Having a website for your business is a great opportunity to build a larger audience, showcase your products/services, and help customers get in touch with you. While having a website is important, it can be tricky to get started with building one. Luckily there are plenty of content management systems (CMS) that can help you build a site from scratch. WordPress is the most popular CMS in the world, and for a lot of great reasons. Read on to learn more about the benefits of using WordPress to build your website.
1. User-Friendly
Even with limited technical knowledge, it's easy to get started with WordPress. You can install everything with just a few simple clicks, and you'll be on your way to building a fully-functional website. If you're like most people, then lines of code isn't exactly how you visualize what your website will look like. Luckily, WordPress has plugins that can help! Plugins like Divi Builder or Elementor are really great since they allow you to see the visual elements on your page and you'll know exactly how visitors will find it when they arrive as you build in real-time. With page builders, you can arrange webpages using a visual drag-and-drop interface without the need for coding skills. And there are plenty of great resources online for beginners, so even if you don't know anything about building a site, there are tutorials to help.
2. Constantly Updated
Because WordPress is so popular and widely used across the globe, it's constantly being updated and improved upon. The WordPress team is always working to optimize the performance of WordPress for both website creators and users. This means you're always getting the latest technology, and that security breaches are constantly being identified and patched. All you need to do is remember to regularly upgrade your site, which is easy to do with the click of a button. This gives you the latest version of WordPress as soon as it's available.
3. Lots of Flexibility
You likely have an idea of what you want your site to look like, from the layout and images all the way down to the font. Luckily, if you can dream it, you can make it happen on WordPress. There are thousands of themes to choose from, each with a unique look and feel. And many of these themes have been built specifically for certain types of businesses, whether its for artists to home improvement companies. These themes are website templates designed directly for businesses in specific industries, and you can choose the one you like the most. With a little web design knowledge, you can tweak these themes and customize them to get exactly what you want.
4. Open-Source
One of the hallmarks of WordPress is that it's completely open-source. A lot of people are attracted to this since it's free to download/use. Being open-source allows anyone to look at and use the code that WordPress core is built on to improve it. With more users and developers using it, more people can spot bugs and security issues to fix them quickly. There's an active community of WordPress experts who are always looking to make it better for users around the world.
5. SEO Help
With search engine optimization (SEO), the aim is to gain higher visibility with a target audience through search engines. In theory, more visibility means greater chances of website traffic and lead conversions. Hence, free WordPress plugins like Yoast SEO can make optimizing your content for search engines that much easier, helping improve your visibility, as well as the volume of traffic to your site. Of course, a plugin can't fix everything for your SEO needs, but what it does is help ensure you're not forgetting the basics. WordPress, when used with the right tools, can be a fantastic platform for building a marketing strategy.
6. Responsive On Any Device
More than half of all web browsing happens on mobile devices, so if your website isn't optimized for use on mobile devices, you're missing out on tons of traffic and revenue. Luckily with WordPress, most themes are responsive, meaning that the appearance of your site automatically adjusts based on the device that your visitors are using. This means everyone gets the same great user experience that you intended for them regardless of the device that they're using (e.g., smartphone, tablet, laptop, or desktop).
7. Plenty Of Functionality
No matter what you want your website to do, WordPress can make it happen with plugins. Plugins are pieces of software that enhance or provide additional functionality within WordPress. For example, you can download a plugin to take credit card payments on your site. You can also download plugins to integrate other business tools like your email software (i.e., HubSpot), or social media posting tools. This can makes it easy to handle a lot of business functions all in one place.
8. Active Community Online
One of the most loved aspects of WordPress is its active and helpful online community. If you have a problem or an issue using any aspect of WordPress core or a plugin, finding the answer can be as easy as a quick search online. Someone else most likely has already come across the same issue in the past, where it was resolved in an online WordPress forum. If not, you can always ask a new question on the forums and you'll have people reaching out to help you in no time. Part of this helpful, collaborative culture really stems from reason #4 above (Open-Source).
9. Scale Up Easily
You're likely trying to grow your business and increase your revenue, so it's important to create a website that will grow as quickly as you do. Even if you start with a simple website with just a few pages, you can always upgrade your account to include more functionality and storage. No matter what size business you run, WordPress can help you create a fast and responsive website. It's easy to add more pages, download more plugins, create more content, and increase your traffic.
10. Get Off The Ground Faster
One of the biggest advantages of using WordPress is that it only takes a few hours to build a website from the ground up, even for the least tech-savvy of us. Pointing back to reason #1 (user friendly) above, it just shows how helpful page builders are when it comes to speed and ease of building beautiful pages using a drag-and-drop interface. As long as you have a domain and hosting in place, you simply need to download the software and start a WordPress account. From there, you'll be walked through the steps of creating pages, uploading content and images, and designing different elements of your site. If you need a website quickly, WordPress is your best bet.
Now that you know more about WordPress, you can understand why it's so popular all over the world. If you're ready to start building your site today, talk to our WordPress team today!