The Popularity of WordPress
WordPress is the most popular CMS (content management system) in the world with a 59.4% market share. As of March, 2016 WordPress websites made up 26.4% of the entire web! Many of the sites that you probably visit daily are built on WordPress. The New York Times, People Magazine National Geographic and Forbes all use WordPress to power their websites.
So, Why is WordPress So Popular?
The WordPress framework can be installed with one click on almost all of the most popular hosting platforms out there. Once you have WordPress installed you can choose from hundreds of thousands of pre-made themes. WordPress has their own theme directory of free themes, or you can choose to purchase premium themes from various companies.
After you have your theme installed, you can use their easy-to-use interface to change colors, upload your logo, add content and create menus. In just a couple of hours you could have a WordPress website up and running.
WordPress also uses Plugins to add new features to your website. You can search for plugins and install them right in the WordPress interface. There are free plugins for everything you can imagine from contact forms to mailing lists to adding social media sharing buttons to your pages.
The Downside of WordPress
Since WordPress is so popular, it’s a prime target for hackers. It’s important to make sure you keep your WordPress site and plugins updated as often as possible. Luckily WordPress makes it easy to update with just one click, and will alert you when you log in if a theme, plugin, or WordPress itself is in need of an update.
Another downside of WordPress is it’s e-commerce capabilities. Although there are some popular plugins, like WooCommerce, that allow you to sell products from your WordPress site, they don’t offer you many options or customizations. if you’re planning on building an e-commerce site, I would recommend staying away from WordPress.
If you’re interested in learning more about WordPress, need somebody to train you on how to maintain your WordPress site, or would like a WordPress site installed for you, contact me for a quote.