Today, a website defines the nature of your business. When built correctly, it will address all the reasons why one would want to do business with you. Of all the ways to build a website, why is it that 37% of all websites on the internet were created using WordPress?
There are 8 BIG reasons why you should use WordPress over any other content management system available on the market today. Not only will I share these with you, but as an added bonus, I will walk you through the easy process of installing WordPress.
Why WordPress?
WordPress has been around since 2003 and has only grown in popularity. There are multiple reasons why it has grown so popular, and knowing why will give you both confidence and assurance when building your next website. If I may, let me take 4 minutes of your time to show you why you should use WordPress as your platform of choice when developing your next website.
You Own Your the Content on Your Website
There are companies out there, such as wix.com or weebly.com, or even squarespace.com that serve as online website builders, where you can use their platform to build your website. These are just a few of the more popular online website platforms where you can build an entire website.
The problem with these online page-builder websites is that they make it VERY difficult, if not impossible, to move your content from their platform to another platform, should you choose to do so. Why would you want to move your website to another platform? Because they charge upwards of $30 each and every month that your website is online.
25 Basic Computer Tips for Windows!
Windows Simplified for the Everyday User
Download Your Copy Today!WordPress is Completely FREE
Did you know that 59% of all Websites that are based on content management systems, are WordPress websites?
WordPress is ‘Open Source’, and is completely free. ‘Open Source’ means that anybody can contribute code to the development of the product itself. Free is good. No doubt, this has added to the popularity of WordPress.
Mind you, though WordPress is free, the hosting of the website is not free. All websites require a “host” in order for your website to appear on the internet. WordPress is the tool you use to build your website.
There are those, however, who think that WordPress can’t possibly be good if it is free. That is just not true. If WordPress was not a rock-solid content management system (CMS), it would not be nearly as popular as it is. Though most great things in life are not free, WordPress is definitely one of them. If you have not already tried using it, I highly encourage you to do so now, you won’t regret it.
WordPress is Fun!
Building a website with WordPress allows you to be very creative without a lot of risk.
Being able to build a website quickly and easily using WordPress is just plain fun! Long gone are the days where you needed to learn languages like JavaScript, HTML, CSS, SQL and PHP in order to deliver highly functional websites. With WordPress, you don’t have to worry about learning languages to build a website. For example, if you mess up something, you can fix it fairly quickly. No biggie.
I love being able to add plug-ins to make a website functional. With very little effort, you end up looking like you are a professional web developer, simply by applying a plug-in (usually free), to the website. There is that feeling of accomplishment after creating your website all by yourself. This makes building websites with WordPress all the more fun. To hear your family and friends say, “Wait, YOU built this?”. Gotta love it!
WordPress is by Far, the Most Popular CMS in the World
When WordPress was released in May of 2003, it was well received. Prior to this, if one wanted to “blog”, they needed to use a software tool like, Dreamweaver, (now owned by Adobe), to post a blog article. Actually, when it was first released, WordPress was almost exclusively used as a blogging tool.
As already discussed, WordPress websites account for about 37% of all websites in the world. Over 1/3 of all websites today that were created within the last 15 years use WordPress. That’s just impressive.
Why is this significant? This is important to know because it shows that WordPress has a LOT of momentum behind it. It is not dying, (like Joomla! and Drupal. On the contrary, WordPress is growing, taking a greater market share with each passing year.
WordPress is Extremely Flexible
One of the greatest things about WordPress is that it is incredibly flexible.
There are literally thousands of WordPress templates that you can apply to your website. Additionally, there are tens of thousands of different plugins you can use, (most of which are free), to meet your website needs. In fact, you would be hard pressed not to find a WordPress plug-in to do what you need. There are just so many out there, and chances are that if you have a need, someone else has had that same need.
Given the popularity of WordPress, Plug-in developers LOVE WordPress. They love WordPress because the more people that use WordPress, the greater the chance that people will use their plug-in. For those who sell plug-ins, WordPress is a very attractive platform to develop for.
WordPress is no longer thought of as simply a blogging site.
With WordPress, you can create all of the following types of websites, and even more. Here are several website ideas that I found on wpbeginner.com
- A blogging website
- A business website
- An e-commerce website
- A job-board website
- A business directory website
- A Q&A website
- A non-profit or church website
- A portfolio website
- An online community website
- A coupon website
- An auction website
- A multilingual website
- A knowledge base or wiki website
- A podcasting website
- A niche affiliate website
- A gallery website
- A High school or college website
The WordPress platform is by far the most flexible CMS available today, as can be demonstrated by the numerous types of websites listed above that you can build with WordPress.
WordPress is Easy to Learn
If you can use Microsoft Word, you can use WordPress
With all due respect to my Mom, it’s so easy my Mom can do it! In other words, you do not need to be a rocket scientist in order to build a website using WordPress. There are no doctor degrees required, and best of all, you do not need to be a hard-core web-developer to deliver stunning functionality.
Other content management systems take days to learn, and weeks to master. Not so with WordPress. In fact, learning WordPress is very easy. In all honesty, you can learn the basics of WordPress within an hour. Of course, the more you use it, the more proficient you become with it.
WordPress is Easy to Manage
A Content Management System allows multiple people the ability to manage different parts of a given website, or at least different types of content. WordPress is no exception. If you are simply building this for yourself, or for someone else who will mange everything themselves, no need to worry.
WordPress makes is very easy. Even if you are building a company website where multiple people need different roles assigned to them so that the site can be maintained, where content can be submitted for approval, WordPress has you covered.
WordPress allows for multiple users to manage different areas of the site, allowing the “Super Admin” to assign any one of the following roles to users to administer the website.
Super Admin
This role is for the user who has the ability to administer every area of the website. By default, the one installing WordPress has this role, so if you are a “one man show”, this is the role assigned to you.
Administrator
This role can be assigned to the user who has access to all the administration features within a single site.
Editor
This person can publish and manage posts including the posts of other users.
Author
This role is assigned to the user who can publish and manage their own posts.
Contributor
This role is assigned to someone who can write and manage their own posts but cannot publish them.
Subscriber
This role is assigned to participants of the website, usually “members” of the site who can log into the site. They can only manage their profile.
WordPress is Mobile Friendly
In 2018, 52.2 percent of all website traffic worldwide was generated through mobile phones. that number will only increase over time. If you build a website that is not mobile friendly, you are missing at least 50% of your potential traffic. Fortunately, WordPress is 100% mobile friendly. There is no need to use any special code to get your site to be “mobile compliant”. It just works on mobile phones, period.
WordPress is not just mobile friendly on the front end, but on the back-end as well. In their words, you can manage your site from your cell phone, (I personally do this all the time), and it’s FAST. Very fast.
How to Install WordPress
For demonstration purposes, lets take a look at how to create a mock-up site called, sgtutorials.com. We will use cPanel using SiteGround.com as the host to create this mock-up site.
To begin, you will need to log into your hosting account and click on the ACCOUNT tab, and then the red CPANEL button. Once cPanel loads, scroll down the page until you come to the AUTOINSTALLERS section (see image below).
Once the page loads, click on the SOFTACULOUS icon, which will bring you to the following screen.
Here you will need to click on the big WORDPRESS icon, which will then bring you to the following screen. At this point, you will want to click on the INSTALL tab.
Here you will need to enter the required fields for your site, which include the following:
- Title
- Description
- Administrative username and password,
- Administrative e-mail etc.
When entering the password, be sure to use a strong password to make sure your admin area is secure from brute force attacks. When you have completed all of the required fields, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the INSTALL button, as shown below.
The automated installation process will proceed, which should take less than 60 seconds or so. Once done you will see a page informing you of the successful completion of the installation. Congratulations, you just installed WordPress! You should now see the following screen.
You can use the Administrative URL link to automatically log in your newly installed WordPress application, but before you click away, I highly recommend that you bookmark these two URL’s. The one is the URL to your website, and the other URL provides a means for you to log into the back-end of your newly created website.
If you forget to write them down, don’t worry, WordPress will automatically send you an e-mail notification with your Login credentials, including the front-end URL and the back-end URL.
Closing Thoughts
We have covered 8 reasons why you should seriously consider using WordPress to build your next website. It is very easy to learn, (even master), and when using WordPress, you have literally thousands of plugins to use at your disposal. The WordPress community is huge, and because of its popularity, help is readily available by simply googling your WordPress question.
Tim Chesonis
Tim has been helping people with computers needs for several years, and he loves to help people succeed. He brings a wealth of wisdom and insight from an entrepreneur's perspective and enjoys freelance writing. In fact, when he's not writing an article, you might find him binge-watching Suits or formatting his computer . . . again, just for fun. To learn more about Tim, click here.25 Basic Computer Tips for Windows!
Windows Simplified for the Everyday User
Download Your Copy Today!
