Own a business and need a website? Well were here to answer the famous question “Why use WordPress?” Researching this subject & even understanding what a “wordpress” is means you know a little bit about the web design world. What that doesnt mean is youve done your research and or know exactly what your needs are.
What we want to do is break down the basics of wordpress & let you know 5 reasons we think as a branding company its the best option for a website content management system!
Why use WordPress?
For the small business owner, companies like WordPress, Joomla, Shopify, Magento, Wix & Weebly are foreign. The process of building a website for any reason brings these names up to your awareness. They are literally all platforms you can use to build websites. All have benefits while many are used more often for niche brands with specific purposes. Shopify is one thats really popular but it only makes sense if your doing ecommerce. Magento is similar to shopify but on a larger scale. Other website platforms & content management systems have more flexibility and WordPress is one of them.
- WordPress is free
- Funtionality
- Easy To Learn
- SEO Comes First
- Your In Control
1. WordPress is Free:
WordPress is one platform you wont have to pay to use. Its an open source project thats been around since 2003. WordPress is developed by a bunch of contributors. The contributors take part in the community because they beta test all the software that comes with wordpress. One thing to note is even though wordpress is free, the plugins attached to it & other things will cost. The platform itself is free but to make the website a live website you will have to pay something. One of those things is hosting. You can get a hosting account through us for $25 a month that comes with unlimited email, 247 support & management options.
You can typically find themes that are free & even plugins. The paid versions always provide better options & quality support! Who woulda thought! lol. Finally many wordpress users end up paying for additional services whether it be from freelancers or firms. You might pay a freelancers to design your logo for you or adjust your code on your website. Overall you can keep your costs to a minimum with wordpress because of the community that comes with it.
2. Functionality:
One of the best things about websites with wordpress is the functionality. Most people get it confused as a “blogging” website but its way more then that. At the beginning it was but that has changed & evolved into the machine it is now. In fact, wordpress has a big advantage because it comes from blogging. Its clean, fast and the best way to publish blog posts. Best part about it is its included once you install it on your domain name. With wordpress its not like others. You can create a stunning ecommerce shop, and the blog comes right along with it instead of adding it at the end.
You also can litereally make any website from wordpress. These are some of the sites we have created in the past.
- Blogs
- Business Websites
- Portfolios
- Forums
- ECommerce Sites
- Ratings Websites
- Membership Sites
- eLearning modules
- Chatrooms
- Galleries
- Personal Websites for self promotion
- Job Boards
- Business Directories
- Q&A websites like Quora
- Non-Profit Websites for collection of donations
- Media-centric sites like youtube
- auction & coupon sites
Clearly the list is long. The good news is with wordpress, functionality for these sites are minimal.
The media types wordpress takes are stunning. Images, Documents, Audio & Video! Personally ive never had wordpress tell me a fil isnt supported. There are some file formats that arent allowed like SVG, there is work arounds for it though. One thing about wordpress is its easy to learn. Its an open source software so WordPress can be used by anyone. There are tons of resources available to learn about it & be able to create your own site. You can scale up your website to expand your business also. Whether it be to add membership to your company to gain recurring income, or adding a tutorial option to your company you can definitely grow your business with & through wordpress!
Warning
WordPress does support any media. However you should follow the copyright laws & only use media that you have rights too.
3. Easy To Learn
Managing the sites are easy. If you know what your doing lol. Some stuff will need coding to it, and or knowing the ins and outs of wordpress to get it done. We as a company offer monthly management for companies that dont want to become web developers. There is about 10 hours a week minimum it will take to manage your site. We take care of that for you. Here are some of the things that will need to be done weekly on your site.
- Making sure server is okay.
- Keeping checks on security
- Running back ups (we do one a week)
- Updating Plugins, themese and wordpress software
- Managing Spam
- Testing for Functionality and broken links
- Making improvements in speed, text & images for SEO purposes
These are the basic things you need to do weekly to manage a website. With wordpress these basic needs are easy but what small business owner has 10 hours a week to manage their own site? Utilize us for that!
4. SEO Comes First
There are alot of platforms out there that offer SEO services. WordPress is known for having the internal things needed for SEO to happen though. In fact wordpress automatically generates title tags, meta descriptions for every page & post. That specifically lets google and other engines about your content & it will get you indexed & moved up in the rankings with that alone. When you are looking into doing seo one plugin comes to mind that we use. Yoast SEO Plugin is a must have! It is a great plugin that has a free option & paid option. The free option comes with so many tools you wont even need the paid version.
5. Your In Control
When you are looking for a website builder on google you will notice you get a bunch of different results. If you want control though. You need to choose wordpress. A lot of other websites block your use of certain things & make you pay for more access. Places like shopify, wix, and squarespace limit your control to whatever features you want. They ask you to purchase a “premium package” which leaves you with limitations. Like these:
- Ecommerce is theirs, you cant take it with you anywhere and or upgrade it with plugins.
- You’re stuck with the hosting that is provided.
- You cannot adjust code at all. These companies let you edit CSS but no html or anything of the sort.
- You dont own your website. Your renting it from them. If you leave, your website & content & analytics & EVERYTHING stays with them.
