10 reasons why you should use WordPress

We love WordPress here at Yoast. It’s not just because we make plugins for WordPress websites, but because of all the benefits and features that the platform offers. And did you know that WordPress is the most popular website platform in the world? If you’re looking to build a website, why not consider building it on WordPress? We’ll tell you our top 10 reasons why you should use WordPress in this article. Read along!

1. It is open-source (and free)

WordPress is an open-source project that’s been around since 2003. Nearly 20 years later, the project is still going strong. Being open-source means you’re free to download, use and modify it to match your needs. And this is one of the most attractive points for using WordPress: it’s completely free to get started.

Anyone can download, install WordPress and build a website according to their vision. This is especially crucial for small business owners, bloggers, or just about anyone who’s looking to create their own space online. Of course, you would need to pay for a domain and get a hosting provider if you want to take your website online. But you can think of building a website as building a house. Your hosting provider provides you with a piece of land, your domain is your house address. And WordPress gives you the resources needed to actually build that house.

2. It is hugely popular and scalable

We mentioned that WordPress is the world’s most popular website platform and that’s true. In fact, it is the driving engine of 43% of all websites in the world currently. That’s a lot of websites!

Any kind of website can be powered by WordPress, from individual blogs to huge corporate sites. Sites such as Sony Music, The Next Web, Time Magazine, Microsoft News all run on WordPress, and the list goes on and on. Of course, our Yoast website also runs on WordPress! We’ve been on WordPress since the start. Even though our website has grown a lot since then, we’re still using this platform. What’s more, thanks to our popular plugins, we’ve built an entire business on top of WordPress. This is thanks to the fact that WordPress is extremely scalable. With the right infrastructure and resources in place, your website can serve thousands of logged-in users and sustain millions of monthly page views.

3. There’s a huge community of users and developers

WordPress wouldn’t be the platform we know today without its massive, amazing and friendly community of developers and users. They come from all over the world and work together to ensure WordPress is accessible for everyone. And anyone can become a contributor to the project. The best part is, you don’t necessarily have to be a developer to join the cause, there are plenty of other ways to contribute!

Collaboration and community activities don’t just take place online, there are a lot of offline events as well. Take a look at WordCamp. It’s like a conference about WordPress where you meet other enthusiasts and contributors and listen to talks from the most experienced people in the field. The scale of WordCamp goes from local gatherings in your city to large-scale events with massive attendance.

In addition to this, having such a large base of community also means there is a lot of information available. And it’s all free and accessible. If you ever have a question about any aspect of using the platform, you’ll have plenty of people you can turn to for answers. Most likely that the bugs or issues you encounter on your website have occurred on others, so they can help you with yours.

4. WordPress is highly adaptable

Thanks to its massive range of themes and plugins, you have full control over your website. If you’re new to WordPress, you probably aren’t familiar with the concept of themes and plugins. In short,

• Themes: They are templates you can use to alter the basic design of your website. Things like website layout, color, font and text styling are controlled by themes.
• Plugins: You install them to add additional features and functions to your website. There’s an incredible range of plugins for various applications. From plugins for security purposes, caching, contact form management, social media integration,…Any features and functions you can think of, there are probably plugins for those.

It is because of these themes and plugins that make WordPress a powerful website building platform. You can turn a website into any type of website that you want. It can be a food blog, a photography gallery, a portfolio site, or a community forum. If you want to open an online store, you can do that by installing the WooCommerce plugin. And if you want to have more payment options for your online store, there are plenty of plugins for that. Bottom line is that the possibility is endless with WordPress.

5. It is great for SEO

WordPress is great for SEO, and that’s not just us talking. Google and other search engines love WordPress due to its high-quality code and semantic markup. And there are plugins such as our Yoast SEO plugin that add additional code and markup to your website, helping it to better communicate with search engines. Additionally, WordPress site is scalable and optimized for many devices from desktop to mobile so you can serve traffic from a variety of sources.

Website speed is another important factor for SEO. It’s not a pleasant experience having to wait for a site to load. And you’ll definitely lose out on traffic and sales if you have a slow site. Luckily, WordPress is built for speed. Most WordPress themes on the market are lightweight so as to reduce loading time. Next to that, there are many other things you can do on WordPress to improve website speed. These include using caching plugins, using content delivery network to serve media,…all to ensure your visitors won’t leave because of a slow-loading site.

6. WordPress is regularly updated

WordPress releases updates very often. These updates range from security updates and small releases to major updates that transform how people use WordPress. The version of WordPress we use today is vastly different from the WordPress of many years ago. It’s much more visual and beginner-friendly. There are more features, and things just work better together. And WordPress always communicates about the changes it makes as well as its product development roadmap so you’ll know what to expect.

With such a huge user base, you can be sure that WordPress is not going away anytime soon. Developers will continue to work hard on updating the platform and adding new features to it. That means that using WordPress ensures you’ll always have access to updates that make your sites more secure and powerful.

7. It is secure

It is the effort of both WordPress developers and plugins makers that helps to ensure the security of WordPress websites. WordPress’s emphasis on security is demonstrated by the fact that it has a dedicated security team. The team works on improving the platform’s security and identifying as well as fixing any security vulnerabilities before they become a problem.

Next to that, plugins makers contribute to the security equation by creating various plugins for various security needs. Some help you to protect your site from brute force attacks, remove malware and block spam comments. While others help with backing up your website and provide two-factor authentication and strong password enforcement.

8. WordPress is great for blogging

WordPress started out as a blogging platform, so no wonder it’s so good for blogging. It’s by far one of the cleanest, fastest ways to write and publish blog posts. You can easily manage your content, make changes and keep track of comments. Next to that, there are many plugins dedicated to blogging. For instance, our Yoast SEO plugin helps you to optimize your blog posts for both your visitors and search engines.

We have to mention blogging because content is king when it comes to SEO. People browse the internet to buy things and read content. If you want people to visit your site, you need to create content that people want to look at. Even if your website’s sole purpose is to sell things, you can encourage people to make a purchase with engaging, informative articles on the topic of your products. That’s also the reason why you see many websites having a blog nowadays.

9. It is easy to maintain

WordPress can be quite easy to maintain, especially if don’t have too large of a website. There’s some work to be done to ensure a good, working website. You just have to make sure you do the following:

• Update your WordPress to the latest version when there’s a new release.
• Update your plugins and themes whenever they’re available.
• Regularly back up your website.
• Test for functionality and broken links.
• Regulate your comment section and remove spam links.
• Keep tabs on your site’s security.

In practice, these shouldn’t take too much of your time. WordPress also makes it easy for you to update things, as you can apply updates just by clicking a button. Next to that, you’ll be notified of any updates right within your WordPress dashboard so you won’t miss them.

10. It is easy to learn

Getting started with learning WordPress is fairly easy. Since there aren’t many roadblocks to gaining access to the software, anyone can install and play with it. Spend a good few hours exploring the backend and you’ll become familiar and know where the controls and settings are.

Next to that, there is plenty of learning material available, both online and offline, about every aspect of WordPress. And the best part is, you can decide how you want to learn. Do a quick search online and you’ll see many blog posts, books, forums tutorial videos, and webinars to help you learn the ins and outs of WordPress. If you don’t know where to start, taking an online course is a great option, as you’ll have more learning structure and guidance. Here at Yoast we also have our own WordPress training courses!

Final thoughts

We hope you’ll realize the value of WordPress after reading this post. WordPress is the most widely used website platform in the world for the exact reasons we mentioned. It’s free, highly customizable and easy to get started with. And there are a lot of resources to help you learn WordPress so you should definitely take advantage of them. With enough digging, researching and trying out things, you’ll be able to build the website of your dream in no time!

Need some help with learning WordPress? Check out our article on how to use WordPress for beginners!

Read more: WordPress 6.0: A major release with major improvements »