At Anvil, WordPress is the exclusive CMS we use to build client websites. There are at least 7 reasons why which are listed below but WordPress truly allows clients to manage their own websites once they have been built. Custom themes can be developed to reflect your brand, off-the-shelf themes are also available, and most of the changes you will ever make can be done by your internal team, which saves you time and money.
Maybe you have heard of other CMS platforms like Drupal, Magento and Joomla. All are like WordPress, but you will have difficulty finding developers fluent in those platforms and they are typically more expensive to develop. If you want an expensive solution with few developers to help you when the site crashes, then choose those. If your job or promotion depended on your CMS solution, why take a risk with anything other than WordPress? Let me put it this way, you can always find a mechanic to work on your Toyota, or in this case a web developer with WordPress experience. However, if you have Drupal, Magento or Joomla, it will be like owning a Land Rover – difficult to maintain and expensive to fix, if you can find a mechanic in town.
WordPress is the smart choice because:
- WordPress is Open Source. Meaning you can modify and use the source code to accommodate what your business needs.
- 35% of all websites on the internet are built on WordPress
- 60% of all CMS built websites on the internet are built on WordPress
- 28% of ALL online stores run on WordPress’s eCommerce solution WooCommerce
- 64 million websites are powered by WordPress
- Why are you considering another web solution?
I am not saying WordPress is the perfect solution for every company because it is not. If you have a lot of custom script and functionality for your unique business that is not common business practice, then you will need a different solution – but those are rare. Even eBay, that owns Magento, uses WordPress for their blogs.
Why Wix, Squarespace & Weebly are bad solutions for growing companies
If you need a cheap and nice-looking website template then Wix, Squarespace and Weebly are solid website solutions. These sites are not meant for growing companies but for one person with a cause or a company that is small and just wants a quick and dirty website. The templates look nice and you are likely to have someone else with the exact same website, but hey it can go live in 30 minutes and you do not need a programmer or designer to create it. However, once your business or organization grows and you need to add eCommerce or improve organic traffic you have outgrown that web platform. If you are a company of more than 5 people and you have been tasked with finding a new website platform then WordPress will serve you better in both short and long term.
As an agency that develops WordPress websites for clients, in addition to ensuring they receive traffic from our best practice SEO, SEM and paid social media, WordPress has been the best CMS solution to address our clients’ needs for over 7 years. From Colorado State University to WPI to Farm to Fit, WordPress offers the best functionality and flexibility to empower companies of all sizes from Fortune 100 to SMBs and start-ups. But what does ‘best’ mean? By best I mean technologically relevant, easy to use, easy to maintain and flexible in creating custom designs – or use an existing design template.
So why should your company build its next website with WordPress? Below I share with you 7 compelling reasons to consider choosing WordPress as your next website platform.
Here are 7 compelling reasons to consider choosing WordPress as your next website platform.
- Easy to Use – Do you want a website only a programmer can support, or do you want a website that is easy-to-use and affordable to maintain? I’ll assume you want to keep your job post-launch and need a website that is easy-to-use. WordPress got it right by making a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) platform that is intuitive and simple to use. Once the site is built, you can add sections for content, update videos, blog posts all without a master’s degree in HTML or PHP. Tons of tutorials are online and anyone in your marketing department can do it.
- eCommerce Capable – WordPress WooCommerce runs 28% of all online stores on the internet. Shopify and Magento have good eCommerce websites as well but do not have the flexibility of WordPress.
- WordPress is Popular – for all the right reasons. WordPress is not an exotic CMS. There are other options to WordPress, but they are not as popular or widely adopted for a reason. Do you use WordPerfect or Microsoft Word? Lotus Notes or Excel? WordPress is popular because it is serves 90% of website needs and is trusted by some of the biggest brands. WordPress is the most used CMS platform. In 2020, 35% of all websites on the web are built using WordPress. Who really uses WordPress? These brands:
– The Walt Disney Company- TechCrunch
– Microsoft News
– Mercedes-Benz
– Sony
– Play Station
– Facebook - Multi-User Platform – In WordPress you can easily collaborate and work with an extended team to power your website. You can vary the access levels to team members and work efficiently to create and publish your website content.
- Design is Flexible– You do not need to use a template; you can create a custom design that is unique to your brand. We do not recommend using an existing template for the reasons I listed above about Wix, Weebly and Squarespace. But if you must go that route for WordPress provides thousands of ready-to-use design themes. WordPress is also feature rich and flexible with functionality because of the plug-ins available on the platform. With almost 54,000 plugins organizations will find an existing feature to simply plug-in and make their website more effective and efficient.
- WordPress is Responsive and Mobile Friendly – Unlike that email you sent to your boss about vacation, WordPress is responsive – which means the website will scale to conform to any mobile device. Why is that important? That’s important for two main reasons:
– 80% of Internet users are using their smartphones to search the Internet
– Google penalizes you for non-mobile websites – ouch! - WordPress is SEO friendly – Being a digital agency focusing on measurable and performance marketing, this is the most overlooked asset of choosing WordPress. A new website is worthless unless you drive the right traffic – this is where WordPress as an open source platform pays dividends. In this case with the development of the SEO plug-in Yoast.