5 Key Benefits of Building Your Website in WordPress

I am a WordPress designer/developer and have worked with WordPress ("WP") since it has existed. Here are some facts concerning it as of Dec 2017.

1) WP now is used on 33% of all websites and that percentage is growing all the time. This is important as it shows the shear dominance of WP. No other Content Management System (CMS) even comes remotely close to this market dominance. That matters because finding people to design. create, administer, deploy, and work with you is FAR easier than any other CMS choice.

2) Self Administered - well, not really. I think that is a false promise. Most people have no idea what they are doing in web page design and website architecture. I always include FREE one year's administration of clients' brochure websites just to put this issue in proper perspective - other types of sites I charge as in eCommerce sites with lots of products.

Clients will blame their designer/developer if they cannot add/edit their site easily, expect FREE support to help them "do it" when they cannot do it easily and they never can. So, I just include it for free for a year and put the issue to bed or charge to administer complex sites which clients will not be able to do on their own.

3) There are now 53,532 plugins for WP...!!! (see: https://wordpress.org/plugins/ ). They cover a HUGE list of things and taken together offer something that has never existed before <<< HUGE community support. Most are FREE or introduction is free and added stuff is low cost - often less than $100 or so which is really a low cost indeed.

4) SEO Ranking - unless you are on page 1 or 2 of Google search response, then why concern yourself with SEO rankings at all? You can check this out for yourself: list all the key words YOU think people would use to find you and do a Google search for each of those words yourself. Note who is on page 1 or 2 of the responses. If the responses show: Walmart, Target, Macys, CVS, Eckerd Drugs, Amazon, etc. on pages 1/2 then know that you will never dislodge them from page 1 or 2 ever!

Whether WP itself helps or not in SEO is meaningless in the above cases. LOCAL SEO IS important but is not a WP issue. Use www.yoast.com plugin (basic is FREE) and buy their $69 LOCAL Seo plugin and work it. That matters. But retail sales nationally??? ... SEO will not work for you unless you have a big budget for it and 6-9 month's patients and continual (never ending) work on just this one area only. Ugh!

5) Plugins - some plugins are extensive and complex as in WooCommerce (WooC) and take some considerable investment in time to learn and work with them. To think you will open up a successful eCommerce website with occasional "look-sees" monthly with no previous experience is just silly.

6) WP Can Be For Every Website - why not? WP can cover all possible situations so long as it is developed by people who know what they are doing. WP is thought of as a "blog platform" and it is, but, it is also a website development platform (with no blog use at all) as well.

7) WP Sites Need Maintenance - well of course they do. What meaningful website doesn't? There are plugins, if you wish to use them, to administer and maintain WP for you. Most are FREE too.

8) Constantly Update WP Itself and Plugins as well - So!? All those updates mean it is under constant improvement and constant security updates. That is wonderful!!! I have my set my sites to AUTOMATICALLY update WP itself and all plugins AFTER a backup is done automatically as well. So!? What's the problem? So far, it all works flawlessly.

9) WP is itself a security problem? Well, it is now covering 33% of all websites so, of course, that makes it a focus for attacks. But there are plugins for this too! Good ones with start-off installation for FREE and they are supported by world-class security specialists focused on WP itself.

So you simply cannot go wrong using WP!

...

And they are free!! They are so user friendly and their design and layouts are modern. The problem with the ones that are free is that they can become outdated in about two years and you need to upload another theme, but the content remains the same, you just have to jockey things around a bit to get what you want. Freshening up your website is not such a bad thing when technology is evolving at the pace it is today. They also have a great selection of landing pages which I have used as a mini website targeting one particular small industry and requires very little maintenance. My advice to you, research the company that designs the theme and see their quality and success with downloads. I just modernized my website this past weekend and it took me only an hour to jimmy things around. Let me know what you think.

I think all depend on the clients requirements and future use of the sites.
Because WP needs maintenance and even though clients are able to do changes, they need to be aware of the cost for professional updates.
Also the future use of the website. Some businesses wont do any changes for years, for those I do not think that WP is necessary. I just finished a couple of project with good old HTML, because the sites won't change in the next 1o years. ( they already knew this) So I did not recommenced WP for them. Btw, it was fun to go back to HTML and build the site from scratch. Cheers!

Only some are true...

Yes, these comments are true for a programmer/developer, BUT NOT an end user, for example... a SMB, single person building a blog, anyone that is not computer savvy or techie.

Not all plugins are plug and play like many make it seem. Some are, but many require programing and server knowledge.

Google likes WordPress if the site is OPTIMIZED!

RE: "You can get a WordPress site ranking very quickly compared to a static website."

Disagree. Its about the content, programming and meeting Google's SEO requirements.

RE: "It only appears that WordPress is less secure because there are so many websites made with it."

False, you have to keep WP and their plugins constantly updated. If you don't keep it patched then good luck. I have had to fix more sites that have been hacked on WP than any other CMS or platform.

Please don't think I don't like WordPress, its a great platform.

Its a great CMS and the most prevelant, BUT ITS NOT FOR EVERY WEB SITE!

Do your due diligence and make sure its the right fit for your needs today and tomorrow. Yes there is a plugin for pretty much anything on WP and it can be customized. But there may be a better platform per your project requirements.

Truth! :)

Great post!

My 2 cents would be;

avoid getting a template that promises too much customization or looks too flashy as they often slow the site down. (I can't count how many Avada site's I've had to fix).

Keep the plugins to a minimum, and try to stick to more popular/downloaded ones. These tend to get more updates and are generally more secure (this is a very big generalization though)

If you are worried about security there are a bunch of ways to secure WordPress. There are firewalls that work pretty well, and I also find some hosts do a better job than others at security. There are a bunch of articles on WordPress security.

As for ease of use, Word can actually publish directly to WordPress, and there is a great android/iOS app for WordPress.

One big reason I love WordPress is the community. If you try to find a developer for magento (an ecommerce platform), grav, perch or Hubspot, well, you might have a tough time. For WordPress, not a problem

All The Way Up Media is an expert in building WordPress sites.