WordPress is the world’s most popular content management platform, with around 40% (or around 810 million websites!) using it to build and run their site.
Now that every business needs a solid online presence to thrive, you naturally need the right tools to grow it. With its user-friendly interface, extensive customization options, and vibrant community, WordPress offers a host of benefits to creating a website that will leave your competitors in awe.
In this article, we’ll discover the different benefits of building your website on WordPress.
Let’s Recap: What is WordPress?
WordPress is a versatile and dynamic content management system (CMS) that simplifies website creation. It provides a user-friendly interface as well as tools and features to build, design, customize, and manage your website’s content.
With its vast library of themes and plugins, WordPress empowers you to customize your website’s design and functionality. Even without technical expertise, WordPress allows you to be toe-to-toe with other competitors in the industry. You can always check out our guide on What is WordPress for a more indepth look at the platform.
WordPress vs. Website Builders
You might have heard of website builders before and are wondering how it differs from WordPress. Now, they technically are for building websites, but they have their key differences.
WordPress is a CMS you can use for free and install on a hosting service. It’s generally more flexible than your average website builder thanks to the many themes and plugins you can install. Think of WordPress as your mobile phone and the plugins as your apps. Plugins enhance your website experience the same way applications do for your mobile phone.
Website builders, on the other hand, is a more straightforward way to build your site. There are numerous website builders in the market, including the DIY website builder we offer at Web.com.
With a website builder, you can use ready-made templates and an intuitive drag and drop interface to build your website in literally minutes.
We’ve prepared a summary of WordPress and website builders below:
WordPress
- Offers extensive customization options, themes, and plugins
- Provides more flexibility and scalability
- Can require some coding and technical knowledge
- Best for websites of all sizes – from online stores to online forums
- Requires a web hosting account
Website Builders
- Limited customization options and may not be as scalable or flexible as WordPress
- Low learning curve – easy to use and manage
- More suitable for websites and online stores that require little to zero customization
- Package usually includes built-in hosting
9 Benefits of Using WordPress
1. Accessibility and Ease of Use
WordPress offers a user-friendly interface that makes website management and content creation a breeze. Its intuitive navigation and straightforward dashboard allow users to efficiently navigate different sections and perform tasks.
You don’t need to be a coding expert to build and manage your website. WordPress provides a visual editor and a variety of pre-built elements, allowing you to customize your website’s design and layout that aligns with your brand and appeals to your target audience without writing a single line of code.
Format text, add images and videos, and organize your content into categories and tags with just a few clicks. Even users with limited technical knowledge can quickly adapt to this straightforward content management system.
2. Extensive Plugin Library
WordPress boasts an extensive plugin library, allowing users to customize and extend their websites effortlessly. Plugins are pre-built tools that add specific features and capabilities to your site. Leveraging plugins enables you to expand and enhance your website’s capabilities without extensive coding or development work.
Simply search for the desired functionality, install the plugin, and activate it to add or improve new features. You can find plugins that allow you to add features like contact forms, social media integration, e-commerce capabilities, and more. They’ll enable you to tailor your website to meet your requirements and goals.
Some of our favorite plugins include:
- Yoast SEO for optimizing your site
- WooCommerce for building powerful online stores
- WPForms for capturing leads and inquiries
3. SEO-Friendly Features
By default, WordPress is a search engine-friendly platform. It has countless themes that help you improve your overall website experience. WordPress also has built-in tools and plugins that help you enhance your website’s performance.
Yoast, for example, helps you optimize meta tags, headings, and image alt tags.
Aside from Yoast, WordPress seamlessly integrates with various SEO plugins. You can create XML sitemaps, run keyword analysis, generate on-page SEO recommendations, and connect your website to social media.
4. Responsive Design and Mobile Compatibility
WordPress prioritizes mobile responsiveness, ensuring your website looks and functions seamlessly on various screen sizes and devices. Its responsive design adapts your website’s layout and elements to provide an optimal viewing experience for users accessing your site from smartphones, tablets, or other mobile devices.
WordPress’s mobile responsiveness takes advantage of Google’s mobile-first indexing, which predominantly uses the mobile version of a website’s content for indexing and ranking purposes.
This improves your website’s visibility in search engine results and delivers consistent and user-friendly experiences across different platforms and browsers, reaching a wider audience, enhancing user satisfaction, and increasing your website’s traffic.
5. Community Support and Active Development
WordPress provides extensive online documentation and tutorials for users. Whether a beginner or an experienced user, you can access comprehensive guides, tutorials, and documentation to learn how to use WordPress effectively.
And since WordPress evolves and improves through regular updates and new releases, its large user community is useful for keeping up with the platform’s latest improvements.
You can find support forums where users exchange knowledge, ask questions, and provide solutions. You can also check the Web.com blog where we offer website-building and WordPress-specific guides.
6. Scalability and Flexibility
Whether you’re building a blog, an online store, or a Wiki page – WordPress has the plugins and features to help you build it.
WordPress also handles high traffic volumes and accommodates increased website visitors with its robust infrastructure and optimized code. Along with a good web host, your website can effortlessly grow along with your business.
7. Cost-Effectiveness
Unlike other platforms, WordPress is free and open source, so you can download, install, and use it without incurring any licensing fees.
If you’re unsure about using WordPress to host your website, you can sign up for a free account and explore the platform. You’ll be automatically given a free subdomain to work with (for example: yourbusiness.wordpress.com).
In addition, there are free add-ons (plugins, themes) that you can use for your site.
8. Security and Reliability
Aside from allowing you to set passwords and user levels, WordPress lets you further improve your website’s security with plugins.
These plugins can be for malware protection, firewall installation and even for auto-backup and real-time monitoring. It’s essential you keep your WordPress site up to date too. The platform regularly releases new versions to address vulnerabilities and other threats.
9. Hosting Your WordPress Website isn’t a Hassle!
Finally, you can host WordPress on various hosting platforms, from a shared hosting environment to a dedicated server –whatever suits your budget.
Pro tip: Make the most out of your WordPress website with WordPress Hosting! As the name implies, this hosting setup is built specifically for websites built on WordPress.
Ready to Launch Your WordPress Website?
WordPress offers an ideal platform to kickstart your online journey or take an existing website to new heights.
Its user-friendly interface, intuitive tools, and customizable themes make it accessible to beginners without coding experience. Whether it’s incorporating e-commerce capabilities, optimizing their site for search engines, or integrating social media platforms, WordPress’ extensive plugin library enables users to add advanced functionalities and features easily.
Embrace the possibilities of WordPress, unlock the potential of your website, and start your journey toward success with Web.com’s WordPress hosting.
