Why use WordPress? Here are 10 valid reasons!

If you’re wondering “why should I use WordPress?” then you’re in the right place.

Asking yourself these questions means that you have done some researches on the tool or you heard about it from a colleague or friend. However, this doesn’t mean that you have evaluated pros and cons, or taken a close look at its features.

For this reason, in this article we will discuss the benefits of using WordPress, giving you a clear view of why it’s the most popular content management system and website creation software in the world.

Why use WordPress?

For medium-sized business owners, names like WordPress, Joomla, Shopify, Magento, Wix e Weebly might sound like alien names.

The website creation process brings these names into your life as they are all platform used to build websites. Many are more commonly used for niche websites with specific purposes. For example, Shopify only makes sense if you manage an online shop. It’s not a platform in which you can start a blog and then turn it into an e-commerce store. Magento is the same. Other website builders and platforms have geater flexibility and those are tipycally the most popular ones.

Everything from Squarespace to Wix has wonderful tools for certain skill levels, but we’ll explain why you should use WordPress over all of them.

1. The Software is free

Both WordPress.com and WordPress.org are completely free. WordPress.org is a self-hosted version that uses advanced plugins, while che sfrutta i plugin avanzati mentre WordPress.com is perfect for beginners.

WordPress is free for anyone, and it is an open-source project that has been around since 2003. This means that WordPress is developed by a group of contributors. Open source projects are usually free, with large communities. Users often participate in this community as beta tester or simple brand supporters, but there is really no obligation to participate if that’s not your style.

However, be aware that although the WordPress software is free, you will most likely end up spending some money. WordPress is self-hosted, so hosing is required. This can start at around $3 per month, for truly cheap shared servers, and go up to a few hundred per month for those who need speed and performance (as with Kinsta). You can typically find themes and plugins for free, but premium ones often offer better functionality and quality support. Finally, many WordPress users end up paying additional services, whether it is for freelancers or agencies. For example, you might pay a freelancer to design a logo for you or edit some CSS on your site. Other WordPress users keep graphics or maintenance experts at disposal. It all depends on the experience and the size of your website.

But overall, it is possible to keep WordPress costs at minimum.

2. It fits any kind of site

One of the most common misconceptions about WordPress is that it is primarily used for building blogs. To some extent, this was true in fact. WordPress was indeed developed as blogging platform, but over the years it has changed drastically with the implementation of various new versions.

In fact, WordPress’s blogging are one of its countless advantages. It is by far one of the cleanest and fastest ways to write and publish blog posts, and all of this is included from the start. Some web creation tools think about design and apps first, with the blogging interface coming later.

This is not the case with WordPress, where you can create a beautiful e-commerce site and know that the blog is an integral part of the development process.

3. Supports different types of file

Feel free to check the long list of files accepted by WordPress, but know that the following main categories are all accepted:

• Images
• Documents
• Audio
• Video

And while some file formats, such as SVG, are not allowed, there are good solutions to work around the problem. In short, if you want to put a photo, a gif, a video, or a document on your website, it’s usually easy to do with WordPress. It’s also common to host documents and presentations on a website without publishing them on a specific page.

4. It is easy to learn and has a large Community

Indeed, as an open-source software, WordPress can be used by anyone. This means that the user base is not limited by pricing, premium customer support, or even skill level. Of course, there are many things to learn about WordPress, but anyone can play around with it for ten minutes and start to understand how the interface works.

And since there are not a lot of barriers to accessing the software, users created blogs, forums, online course, seminars, webinars and books, outlining different aspects of the WordPress platform. Then there is the official customer support service provided by WordPress, which allows access to dedicated support or working through WordPress forums.

It’s really amazing how many resources there are to learn about WordPress or to get a quick answer to development questions.

5. You can customize your site with themes and plugins

To create a standard blog, you just need to take a theme, adjust the design and you can launch it. The same happens for a business website or a portfolio. It’s common that themes are the basis of a site. After that, the project work is minimum, beside the colour changes, logo, new pages and blog posts.

But sometimes you realize that something new should be added to your website. Maybe your clients are asking for a subscription section on your website, or perhaps you have realized that a monthly quiz is a great way to engage customers with your brand. In both of these situations, a plugin solves the problem.

6. It’s easy to use

The website management tipically involves a few things:

• Ensuring the server is up and running;
• Maintaining security checks;
• Performing backups;
• Updating plugins, themes, and WordPress software;
• Managing spam;
• Testing for functionality and broken links;
• Improving speed and SEO.

Regarding WordPress, all of these things are only occasionally checked on the server, so it’s about getting a valid host and check if the website is up and running all the time. Security and backups are managed through plugins or via a managed WordPress hosting plan.

7. SEO is protagonist

WordPress is known for having SEO integrated into the platform. In fact, WordPress automatically generates title tags and meta descriptions for all your pages and posts. This allows search engines to understand your content and can help you get indexed and rank higher. As with everything in WordPress, there are also more advanced features offered by plugins and online tools.

8. Full control of your site

A Google search about “website builders” or “websites platforms” will offer many types of results. WordPress will probably be on all lists of website builders, along with competitors such as WIX, Squarespace, Joomla, Magento, Shopify, Weebly and Jimdo. All of these are perfectly suitable for creating websites, but non-open source ones like Squarespace, Shopify, and WIX, limit control over any function offered in premium packages.

9. It is the best Blogging you can find

WordPress was born as a blogging platform. It had its competitors, but currently nothing compares to the power, elegance, and advanced tools you find in the WordPress blogging engine. Options like Tumblr, Medium, Ghost, and Blogger are perfect for hobbyists, but professionals choose WordPress. Within the WordPress blog editor, there is an incredible set of tools.

You can run a simple single-author blog using formatting and multimedia tools. There is also the ability to create a complete online magazine by scheduling advanced posts and setting up multiple types of users for contributors and editors. In addition to options for previewing, editing everything in the post, and keeping code completely out of the equation, you can’t really beat WordPress.

10. Everyone is using it

So jump off the bridge with them! Ok, the fact that everyone is using it, is not a good reason. But WordPress has proven itself time and time again, and there is a reason why over 29.3% of all websites on the internet use WordPress.

Clearly, WordPress is moving in the right direction. Plus, you don’t have to sacrifice much to try it out.

Experienced WordPress users will praise developers for their constant updates and improvements. The great thing is that every time that an update is released, there is an informative page that describes how the update will improve WordPress experience.