WordPress is a free and open source content management system or CMS which runs on a web hosting service. First hitting the scene in 2003, the WordPress platform was originally known for its ease of use and ability to quickly publish quality websites, particularly blogs. However, as WordPress began to increase in popularity, more advanced features were introduced as well. With a highly developed architecture for plugins and a huge backlog of responsive templates, WordPress is a platform that’s used by more than 22% of the top 10 million websites. To this day it’s still known for its ease of use, but with all of the power and features to run many different types of websites, not just blogs.
Simplicity is definitely one of WordPress’s biggest advantages over competitors. Adding images and creating posts can be done easily by users who aren’t necessarily tech-savvy. Small businesses don’t need to spend thousands of dollars on the expensive website development firms of the past. Much of the hard work is already done through the use of themes and plugins. Clients using a WordPress website can even make large changes to their website internally, without having professional help. In contrast, Joomla and Drupal, two other popular CMS platforms also allow you to add powerful and professional looking features to a website, but often leave you pouring over complex documentation to get things implemented.
Plugins
There is almost no functionality you could think of for a website that doesn’t exist in the form a plugin for WordPress. What’s even better is that plugins are easy to install and usually come free of charge. Being one of the most popular platforms for website development, plugin authors take keeping their projects up-to-date very seriously. The community for WordPress development is huge and active with an abundance of resources. Any question you could possibly have involving WordPress has likely been answered somewhere online, rarely is a manual required, answers are only an internet search away.
Themes
One of the most important factors to consider when building a robust e-commerce site is responsiveness. Users need to be able to easily navigate the site with the same functionality as a desktop, but also with a design that isn’t off-putting for a mobile device. This is where WordPress themes really come into play. Themes are pre-designed and easy to install and popular themes are usually tested and proven to work well with mobile devices. Premium themes are usually very inexpensive (around $100) and can give a website a unique and professional look that would otherwise cost thousands of dollars.
SEO
WordPress is also known for its strong SEO, or search engine optimization, capability. One of its best features is the ability to easily generate search friendly URLs for links on websites, instead of cryptic ones. There’s also a few popular plugins to assist with SEO such as the All-in-One SEO pack and the Google XML Site Map, which can give a website a good change of ranking high on search results. With these plugins and social media integration, any site can perform fairly well without having to seek expensive outside SEO consulting.
