There are currently over 250 000 000 active domains on the Internet. According to the latest stats, nearly 43% of those use a WordPress website.
So, the question now is, why is WordPress such a popular system?
For us as a team the answer is simple. We love its ease of use.
What makes it so easy to use?
Among the many reasons, we enjoy its flexibility and scalability.
We are often approached by clients to create solutions that require integration with third-party service providers. Generally, there will already be a solution that we can implement. In the odd case that there is no solution, we can easily create one for the customer.
WordPress is an open-source Content Management System (CMS). This makes it easy for developers to make changes to the source code should they want to.
While not many developers will alter the core source code, many have created useful add-ons to the WordPress core. These are called plugins and are used to extend the functionality of the WordPress core.
The availability of these plugins is also WordPress’ greatest weakness. With it being such a dominant system on the Internet, hackers have spent many hours working out how to compromise a WordPress website.
Weekly as many as 100 000 WordPress websites are hacked. The most common vulnerability is outdated plugins.
Don’t despair, there are ways to prevent this.
Updating WordPress plugins can be a full-time job; for one of our staff, that is their main function. Other than making your website harder to hack, regular updates will speed your site up and keep it in line with current web standards.
On average a website has a 2-to-3-year life expectancy. With WordPress, this can be pushed much further (as a side note, this will depend on the theme used).
We have an active e-commerce site that was developed nearly 10 years ago and has not been revamped in all that time.
Another plus for us is the simplicity to convert from a staging/demo site to a live website. This means that we can minimise downtime for customers when we are revamping an existing website, or going live with a new site.
For the customer, there is peace of mind knowing that they have a widely supported website platform.
Many web developers will only use WordPress as their web platform.
Google are also big fans of WordPress websites.
Without much extra configuration, a WordPress site will outperform most other systems. When you add in a plugin like Yoast SEO or SmartCrawl, your site becomes very easy for Google to index.
Your job then is to make sure that there is interesting content for Google to index.
This leads me to one of the biggest challenges for most businesses, content creation. If you build a website and just leave it, you are not going to get much love from Google. At the very least your business should be adding a monthly blog article. While this may sound like a lot of work, with a bit of practice, you can create one in an hour or two.
Is WordPress the be-all and end-all of website systems? Absolutely not. There are several good options out there these days like Shopify and Wix, each will have its own strengths and weaknesses.
For us, WordPress is a system that we have managed to master and have optimised to our client’s needs.
Should you have any questions about WordPress feel free to contact me at tom@mailmen.co.za. I will be glad to give you some advice on your issues.