What is WordPress and Why is it So Popular?

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Last updated on Aug 17th, 2022 at 03:45 pm

If you’re planning to start a blog or website, you’ll find that WordPress is the most highly recommended platform of all. After its inception in 2003, WordPress rapidly became the most widely used self-hosted blogging tool in existence.

Technically speaking, WordPress is an open source web design framework based on PHP (which is a programming language). It features a web template system that enables users to customize the pages effortlessly. WordPress also offers an endless list of unique features like built-in themes, mix-and-match plugin installations, widgets, static pages, and easy media management options.

All these powerful features together help the users to create an attractive website while optimizing it for the search engines.

According to statistics shared by Envisage Digital, more than 400 million people around the globe are using WordPress to power their websites and blogs. That’s a lot of people and it continues to grow each month! So that may make you wonder, what makes it so popular?

cms market share
CMS market share as of 17 Aug 2022. From W3techs

Enlisted below are major reasons that make WordPress the first choice for those looking for an easy and efficient online content management and publishing system:

It’s Free & Open Source

WordPress web development is completely free to use, edit and redistribute, which makes it the most cost-effective solution available in the market. It is also entirely open-source. The software script that is used to run WordPress can be downloaded and installed by anyone from their official website.

The source code can be easily edited and customized according to your individual needs. Most of the web hosting services offer a one-click install option for WordPress, and therefore you can get started with a new and free blog within seconds.

Ease of Use

The free availability of WordPress doesn’t come at the expense of its usability. WordPress offers an insanely smooth learning curve, which means that you don’t need to be a programmer to understand how it works. There are also PLENTY of easy-to-follow YouTube tutorials and guides out there to help you along.

WordPress comes with inbuilt features for publishing content, user management, feeds, revisions and much more.

The WordPress dashboard offers a visually easy-to-navigate backend or admin panel. The administrator interface is so practically organized that everything from editing a page to uploading media can be easily accomplished.

Flexible and Versatile

Another amazing feature that makes WordPress a popular choice is its extensibility and scalability. Today, it has become much more than just a blogging platform as it now offers the flexibility to develop any website. Did you know that WordPress started out as a free community-built tool for blogging? Check out WPBeginner’s blog about the history of WordPress to learn more.

From a video-sharing site like YoutTube or Vimeo to a fully-functional eCommerce store like eBay; WordPress is versatile enough to be used for developing any website.

The availability of countless themes and plugins in WordPress allows you to easily develop the following types of websites:

  • Blog
  • eCommerce store
  • Video Website
  • Service Website
  • Photography Website
  • Directory or Classified Ads Listing Website
  • Membership Website
  • Question Answer Forum
  • and more! The possibilities are endless.
wordpress screenshot
WordPress Screenshot

Themes

WordPress is an incredible content management system with highly creative and practical capabilities. There are thousands of themes to choose from for a WordPress site.

From lightweight web design created by casual developers to extraordinary powerhouse developed by professional designers, you can find a plethora of free and paid themes for your specific needs. EnvatoMarket is one of the most popular places to find and purchase reliable themes from.

In addition to that, many themes can be easily customized without any coding. The control panel under the WP dashboard enables the users to customize the colors, design, and features of the theme.

SEO Friendly

A website should be SEO-friendly so that the search engines like Google and Bing can index and rank it. These search engines use various predefined parameters to rank the websites. This includes fast loading speed, XML sitemap, good coding, navigation, user experience, etc.

WordPress web design pays attention to all these parameters and also offers several additional plugins to improve the visibility of the site on search engines.

According to Google, WordPress is 99% SEO friendly; therefore it will minimize your efforts for making the site rank higher in the search results.

Easy monitoring and maintenance

If you are worried about regular surveillance and maintenance of your site, then rest assured that WordPress maintenance will not soak up your budget or time. Also, there is very little room for website downtime with this platform as the updates do not consume much time.

It takes about 15 minutes to backup the data manually for an average multi-plugin update.

WordPress also offers a large community of active users and developers to help in troubleshooting. It has well-maintained support forums where you can post your questions, search queries and find solutions to your problems.

Security

WordPress design helps create robust and highly secured websites of any type. It has very high-security standards and is regularly updated to minimize vulnerability and keep the hackers at bay.

Users are encouraged to take certain precautions to reduce any potential threats. Using essential security tools, updating WordPress regularly, and downloading the plugins from official sources only, are some of the measures to improve safety.

Conclusion

WordPress has a lot of inbuilt functionality that helps develop powerful websites of any type. It also pays attention to all the major aspects of security to SEO to ease of use, which makes it a highly recommended framework for anyone trying to explore the digital realm.

If you’re looking to get a corporate site, e-commerce store or blog developed, speak to us anytime for advice or a quote.

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