WordPress has been the dominant website platform for over a decade. As of last fall, WordPress is used by 42.8% of the top 10 million websites on the internet. Because it’s been around for so long, you might be tempted to think it’s outdated or that there are better, newer options out there. The point is, WordPress is still one of the best options for running many types of sites, especially business websites. Here are four reasons to choose WordPress:
1. Keep control of your hosting.
In recent years, sites like Squarespace have gained market share by advertising ease of use. But what many new website owners realize is that ease of use comes at the expense of flexibility. With a Squarespace site, you either continue paying for hosting or your site disappears. You can’t change hosts or export your design and take it somewhere else.
With WordPress, your hosting and your website design exist separately. You can host your WordPress site wherever you want and move it as often as you like using a simple export and import feature that almost all hosting companies support.
2. Countless themes to choose from.
While all modern platforms have plenty of design options, the WordPress ecosystem actually has tens of thousands of themes available to choose from. Whatever your tastes – minimalist, maximalist – there will be literally countless themes you could choose for your business site.
And, the fact that all of these options share the WordPress infrastructure means you can change themes as often as you like and most, if not all, aspects of your site should convert seamlessly from one theme to another.
3. Tens of thousands of plugins.
If you’re not a developer, creating new functionality for your website can be intimidating, and getting someone else to build something can quickly become expensive.
WordPress has over 70,000 plugins that can be easily installed to add these new functionalities. You can use them for anything from custom forms to SEO enhancements, design elements, and eCommerce functionality. If you can think of it, chances are there are several great plugins available that fulfill that function.
4. A very supportive community.
WordPress is open source and can be improved by anyone who wants to contribute. In many ways, this is the secret to its success, as it has an incredibly strong community around it. Major updates are released several times a year. Plus, if you need help with anything related to your WordPress site, it should be easy to find a solution or tutorial with minimal searching online.