Benefits of WordPress: 8 Reasons It’s the Best Choice for Your Website

What is WordPress?

WordPress powers nearly one-third of the world’s websites, from small personal blogs to the complex sites of major corporations such as Sony, Time Inc., the New York Post, and NBC. 

WordPress is only one of the site builders and content management systems users can download and install for free, but its unique features make it the most popular system today.

Back to the basics: What is WordPress and what is it used for?

WordPress vs. the Competition

WordPress is one of the three most often used site-building packages in the world. Other popular CMS platforms include Wix, Shopify, Joomla, Magento, and more.

Joomla and Drupal require a certain level of technical know-how and familiarity with HTML CSS and the programming language PHP. Shopify and Magento are generally more expensive, both in terms of monthly subscription costs and ongoing development work required.

WordPress allows experienced users to work a high level with no knowledge of code or programming.

8 Benefits of using the WordPress Platform

Here’s a look at a few key benefits of using WordPress to set up and run your business or personal site.

1. Flexible and Adaptable to Changing Needs

Although WordPress was originally designed to support blogging and related types of online publishing, it also powers a wide range of sites with other purposes. WordPress is used to run complex sites for large multinational corporations, manage small businesses, and create personal blogs. 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 that are suitable for your site. Thanks to its many themes and easy access to its source files, WordPress is also endlessly adaptable to a company’s changing needs.

2. User-friendly—Even for Beginners

WordPress is known for its ease of use, even for beginners. Its intuitive interface allows users to create and manage websites without requiring extensive technical knowledge or coding skills. Content creation, editing, and publishing can be done effortlessly using its visual editor.

A WordPress site can be installed and up and running in a matter of minutes, even without any technical expertise. 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 has all the features needed to customize a site’s heading and layout and start creating pages and posts right away.

3. Themes Offer Multiple 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 basic and premium of themes. Many of these are instantly available to a new site owner 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.

4. Plugins Extend Functionality

WordPress includes all the 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.

WordPress plugins can be activated or deactivated and uninstalled as needed as a site evolves. This versatility enables you to customize your website to meet your specific needs.

Related: View some of our recommended WordPress plugins!

5. WordPress Sites Rank High

Searchability is key to ranking high on Google and other search engines. WordPress sites tend to rank high for their keywords, largely because they’re constantly being updated and because WordPress includes a variety of tools and plugins for optimizing content for SEO (search engine optimization).

WordPress is inherently structured to be search engine optimized. It generates clean and readable code, provides options for optimizing page titles, meta descriptions, and URLs, and supports plugins specifically designed to improve SEO. This makes it easier for search engines to crawl and index your site, potentially leading to better search engine rankings.

6. WordPress Sites Are Mobile Responsive

With the increasing use of mobile devices, having a mobile-responsive website is crucial. WordPress themes are designed to be mobile-friendly, ensuring that your website looks and functions well across various screen sizes and devices.

Mobile responsiveness is also a factor in Google rankings, so websites need to look good on any device. WordPress offers a variety of responsive theme designs, and users can also make a static site responsive with plugins and adjustments to theme files.

7. WordPress Sites Have a Built-In Blog

Since WordPress is a content management system software, it has multiple features that make publishing content easy. One of these is a “built-in” blog feature that can be accessed from any device at any time, so users who want to add a blog to their website don’t have to create one separately. This makes it possible for sites unrelated to blogging to use the blog feature for adding updates or announcements.

8. The WordPress Community Offers Support

Because WordPress is free and open source, it’s 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.

WordPress is used by over 40 percent of CMS-based websites worldwide, and it’s easy to see why. WordPress makes the essential tools to create a WordPress 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. With an array of features such as themes and plugins designed to extend its functions, WordPress works for all kinds of sites.

Bonus benefits of WordPress

1. Multilingual Capability: WordPress has built-in multilingual support, allowing you to create websites in different languages. This is beneficial for businesses and organizations targeting a global audience or multilingual communities.
2. Cost-Effective: WordPress is free and open-source, which means you don’t have to pay for the software. Additionally, there are numerous free themes and plugins available.
3. Ownership and Control: With WordPress, you have full ownership and control over your website. You can host it on your own server or choose a hosting provider of your choice. This gives you more flexibility and control compared to platforms like Wix or Shopify, where your website is hosted on their servers.
4. E-commerce Capabilities: Although platforms like Shopify and Magento are specifically designed for e-commerce, WordPress offers robust e-commerce solutions through plugins like WooCommerce.
5. Scalability: WordPress is highly scalable, allowing your website to grow as your needs expand. It can handle high-traffic websites, large content databases, and complex functionalities without compromising performance. Its scalability makes it suitable for both small personal blogs and large enterprise websites.
6. Integration Options: WordPress integrates seamlessly with various third-party services, tools, and platforms. It supports integration with popular marketing tools, analytics platforms, email marketing services, social media platforms, payment gateways, and more. This enables you to extend the functionality of your website and connect it with your preferred tools and services.

If you are building a WordPress site, you should consider a hosting provider that offers WordPress hosting. This will help save time and allow you to access your WordPress dashboard through your account.