WordPress is the best content management system (CMS) on the planet. Period. Full Stop. End of Story. There are a lot of reasons why that is, but let’s start with what it is.
Getting to know WordPress
Broadly speaking, WordPress is a highly accessible content management that separates your content (stored in a database) from your website’s design (controlled by a theme).
Its mission is to ‘democratize publishing’. A lofty goal, no doubt. But one that is backed by a billion-dollar enterprise (Automattic Inc.) and thousands of developers, supported in nearly every language, used in virtually every industry. Oh, and did I mention that it’s free?
It’s also more popular than ever. In fact, nearly a third of all websites worldwide use WordPress, which is growing[1].
[1] CMS Trends, BuiltWith Pty. Ltd., 2019. https://trends.builtwith.com/cms
Why do we love WordPress?
If your business is considering a new website, you’ll need to choose a content management system (CMS) or website builder.
The right CMS will make it easy for you to add and update content on your website and have other capabilities to help market your business. It’s a big decision that will influence how you use your website after it launches and whether your website is limited to a basic digital brochure or a powerful online marketing tool.
We’re proud to say that we’ve been working with WordPress since our agency was founded. And—at least among the larger agencies in town—we’re the only agency that specializes in developing custom WordPress websites[2].
[2] This goes further than just semantics. Instead of actually developing custom websites for clients in-house, most agencies are merely customizing existing themes with drag and drop page builders, outsourcing development altogether to overseas developers, or use proprietary CMS software.
What is a theme?
When you buy a WordPress website, what you’re really buying is a theme[3]. Web developers who use WordPress, such as us, develop the theme to control the presentation of your content along with any custom functionality it may need (such as e-commerce).
You can then use WordPress’ advanced visual editor (a “WYSIWYG” or “What You See Is What You Get” editor) to write and post content without worrying about the design and layout. It’s quite similar to working on a document with Microsoft Word.
When a visitor accesses a page on your website, WordPress will retrieve your content from the database and display it within the theme.
[3] Along with the text, images, audio, and video necessary to craft a great experience for your audience.
Why do we love it?
Well, there are a lot of reasons to love WordPress. We think it’s a great choice for clients because it offers a lot of benefits they won’t find in other software packages.
1. WordPress is big. And small.
We’ve already mentioned that it powers a third of the internet and is used worldwide. But it’s also quite small. It’s core software package is under 10MB and it’s fast out of the box.
2. WordPress is open source
Open source CMS means no licenses to buy, no fees for upgrades, and thousands of free (and paid) templates and plugins. Future adaptation is easy, your content is portable and search engines love open source CMSs.
The alternative to open source is a proprietary CMS. We think businesses should be really cautious about proprietary software for a couple reasons:
First, it takes a considerable amount of money, time, and talent to develop software such as a CMS. When you use a proprietary CMS, you’re effectively paying the developer to recreate something that already exists. That is to say, your money is being used to reinvent the wheel instead of building the best digital experience possible for your users.
Secondly, the amount of work that has gone into WordPress over the years is unparalleled amongst CMS software. It would be impossible and cost prohibitive for a single agency to engineer the same level of security and scalability into their own proprietary software.
3. WordPress is SEO-friendly
Out-of-the-box, WordPress will do a solid job of making your content available to search engines. It’s misleading to suggest that any CMS is search engine optimized, but WordPress is definitely search engine-friendly. There are also plenty of kick-ass plugins that help with onsite optimization tasks.
4. WordPress is community-driven
There’s a huge community of WordPress developers dedicated to improving the platform. There are plenty of free tutorials, demos, plugins, extensions and tools available to help you get the most out of your website.
Need a new shopping cart? There’s free plugins for that. Need a unique gallery or a chat box? There’s plugins for that too!
5. WordPress is powerful
Importing, exporting, commenting, subscribing, sharing, selling and more! WordPress dominates. The right plugins make WordPress akin to a custom order Swiss Army knife—there’s very little that WordPress can’t do. It’s an awesome tool for small businesses and online retailers yet, it’s powerful enough to handle the likes of CNN and The New York Times.
6. WordPress is secure
Choosing a smaller platform because it attracts less attention from hackers is like turning your lights off and hoping burglars don’t see that your front door is open.
Yes, WordPress is huge and gets a lot of attention from questionable people. But it’s also well known for pushing frequent updates to fix any bugs or security holes that are found. Automatic security updates also mean that when a vulnerability is discovered, it can be fixed worldwide in a matter of hours—a feat no other CMS can match.
Furthermore, the vast majority of breaches that do happen, occur for a very limited number of reasons that are easy to avoid.
These include:
- using poor quality hosting;
- using poor quality plugins;
- using aftermarket themes; and,
- using weak passwords.
7. WordPress is easy-to-use
WordPress’s interface is straightforward and intuitive so you don’t need to be a tech guru to update pages and add new posts.
A well-developed custom theme will take care of all the formatting and layout. Users have control of their new website and are not hooked into additional fees for minor changes down the road.
8. WordPress is social
The people who created WordPress have provided a number of useful tools for connecting with social networks. It’s easy to connect your website to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, whatever your channel. This allows your new posts to get pushed to your audience automatically across multiple channels.
