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Why we use WordPress. It’s a question we’re asked at least once a week and it’s very valid. WordPress started as a blogging platform in May 2003 and those of us that used it in the early days may have found it quite limiting, not to mention frustrating. As with most things that are left standing from the early days of the web, WordPress has continued to evolve and has grown into a robust, stable and incredibly flexible platform. We recommend using WordPress on just about every website we work on, for a number of reasons including:

1. WordPress is an Open Source

Both WordPress.com and WordPress.org are open source software. This means that the platform, developed by a collective of creatives, is free for anyone to use. Although both forms of WordPress are free to use, it’s more than likely you’ll need to open your purses and wallets to get the most out of either platform. Features and services such as hosting, premium plugins and themes will cost you something. But there’s no need to worry, you don’t need to break the bank for them.

2. WordPress is POPULAR

WordPress is the most popular Content Management System (CMS) in the world. According to Wikipedia, as of April 2018 the platform powers over 30% of the world’s top 10 million websites ranging from blogs to eCommerce stores to Fortune 500 websites to everything in between. Through an extensive study, W3techs have concluded that WordPress dominates the CMS market with a market share of nearly 60%.

Here are some fun facts from Digital.com about WordPress’ vast popularity:

  1. WordPress 4.9 has been downloaded over 97,000,000 times since its release in October 2017 – (if you’ve got time to waste, this Download Counter which tallies each download as they happen, can change that.)
  2. WordPress has more monthly visitors (131 million) than Twitter (114 million). Tweet that!
  3. WordPress gets over 130 million spam messages per month. Which is enough Spam to make Monty Python proud (look them up…. )

Here’s a fun fact from WPBeginner, notable big brands including TechCrunch, BBC America and Sony Music use WordPress. Even Katy Perry uses WordPress!

If Queen B is using WordPress, it’s safe to say that WordPress is popular, like real popular popular.

Because WordPress is so popular, there’s an abundance of resources available which make using the platform easier. With resources such as Themeforest for a wide variety of incredible design ideas, WordPress.TV, Tuts+ Tutorials, with over 6 million WordPress tutorials on YouTube, and countless extensions and plugins, WordPress’ prominent popularity helps make your website better.

3. It’s Designed for Everyone

Like seriously, WordPress is for everyone.

As a digital marketing agency, WordPress caters to us perfectly. It’s a dream for our IT guru who casts magic spells with numbers, a toy for our code master who uses CSS like play dough and an incredible tool for those of us in the office that can do a bit of everything but are masters of zilch. WordPress is designed for everyone ranging from web development specialists to beginners that have only just figured out Microsoft Word. No lie, WordPress can be tailored to suit every level of user.

Through WYSIWYG page builders, themes and plugins, everyone has the power to make a website on WordPress. Of course, not everyone is a designer or pixel pusher so if you need something better than half decent we recommend you talk to a professional web agency.

4. WordPress Can Cater to Every Business

A lot of people associate WordPress with blogging because of the platform’s origin. As mentioned above WordPress was founded with the intention of making an elegant, well-architectured personal publishing system. However, over the years, WordPress has been developed, expanded and refined into a platform for all businesses and purposes including a business website, creative portfolio website, million-dollar eCommerce website, eLearning modules, forum, membership website, question and answers website, blog and much more. If you have previously used or experienced WordPress and not had a great experience we suggest digging back in there – things have come a long, long way!

5. WordPress Cares about SEO

WordPress and SEO go together like peanut butter and jelly – or Vegemite and cheese depending on your taste. Because it’s just the greatest, WordPress automatically generates title tags and meta descriptions for each post, helping your pages get indexed by Google. Plugins such as Yoast SEO, Broken Link Checker and TinyPNG, all help WordPress websites rank better through factors such as keywords, loading speed, image optimisation and more.

What’s more is that WordPress sites can be hosted anywhere. This becomes especially important for SEO as it allows your SEO provider to control the server level of your website, something that’s not as easy using builders such as Wix, Squarespace and Shopify. Having access to the server gives you greater flexibility over the delivery of your site and helps make it more Google friendly.

6. Like That Aunty on Facebook, WordPress is Supportive

Here’s a question for you, what do all of the following media types have in common?

.jpg, .pptx, .mp4, .3g2, .gif, .odt, .wav.

The answer is, they’re all supported by WordPress despite some of their obscurity.

Another reason why WordPress is our preferred CMS is that it supports most media types. WordPress outlines all of the media types it supports. Because it’s an extensive list, we’ve never found ourselves unable to upload a media file onto the websites that we’ve designed and developed.

(Before we conclude, it’s worth noting that you must have the legal right to distribute a media file before uploading them onto your WordPress website. If you don’t own the file nor have permission from the owner or copyright holder, it cannot be used. If you’re in need of free stock images for your web project, here is a list of the Best 15 Free Stock Sites out there .)

So, there you have it! 6 of the many reasons why we, Start Digital and so many others use WordPress. If you’re interested in hearing some of the other reasons or would like to discuss using WordPress for your business, drop us a line.