WordPress is a very popular CMS platform for websites and blogs. This site is even built on the WordPress platform.

 

Who Uses WordPress?

WordPress now powers 30 percent of the web, according to data from web technology survey firm W3Techs – a figure that rises every day. Everything from simple websites, to blogs, to complex portals and enterprise websites, and even applications, are built with WordPress.

Beginners to experienced web designers are using the WordPress CMS platform. They can customize each site to fit the client’s specific needs. A shortlist of major sites using WordPress include eBay, CNN, Spotify, UPS, Forbes, and the New York Times.

 

Why WordPress?

For many companies, Word Press is the best choice out there. Word Press is a very powerful CMS that has grown from simple blogs to very detailed websites. In fact, this site is running on it now. If you need more reasons, read this blog post on WordPress.

 

What is WordPress?

WordPress has three parts; Platform, Themes, and Plugins.

 

Platform

The platform is a Content Management System (CMS). A CMS is a web-based application that allows you to manage your website’s content through a web browser. The primary benefit of using a CMS based website is that you get full control of your site content and structure without having to be a programmer.

Here’s what the CMS system lets you do:

 

Control Your Content With Fast Intuitive Editing

If you can create a document in Microsoft Word, you can add, remove, and edit the content and pages of your website. The user-friendly page editor allows you to have full control over the style and content of your website without programming skills.

 

Increase Your Search Visibility With Search Friendly URLs

A lot of CMS systems create complicated URLs that are hard to remember and offer no benefits for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). WordPress defaults to page and content-relevant URLs that are also fully editable.

 

Increase Your Conversion Rates For E-Marketing

The built-in forms allow you to capture user information and build your permission-based e-marketing database. The data can be exported to a CSV document or even integrated with your existing CRM database or other third-party tools.

 

Grow Your Site With Your Business

WordPress offers the flexibility needed to support the growth of any business. It is highly customizable and the perfect platform to start building and expanding your online presence.

 

Themes

Themes function as a template that controls the overall look and feel of the website. Currently, there are over 10,000 themes available. Many of those are offered for free. Some of the free themes offer a premium upgrade as well as others that are available at a cost.

 

Plugins

Plugins offer extra features and functions. The most popular plugins are contact forms and SEO (search engine optimization). According to the WordPress Directory page, there are over 30,000 plugins to choose from. Here is a shortlist of some of the plugin features I have used: Contact forms, SEO, weather, business listings, image sliders, twitter and social media integration, live chat, limit access to pages, shopping carts, maps, security, galleries, sitemaps and many more.

 

Having a good looking website is important. WordPress offers good looking sites that drive traffic and conversions. Let us know your favorite free themes and plugins for us to share? Contact us.