Top 5 Reasons to Switch to WordPress

Vinny La Barbera
Written by

Vinny La Barbera

Is it difficult for you to update your website? Are you still trying to track down the person or company that you initially hired to build your website just to have a simple task completed? If you answered ‘yes’ to either of these questions, then it may be time to rethink how and where your website is built.

In this article we are going to help you determine if it’s time to upgrade your website. More specifically, we are going to outline our top 5 reasons to switch to WordPress – our preferred and recommended website platform.

Reasons to Switch to WordPress

What is WordPress?

In the spirit of our commitment to transparency, we would like to state that we prefer and recommend using WordPress to build websites. This website is built on WordPress and 99% of the websites we build for our customers are built on the platform as well.

In case you’re wondering what the other 1% are, those are a mix of custom content management systems, Drupal or Joomla websites – all of which we only build when a client specifically requires us to do so.

So what exactly is this website platform that we are so attached to?

WordPress is an open-source content management system (CMS) that is powered by PHP and MySQL – two very common, widely used programming and database languages.

Originally created as a blogging platform, WordPress has since grown into one of the most popular website / blog platforms on the Internet. It is estimated that over 20% of all new websites are built on WordPress. On top of that, of the top 100 blogs on the web, just about half of them are built on WordPress. These are just a few of the many impressive stats that WordPress can boast about its adoption and usage.

It is important to note that there are two options available for WordPress:

Option 1: WordPress.com

If you’re looking for a quick, cheap and easy way to get a simple blog or website online, then WordPress.com has been a popular option for many people. We never use WordPress.com, but in case you were interested here are the pros and cons.

PROS: free, easy to setup, technical maintenance is taken care of for you

CONS: you cannot use a custom theme, you cannot modify the PHP code behind your website, you cannot upload plugins

Option 2: WordPress.org

If you’re more interested in a long-term, SEO friendly website platform that can grow and scale with your business, then WordPress.org is tough to beat. Here are the most common pros and cons of using Wordpres.org.

PROS: complete control to customize the theme and code of your website, ability to use plugins, more SEO-friendly

CONS: requires technical resources, needs to be self-hosted and self-managed, security is your responsibility

ALWAYS go with option 2 (WordPress.org). You should have 100% control of any web property that represents you or your business online.

Why Should You Use WordPress?

Our experience with WordPress goes back to 2004, just 1 year after it first came onto the scene, so we have accumulated a plethora of reasons to use WordPress. Instead of boring you with a long list though we figured that our top 5 reasons to use WordPress would be just as convincing.

Top 5 Reasons to Switch to WordPress

Reasons to Switch to WordPress: Our Top 5

5. Support. The large WordPress community has helped to establish and maintain one of the most detailed, helpful support forums on the Internet. The WordPress support forums will answer just about every single possible question you could have about WordPress.

If you have a question about something related to WordPress, then you can bet that hundreds of other people have asked it and many others have provided answers to those questions.

TIP:
Search the WordPress Support forums, or Google, before paying someone to do something for you. A lot of straightforward solutions can be found online. Spend that money on driving traffic to your website instead.

4. Usability. The most common reason we hear from people who don’t update or use their website is that “it’s too difficult”. For those that are on WordPress, we can honestly say that we have never heard this complaint.

This is really no surprise though as WordPress has done an amazing job of building a very user-friendly content management system that makes adding content as easy as using a simple rich text editor. With each update that WordPress pushes out, the dashboard, editor and overall CMS all get even better.

TIP:
You can post new content to your WordPress website via its mobile applications and via email as well.

3. Customization. With thousands of themes and plugins to choose from, customizing the design and functionality of a WordPress website is incredibly easy. If you’ve thought of a feature we’d be willing to bet that someone has already built an effective plugin for it.

And if you’re stuck on what look and feel to use for your website, then you can easily find numerous clean, professional looking theme designs.

TIP:
Don’t overload your website with plugins. A better practice is to build as many of your features into your theme instead and limit the number of plugins you use.

2. SEO. We are yet to find a more SEO friendly website platform or content management system than WordPress. If you think we’re missing something, then we would love to be proven wrong. WordPress gets a lot of love from Google as the base framework makes crawling a website very easy for search engines like Google.

Matt Cutts, Distinguished Engineer of Google, states that “WordPress handles 80-90% of the mechanics of SEO.” So as long as you’re consistently adding great content and making your website user-friendly, then WordPress will do the rest.

TIP:
One of the very few plugins that we recommend using on every WordPress website is the WordPress SEO plugin by Yoast. Install it today. You won’t need anything else to keep your website optimized.

1. Options. And our top reason to switch, or start using, WordPress is the multitude of options it provides no matter what your business objectives, level of involvement or budgetary constraints are. No other platform will allow you to install, host, design and customize an SEO friendly website for under a few hundred dollars and a good day or two of setup.

Now, if you’re serious about growing your business and want to maximize the marketing dollars you spend sending traffic to your website, then we highly recommend working with an experienced team that can show examples of successfully built WordPress websites. In these cases you should expect to spend at least a few thousand dollars for a quality WordPress website designed and developed just for your business.

TIP:
Do your due diligence before hiring anyone to design, build, market or customize your WordPress website for you.


Do You Need to Switch to, or Start Using, WordPress?

You’re probably all excited to go check out WordPress now [our wishful thinking]. If you are starting with a new website, then we encourage you to go for it and don’t look back.

However, if you are considering switching your current website to WordPress, then you need make sure it is the right decision and know the proper migration process before you make the switch.

Review the questions below to see if switching is the next best step for you. If you answer “no” to any or all of these questions, then we highly recommend WordPress for you…

  • Is it easy for you to add new content to your website?
  • Do you own and control 100% of your website?
  • Is it easy for you to optimize (SEO) your website?
  • Is it easy for you to add new features and functionality to your website?
  • Can you update your website from the web AND your mobile phone or tablet?
  • Do you enjoy using your website?
  • Are you happy with your website’s results?

As mentioned above, we specialize in building template and custom WordPress websites for small to large businesses in just about any industry. If you’re not excited about your website, then it may be time to switch to the most popular, most effective website platform available today – WordPress.

Are you ready to use WordPress for a better looking, more effective website?

Yes, Let’s Talk


Categories: Web Development

2 Comments

    November 5, 2012

    Just wanted to say you have a great site and thanks for posting!…

    November 9, 2012

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