WordPress powers nearly one-third of the world’s websites, from small personal blogs to the complex sites of major corporations such as Sony, Techcrunch, Microsoft News, Reuters Blog, the New York Post, and NBC. WordPress is not the only site builder and content management system users can download and install for free, but it has unique features that make it the most popular content management system in use today.
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WordPress Vs The Competition
WordPress tops the list of the four most often used site building packages in the world, followed by Joomla, Drupal, and Wix. All are free to download and use, come with numerous add-ons for specialized functionality, and can be customized to suit the needs of individual users.
However, both Joomla and Drupal require a certain level of technical know-how and familiarity with HTML CSS and the programming language PHP. WordPress allows experienced users to work at that level also —but, unlike Joomla and Drupal, it also includes features for beginners, so that they can set up a site quickly with no knowledge of code or programming.
Here’s a look at a few key benefits of using WordPress to set up and run your business or personal website:
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Flexible and Adaptable for Changing Needs
Starting as a simple blogging tool in 2003, it is now used for a variety of purposes including blogs, magazines, eCommerce sites, businesses, portfolios, photography sites, and more. How WordPress grew popular in just 15 years is really fantastic. WordPress is also used to run complex sites for large multinational corporations, and manage small businesses. WordPress sites can contain full-service eCommerce stores, showcase a portfolio, or host a social network, group, or podcast. Whatever a company’s requirements, the core WordPress package plus a variety of basic and premium plugins will probably get the job done.
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User-Friendly – Even for Novices
To create a website in WordPress, you don’t need to have advanced coding knowledge. Any layperson can learn how to use it and build a fully-functional website. All a user needs is a domain name and a web hosting account. WordPress can be installed free through your WordPress hosting provider or uploaded directly from WordPress.org. From there, an intuitive and easy to manage Admin dashboard sports all the features needed to customize a site’s heading and layout and to start creating pages and posts right away.
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Multiple Theme Options
WordPress themes offer users an array of choices for fine-tuning the appearance and functions of a new site, thanks to its large and growing directory of basic and premium of themes. Many of these are instantly available to new site owners through the WordPress theme directory, and thousands more can be purchased through design marketplaces and third-party designers from around the world. Themes can be previewed live and installed at any time to change the look and layout of a WordPress site.
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Plugins Extend Functionality
WordPress includes a robust list of elements needed to create a basic site, but many users want more specialized functions related to a site’s specific needs. The WordPress plugin directory includes hundreds of plugins—small pieces of code designed to perform specific tasks—that allow users to add features such as shopping carts, galleries, contact forms, and more to any compatible WordPress site. Users can also purchase and install hundreds of custom plugins from third-party developers. Plugins can be activated or deactivated and uninstalled as needed as a site evolves.
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SEO
The code behind WordPress is very clean and simple, making it easy for search engines to read and index a site’s content. In addition, each page, post, and image can have its own meta tag keywords, description, and title, and be optimized for specific keywords, allowing for very precise search engine optimization. You can also use tags to further enhance your search engine optimization efforts.
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A Blog is Built-in and Ready To Go
Since WordPress was originally created as a blogging platform, blogging capabilities are built-in and are easy to integrate if desired. Setting up RSS/email subscriptions to your blog, commenting capabilities, and automatically adding the most recent blog posts to other pages of the site (your home page, for example) are also very simple to set-up, and help to extend your company’s reach and make your site more dynamic and interactive.
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Multiple Users
As an administrator of a WordPress site, you can set-up multiple users for the website and assign access levels and capabilities to each user.
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Easy Transition from One Designer to the Next
Unless you’re really loyal to your web designer or design firm, chances are, there will be several designers or firms that will work on your site. Before, this is extremely difficult because each designer or firm has its own preferred platform. WordPress’ design and development, operates on a universal, open-source platform making it easier for you to transition from one designer to another.
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Responsive Web Design
In today’s mobile development landscape, responsive web design is no longer an option but a must. When you use a WordPress website design, you automatically get the benefit of responsive web technology without the need to develop separate websites for different devices.
10. The WordPress Community Offers Robust Support
Because WordPress is free and open-source, it is supported by WordPress-loving communities around the world. This community of WordPress lovers is responsible for making changes to the source files and keeping WordPress updated and secure. The WordPress community also engages in plenty of outreach to users, hosting WordPress camps around the world and supporting the growth of local WordPress user groups.
30% of CMS-based websites worldwide currently run on WordPress and it’s easy to see why. WordPress makes the essential tools for building a website available to any user, not just experienced web developers, and those tools can equally support a small personal site and a large, complicated corporate web portal. Here at Astract9, we’ve been using WordPress in building great and affordable website solutions for our clients for years now. Are you looking to put up a simple website to grow your business?
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Author: Olamilekan Akindele