Many people think of WordPress as an inexpensive and relatively easy way to start a blog site, and indeed they are correct. You can start a blog site on WordPress.com in mere minutes and it is free. However, WordPress is so much more. When you develop a website with the WordPress.org content management system, you’ve got a wealth of options and flexibility from which to choose. We’ve been designing and developing websites for ourselves (this is a WordPress site) and for our clients using the WordPress Content Management System for the last couple of years. Here’s why:
1. You can easily add content to your own website.
Our clients love this because they don’t have to always contact us (or pay us, for that matter!) to make content changes. A website developed with the WordPress.org software offers users the ability to add or change content with much of the same functionality you would find on a Microsoft Word document. Add a page, some photos, a video, social media buttons or more with just a few clicks. It can be that easy. We are usually able to train our clients on their new websites in less than two hours.
2. WordPress websites can look like “regular” websites but give their owners the flexiblity of a blogging site.
A decent designer and web developer can make a custom “theme” (the design and functionality of the site) so that a site built on WordPress doesn’t necessarily look like it’s built on WordPress. Also, there are literally hundreds of themes that are available for free or for purchase, so even a novice can develop a decent-looking site in a short amount of time.
3. WordPress is supported by a lot of awesome developers and designers.
Although WordPress is an open-source software, you don’t need to worry about it disappearing anytime soon. The WordPress community is strong and growing. In fact, in August of this year (2011), San Francisco will be hosting the “WordCamp” official annual conference, where hundreds of users, designers, developers and professionals from all over the world will get together to indulge their WordPress “geekery” (their word, not mine).
4. If there’s a feature that you think you want, there’s probably a free or inexpensive plugin for that.
We are continually amazed by the features that are available to integrate into a WordPress website. Fancy interactive calendars, e-commerce set-ups, SEO, social media buttons, commenting, sharing, file backup- the list goes on. If there is a feature you’ve seen on another website, most likely there’s a plugin that will give you that functionality.
5. They’re great for Search Engine Optimization.
When you know you can add your own content quickly and easily, you tend to do just that, which is great for SEO. The search engines like to see fresh content on sites, especially when you add content in the form of pages or even blog posts on a regular basis.
WordPress sites tend to be very “crawlable” by the search engines and they tend to rank well in Google search results pages. You also get the benefit of pings, comments and trackbacks. These features let individuals and other blogs interact with a WordPress site and bring inbound links and traffic (in the form of pings and trackbacks) and free content and visitors (in the form of blog post comments).
6. The blog part is already built in.
When you build a site with WordPress.org, the blogging functionality is an integral part of the package. There’s no retrofitting or adding a blog onto an existing site.
As you can see, we are huge fans of using the WordPress content management system to build all of our websites. If you are also a fan, please tell us why.