12 Reasons Why Your Company Should Use WordPress

The days of needing to know how to code to build a website are long gone. Whether you’re looking to build one for your company’s storefront, or you just want a website to share your personal blog, it’s never been easier to build one.

This is in large thanks to modern-day website builders. A few popular ones that might come to your mind are Wix, SquareSpace, Shopify, and WordPress. While all of these options have their pros and cons, we’ll be diving into WordPress for this article. At Jack & Bean, we’re big WordPress fans, and we hope after reading this article, you might understand why, and maybe even turn into a WordPress fan, too!

What is WordPress?

WordPress is a content management system, more commonly referred to as a CMS. CMS software is used to manage the creation and modification of online content. From hosting just blogs to supporting huge websites, WordPress has a wide variety of tools to suit virtually any company.

Although it started as a blogging platform – hence the name WordPress – it’s grown into the world’s most popular website platform. And it didn’t win this recognition for nothing. There are some compelling reasons why you should use WordPress for your website and content management needs.

1. WordPress is Free and Open Source

A competitive advantage that WordPress has against its competitors is that it’s open-source software. This means two important things for the end user: it’s free and it’s very customizable.

With WordPress being free, you can use it for any purpose – whether it be for personal or business reasons. This also takes away a barrier of entry of having to pay for creating or using a website. We’ll put a caveat here that some themes and plugins cost money, but you can 100% build your own website without having to dish out for those.

Because WordPress is open source, you can also change just about any aspect of the CMS you’d like. This makes WordPress very malleable to what you need and your preferences for design. Even if you’re not the most well-versed in web design or website building, WordPress makes it very user-friendly to customize (see #5!).

2. WordPress is the World’s Most Popular CMS

As we mentioned above, WordPress is the world’s most popular CMS. In 2021, there were an estimated 455 million websites using WordPress. This equates to a 37% market share worldwide.

With so many people on the platform, there’s barely any chance that WordPress developers would stop working on it and improving it. This gives any company using WordPress some peace of mind that their website platform won’t be going anytime soon.

It also gives confidence that WordPress will always be on the cutting edge of web development technology. Although it’s currently the most popular CMS, the competition is still out there. Staying on top of industry trends and design is crucial for WordPress to keep their top-tier ranking and huge customer base.

3. WordPress Has a Friendly Community of Support

WordPress’s popularity also means there’s a huge community of support. If you have a question or an issue, chances are several other people have had that issue, and have already discussed it, found the solution and posted it online.

Usually Googling your issue with WordPress produces a number of solutions. You can start there and dig a little deeper until you find one that solves your problem. Check out community-driven websites like Reddit for tips and tricks too.

In addition to the community threads of support, there’s a ton of online training for WordPress, too. These come in the free and paid varieties, but chances are whatever you’re needing or wanting to learn about WordPress, there’s a way to learn it.

4. WordPress Themes Make Any Project Achievable

Although WordPress started as a blogging platform, it’s grown to much more than that. Due to its free-source nature, there’s very little that you can’t do with WordPress and all of its themes.

To start finding a theme that works for your business, you can start searching in the WordPress Theme Collection by the title of your industry. Yep, it can really be that simple.

You can try searching for “construction themes” or “real estate themes” for example. Or if you’re wanting a specific look, you can try searching for “colorful WordPress themes”. Start searching and see what’s available!

Be sure to read the reviews on ones you’re heavily considering. You’ll want to choose a highly-rated theme or a theme from a trusted WordPress developer. This will ensure you’ll have access to a quality theme and support from the developer if needed.

Investing in a premium theme can be a worthwhile move. Most premium themes cost an average of $70 and offer a suite of benefits, including bundled plugins and visual builders. Visual builders allow you to customize your content directly within the CMS.

Before you choose a theme you like, be sure to do your research and find one that has all the bells and whistles your company needs.

We highly recommend the Avada and Divi themes for WordPress, and use them overwhelmingly in our own clients’ websites.

5. The WordPress Platform is Easy to Learn and Use

Even though WordPress is a powerful platform, it’s actually quite easy to use. One of the top reasons why WordPress is so popular is because of its easy user interface.

You don’t have to be an expert in coding websites to know how to create a functional and aesthetically pleasing site. You don’t even have to be familiar with how a CMS works, either.

You can start your website by picking out a theme, maybe installing a plugin or two, and then start creating pages and other content. More advanced users can also have fun customizing WordPress too. There’s virtually an endless amount of ways you can customize your website.

Some themes come with virtual builders, which means you can edit and move elements on the front-end of your website. This makes it easier to envision what your edits look like. So whether you’re a beginner or an experienced user, WordPress can be tailored to any experience level.

6. WordPress is Focused on Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is all about making sure your website ranks high on search engine result pages, also called SERPs. WordPress is a great CMS for this. In fact, SEO is built into WordPress’s foundation.

WordPress automatically generates title tags and meta descriptions for all of your pages and posts. These are critical for search engines as they communicate what your content is about and help Google index your page properly.

WordPress also has a number of plugins to take your SEO capabilities to the next level. Some good plugins to check out are Yoast SEO Plugin, Schema, and Broken Link Checker. While you could get away without an SEO plugin, they are handy to ensure you’re not forgetting anything critical.

7. WordPress Supports a Large Number of Media Types

While there’s a full list of accepted file types for WordPress, you can take comfort in knowing it supports just about any file type you might want or need. The following categories are all accepted:

• Images
• Videos
• Audio
• Documents

WordPress accepts all common file types like .jpg, .png, .gif, .doc, .mp3, .mp4, .mov, .wmv and more. It also accepts less common types like .key, .ogg., and 3gp. This is a boon for those companies or creators who need more freedom in the type of files they use for their website.

You can also host files on your website without having them live on a webpage.

Unsupported media types can often even be added and used through plugins. For example, one type of file that isn’t directly supported by WordPress right now is .svg. There are easy workarounds to using svgs though, and many themes and plugins make use of it still.

8. WordPress Can Scale Easily with Plugins

Although WordPress originally started as a blogging platform, it’s capable of much more through its extensive library of plugins. The plugins available on WordPress can help expand your website as your business grows.

When you first set out to create your website, you’ll probably choose a theme that you like the look of and that can meet your website needs, and customize it to your liking. From there, you’ll likely be set with it for a while with a couple of pages and posts added here and there.

Eventually, you might find yourself needing a new capability with your website. Maybe you’re wanting to introduce an eCommerce aspect to your website. Looking through WordPress’s library of plugins, chances are you’ll be able to find a plugin that suits your needs.

With over 50,000 plugins available for free through the WordPress Plugin Directory, this aspect of WordPress is what makes it so applicable to a number of industries.

This can help save a lot of time and headaches when you need to grow your business. While there will still be some time needed to get the added functionality set up properly, it will surely take less time than building it from scratch, or switching to another CMS.

WordPress plugins vary in price and usually require an annual subscription to receive updates. A few of our most used plugins are Gravity Forms, iThemes Security Pro, and WP Rocket.

9. WordPress is the Industry’s Top Blogging Choice

WordPress started out as a blogging platform and never forgot its roots. It has been around since 2003, but it’s still on the cutting edge of blogging capabilities.

It’s easy to publish new content and manage it, keep track of and respond to comments, format your text and layout, and more. It also has an easy way to categorize and organize your content.

Another bonus to WordPress’s blogging capabilities is that you can assign users to only work on your blog. You can give them Editor and Contributor roles. The Editor can create, edit and publish blogs, whereas contributors can create posts but not publish them. This helps ensure users don’t have access to files, plugins, and security tools that they shouldn’t have access to.

10. WordPress is Really Fast

The speed of your website can affect two main things: 1) it can send your potential customers elsewhere if the page loads too slowly and 2) it can harm your SEO rankings with Google.

Choosing a CMS that has speed built into it already will give your website an added boost when it comes to page speeds. WordPress is already naturally pretty fast when installed correctly, and using premium plugins can give your site an extra boost. You can also look into premium WordPress-specific hosting to give your website an additional speed increase.

Not only will your website be looked upon positively by Google and will help your pages rank higher in search engines, but it will also be an added boon for your customers. No one wants to wait around for a page to load!

Just be aware that adding a ton of plugins along with certain hefty themes can actually slow your website down, so it’s best to keep your website regularly audited and optimized for speed whenever you make any large changes.

11. WordPress Has Top Security Features

Although no CMS is 100% secure and protected from online threats, WordPress is generally considered one of the safest options out there. This is because of both the default security features already built-in, as well as the extensive ones you can add through plugins.

WordPress makes it easy to keep your website protected. It rolls out updates pretty frequently, so always installing those updates when they’re released will ensure your website is properly secured.

You can take it one step further by setting up difficult passwords, using two-factor authentication, selecting a secure web host, and looking into security plugins. Installing iThemes Security Pro is one of our favorites to add numerous ways to secure your website against intrusions.

12. WordPress is Easy to Maintain

In addition to being easy to set up and customize, WordPress also makes it really simple to maintain your website. For example, there are WordPress updates rolled out every couple of months. These can be installed with just a click of a button. Nothing you need to do on your end of things but ensure you’re running the latest version of WordPress.

These updates usually take just a few seconds on fast WordPress hosting to finish installing. You’ll receive a notification when a new version is ready to be installed.

There are also plugins that make it easy to restore your site if it ever gets compromised. These plugins are automatic and store a version of your website on a remote location like Dropbox or Google Drive. BackupBuddy and UpdraftPlus are popular backup plugins we have tons of experience with, and highly recommend their premium versions.

WordPress is a Great Fit for Most Companies

WordPress didn’t become the most popular CMS in a crowded market for nothing. Its ease of use, community of support, and its wide variety of options of plugins and themes, it’s easy to see why WordPress has garnered the fans it has today.

So, why use WordPress? Whether you’re a small video producer just starting out, or an established construction company, it has options and solutions for nearly any business and user.

Creating and hosting a website is easy with WordPress, but if you’d like any additional support on your website journey, contact Jack & Bean. We are experienced WordPress developers and have created hundreds of websites with the platform. Contact us to learn how we can help grow your business through a WordPress website.