags for images
- Control over permalinks (URL’s)
7. Large Community for Free Support
WordPress has massive quantity of users and developers. The WordPress support forum is an easy way to get support from other experienced users and developers. The forum is well maintained and you will get an answer for almost any question.