If you’re looking to launch your business online you’ll need a website, but where do you start? There are plenty of platforms out there,
What Is WordPress
WordPress is what’s known as a ‘Content Management System’ which uses open source software, with plenty of powerful additions available known as ‘Plug-Ins’. Using these, WordPress rapidly developed from it’s initial purpose as a blogging platform, into a full blown website builder, used by businesses around the world.
Who Uses WordPress
WordPress is an extremely powerful and easy to use Content Management System (CMS) which, although initially designed for blogging, makes the perfect platform for most websites. In fact, WordPress currently accounts for a whopping 35% of all websites published online; and for good reason.
It’s Easy To Use
WordPress has an incredibly easy to use back end. The WordPress dashboard includes everything you need, intuitively, so you can work on your site quickly and easily.
Right out of the box WordPress offers up quick steps to update pages, add new blog posts, upload images and manage customer enquiries, without the need for coding experience. Running an online business is a busy job, so every minute saved is a bonus; a WordPress site is pretty unrivalled when it comes to ease of use, so you’ll have time to work on other important stuff.
TIP: Speak to your web designer! They can set up different users, depending upon your needs, making things even easier!
It’s Good For SEO
The structure of WordPress means it’s easy to index on Google and provides a lot of the relevant information search engines need to start ranking. For all the extra on site SEO tweaks, there are plenty of powerful add ons you can use, including Yoast SEO and RankMath; making your WordPress site a search engine powerhouse.
It doesn’t stop there, the dashboard of WordPress means that, with a little technical know how, you can get more involved in your search engine optimisation.
Using the media area, you can update image information such as alt tags to help them be found more easily by search engines. The text editor on WordPress pages means it’s easy to add SEO friendly schema markup and coding if you need to.
It’s Versatile
Plugins are essentially add ons for your site that can help with anything from adding image sliders to a full blown online shop, property listing or anything in between. We’re not exagerating when we say, there’s pretty much a plugin for anything! If you need it, WordPress can do it.
Design wise, the possibilities are pretty endless too. WordPress ‘Themes’ can provide some quick and easy styling for your site, with minimal fuss.
It Works With eCommerce
Wanting to sell online? WordPress can do that too! There are plenty of eCommerce options out there that will turn your WordPress site into a money making, eCommerce machine.
WooCommerce is one of the most popular eCommerce plugins out there, providing everything you could ever need for an online shop, including product categories, product listings, payment gateways and loads more.
Most WordPress eCommerce sites can easily integrate with popular payment options such as PayPal, SagePay, WorldPay and Stripe; giving your customers the confidence to purchase.
It Looks Great
WordPress offers plenty of styling options, from simple theme changes to complete customisation. It doesn’t matter what your ideal site looks like, it can be achieved with WordPress.
There are hundreds of thousands of ‘out of the box’ options (known as Themes) which will work well if you have little technical knowledge. If you are looking for something a little more bespoke, WordPress is geared towards customising, using a blank theme and styling.
It Works On Mobile
By default, WordPress is pretty well optimised for displaying on desktop, tablet, or mobile. As everything is customisable, you can even set your own parameters, tweaking things to make them absolutely perfect.
The majority of Themes out there will look great on any screen size.
It’s Secure
WordPress offers pretty robust security right out of the box, with timely updates available to help keep on top of developing cyber threats.
If that’s not enough, you’ve also got an endless supply of security plug-ins at your disposal which will make your site pretty impenetrable.
It’s Futureproof
With plenty of open source software and hundreds of updates, your WordPress website is well poised to work now and in future. Over the years, WordPress has developed updates to work with all major browser updates.
It Integrates With Social Media
Keeping your business connected on social media is straight forward with WordPress, which offers integration of pretty much every platform out there. It’s so popular, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest have developed their own plugins, to help you get started, so you can quickly integrate tools such as your social media feeds, ‘like’ buttons and much more.
We like encouraging social sharing, using Social Pug (or MediaVine as it’s also known), which provides a quick ‘share’ button on posts and pages.
If you needed more convincing that WordPress is the real deal, think about this; Facebook, Google, Instagram and Pinterest have all developed their own WordPress plug-ins, they obviously take it seriously.
It’s Good For Business
If you really want it to be, WordPress can be a ‘fit and forget’ solution, leaving you with a perfect website that requires very little maintenance. With this in mind, there’s no surprise that WordPress is super popular for business websites, delivering everything you’ll ever need, with no fuss.
Your site can grow with your business too, whether it’s integrating customer management, adding online booking forms or taking payment for services online, all in all, WordPress will work perfectly for your business.
*Bonus* It’s Cost Effective
Unlike site builders such as Wix and Squarespace, WordPress is pretty much a one time payment deal, meaning you’ll only need to cover the cost of hosting and domain renewal each year (and an SSL Certificate, which we highly recommend).
Effectively, once you’ve paid for your website to be designed and built, there’s very little ongoing costs. Whilst builders such as Wix and Squarespace can seem like an easy option at first, costs can soon mount up!
If you’re thinking of choosing WordPress for your website, we can help! We’re WordPress experts, offering dedicated WordPress Web Design, with crystal clear planning, quoting and project delivery.
The Wrap Up
We’re major fans of WordPress, thanks to it’s unrivalled versatility. With plug ins at hand, you really can create any type of site and design imagineable. Sure, it may be a little clunky in places, especially when you’re first getting to grips with everything, but ultimately, there really is no better website platform out there, which offers a robust, easy to use back end, that’ll be with us for years to come.
If you’re thinking about using WordPress, go for it! You’ll not regret it.
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