Background to WordPress
WordPress was first created in 2003 and is now used to power over 60 million websites throughout the world. It is open-source software that is free to use, but has a vast array of free and premium plugins (extra bits you can add to provide specific features eg galleries, shops, members systems etc) that can be added to provide extra options and functionality. It usually works with ‘themes’ which provide the visual styling for the website as well as some bundled plugins & options.
There are two versions of WordPress available
- WordPress.com – this is the system that is supplied directly by WordPress and doesn’t require any hosting as you use their system. It does have limitations on which themes and plugins can be used.
- WordPress.org – this is the standalone system which allows you to take a copy of the files and then host independently. It is more flexible than the .com version and this is what I supply to my clients
Five reasons
- Affordable costs for clients – In using a free piece of software as the starting point, it allows me to provide a professional and easy to manage website that doesn’t cost the earth. Small businesses often have modest budgets and especially those just starting up and so as I don’t have a lot of overheads, clients get a great end result for a reasonable fee.
- Easy to use content management system – WordPress allows user to easily maintain their websites and customers can add new pages, edit text, add images etc very easily. I provide a full face to face training system and bespoke instruction manual to make things even easier. But if you get stuck, I’m on the end of the phone for all the questions you may have
- SEO friendly – WordPress is SEO friendly out of the box and you can easily use other plugins to enhance that further. So Google and other search engines are very likely to rank WordPress based websites higher than other template systems.
- Easy to customise – with such a wealth of themes and plugins out there, it is easy to add elements to your website as your business changes and grows. Themes provide the visual look and so when it comes to freshening things up, it is easy to do so without rebuilding the website from scratch. I prefer to use Premium themes as these are better supported by the developers and less likely to cause issues with plugins. And there are lots of plugins to provide all sorts of features.
- The ‘under the bus’ theory – and finally, as WordPress is such a widely used system, were I to go ‘under a bus’ (I try to avoid it!), it does mean that clients will be able to get support from other developers and hosts without too much difficulty and keep their website up and running. If I were to use a more niche system then it may be harder to find similar support.
So why use WordPress?
Because it is widely supported, flexible and easy to manage and this is why it has been the basis for all my websites since 2013. If you’d like to consider a WordPress website for your business then please get in touch.
