10 Reasons Your Website Should Be Built in WordPress

Here are some of the main advantages that WordPress has over building a site in HTML, Flash or any other CMS (client management system) platform.

Written Sep 03, 2010, read 4357 times since then.

It’s well known throughout the design community that WordPress isn’t just for blogs, even though it’s the greatest blogging software that ever was. Huge sites are now being build on WordPress, some with and some without blogs. Here are some of the main advantages that WordPress has over building a site in HTML, Flash (but that’s a whole ‘nother post) or any other CMS (client management system) platform.

Your Own Domain Name

1. You can install WordPress on any domain name, and many servers now offer a 1-click install of the latest version of WordPress. It’s a completely seamless way of using the software, you just download the software from WordPress.org and they have instructions as to how to install it to your own domain name. Sha-boomy!

Saves you Money

2. Once your site is done being set up, designed and configured, you never have to pay anyone to make changes to it. Ever. Unless you want a new design or enhanced functionality, you can pretty much manage your site on your own and quit paying someone by the hour to add photos, change dates, and update your content.

3. The software to build the site is free and open source. That means that the code is available for anyone to update and improve upon, which usually means a superior product. WordPress is available online, both to use for your site as well as to maintain it. So you don’t need to purchase anything and install it.

4. You can access it from anywhere, any computer, and even make updates from your smart phone, if you wish.

5. Updates to the software versions are free, and you never need to update unless you want to. So you’re not paying for that, either!

Design

6. Many attractive WordPress themes are free, but the professional ones are gorgeous and more flexible, I find. You probably need to pay a designer to completely customize the theme to exactly what you want, but it’s relatively easy to put together a beautiful site and pay less than $100 for a theme (but the design work and configuration will cost extra, I’m sure). My favorite places to get themes currently include Woo Themes, which has excellent support for when you can’t figure out how to get something just right and ThemeForest, which has amazing, feature-rich themes for very reasonable prices.

7. Themes come with built in CSS – which means that no matter what you do to the posts and pages you’re messing with, the titles and fonts will always look the same. So if you run a site with several contributors, you can be guaranteed a streamlines, professional look no matter who’s updating. (I recently had a client who was using FrontPage, and all the pages were in different fonts depending on the contributor’s preference. Bleah.)

Flexibility

8. WordPress has about a billion plugins, making your site unique and user-friendly. Some of the plugins I’ve installed for clients recently have included:

functionality for users to print pages
ability for users to make the text bigger or smaller on pages (for older audiences)
the ability to choose which language they prefer to read the site in
showcase of featured video in a sidebar
eBay store functionality
Facebook “Like” button
Constant Contact and MailChimp forms on the sidebar so people can sign up for email newsletters
Flickr photo galleries
moving slideshow galleries (such as the one used in my portfolio)
Google Analytics trackers so you can see your site traffic when you login

And on and on! WordPress has so many, pretty much anything you’d ever want to do with your site is available and ready to be configured.

Social

9. I wouldn’t be a good social media consultant if I didn’t tout the need and downright demand of today’s sites to have Facebook “like” functionality as well as integration with all your social media channels. People visiting your site should easily be able to see all your social media channels – YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, all of it. There are literally tons of ways to integrate these things into WordPress, making your site THE place to connect with your organization.

SEO

10. We all want to be at the top of that Google foodchain. With WordPress’ text-centric platform, it’s very search engine friendly and many themes and plugins can enhance your site even moreso. The WordPress platform is easily crawled by search engine spiders, making your site quicker to find than your competition. WordPress encourages link building and tracking back to your site easily from other sites, and allows you to create sitemaps easily.

Are there any reasons I missed? What are some reasons YOU love WordPress? Any complaints about it?

Learn more about the author, Jessica Kupferman.

Posted by Marc Martinez, Grapevine, Texas | Sep 04, 2010

Jessica,

I agree with you! WordPress has made a big difference in how I look at websites. I started learning how to use WP about 1 year ago. I'm not a web developer but I am very comfortable with technology and and now with WordPress as well. The only thing I would add is that if you want to make changes outside the content itself, you really need to know some HTML and CSS.

The learning curve for getting up to speed on HTML and CSS was a little steep in the beginning, but I feel much comfortable now to make changes to the CSS style sheet and even my page templates. Of course that wasn't the case when I started using WP. In the beginning, I relied a lot on the so called support forums for the "premium" themes I purchased and it was a very frustrating experience. My advice for those want to take on designing their own website and are rather particular about a theme's limitations, is to learn HTML and CSS and get comfortable with how php works as well.

I've learned quite a bit in the last year and now, I wouldn't use anything other than WordPress, and I don't need a webmaster! My goal now is to increase my mastery and even design my on theme.

Good article!
Posted by Bob Dunn, Seattle, Washington | Sep 04, 2010

Hey Jessica, yes, these are 10 good reasons, and depending on one's comfort level with technology, everyone has a different experience with WordPress. I have heard all the good and bad out there. But, in the end, most people are happy with the decision to switch over to WordPress.

Marc, you are so right, and many people that dive into WordPress don't realize that some customizations, depending on the theme, will take some CSS and HTML. And they truly do have a learning curve. But I see so many themes moving into the direction of the end-user having much more control over their site without knowing any coding, such as the Headway theme.

Jessica, even though you mentioned about having your own domain, you might have wanted to clarify that most of this article addresses having a "self-hosted" WordPress site. So many people are still on WordPress.com and often get frustrated when they don't realize the difference. Maybe that's why I wrote an article on it awhile back :)

WordPress is great, if you take the time to learn how to use it.
Posted by Robert Stidham, Wilmington, North Carolina | Sep 05, 2010

I agree. Until 3 months ago I never heard of wordpress and had no SEO experiance. Since that time I've built 2 WP sites both on the local front page of Google. I recommend WP to everyone.
Posted by Armands Kruze, New York, New York | Sep 05, 2010

I agree - no Flash site! I use WP for my blogs and it's perfect; it's also very easy to find nice website designs-albeit some are problematic to implement. However, I'm not sure how robust WP is for an e-commerce site. Although, I did not realize there was an eBay plug-in. Currently I use Miva for my web store. WP could be a good, quick starting point, but it may not provide a scalable foundation to build a solid e-commerce business. It may be appropriate for some and not others. Research is key to see if it meets all operational needs.
Posted by Arnold Arnan, Kirkland, Washington | Sep 05, 2010

Great post. As a web designer, I have been using wordpress for some time. It can handle highly complex websites, and simple straightforward blogs as well. The available plug ins are impressive as well. I agree with your assessment 100%
Posted by Glenn Mattsson, Santa Rosa, California | Sep 05, 2010

Jessica,

I agree 100%. I now maintain 3 WordPress websites; my own, one for a professional organization that I chair, and also one for a hobby.

Not only do I maintain them myself, I also developed the themes for all of them myself also, using Artisteer. Artisteer adds yet another degree of flexibility to your website design.

An important reason to develop your own skills and maintain your own site is so you're not held hostage by the technology and dependent on developers.

I got into developing my own web skills when the developer who originally did my website changed careers, which resulted in my site becoming stale. Now having the skills allow me to do timely updates, but also allows me to update the look and layout as often as I want.

At this point, I'd be hard pressed to consider why I'll need a developer again anytime soon. WordPress is awesome.

Thanks!
Posted by Gary Smith, Ridgeland, Mississippi | Sep 06, 2010

Yes, I have four WP sites and the functionality and ease of use is perfect. I could not do what I do without the WordPress system. Thanks for reminding me how flexible the software is and how it proves that anyone can own and maintain a great site.
Posted by Ron Zanetti, Seattle, Washington | Sep 09, 2010

Hi Jessica. What about Joomla? How does wordpress compare?
Posted by Shaymein Ewer, St Paul, Minnesota | Sep 09, 2010

The big thing you miss on your plugins comment though is support.

Yes, there are a ton of plugins, but WordPress is constantly pushing updates out for good reason, but your not always guaranteed the plugins you implement are going to follow into the next version. Therefore you have to be careful which ones you choose to use. Otherwise you may find yourself breaking your site or tools on your site.

We work with Expression Engine CMS. There is a license fee, but the support is unbeatable.

As a blog engine WordPress is the best, but for an overall site that is not running a blog, I wouldn't recommend it as a CMS.
Posted by Skip Spoerke, Abington, Massachusetts | Sep 10, 2010

Great article! One more thing I love about Wordpress is that the admin interface is universal for every website, making it easy to teach clients how to manage their own website. I don't have to remember what X does for them because X does the same thing on my Wordpress websites as it does on their website.
Posted by Shari Stauch, Summerville, South Carolina | Sep 10, 2010

Excellent points: When we took on designing author websites, using Wordpress on the back end was the natural choice - Authors love it; they can post their news/appearances and articles easily, without the intimidation that the prospect of "having a website" used to entail...
Posted by Ian Loew, Montclair, New Jersey | Sep 10, 2010

One of the biggest dangers I have found with free WordPress templates is the inclusion of encrypted JavaScript which can simply a link but may also be malware.
Posted by Jack Kalvan, Los Angeles, California | Sep 10, 2010

NOT for everyone! It's great for blogs. But Wordpress sites are all kind of generic looking.
Posted by Bob Dunn, Seattle, Washington | Sep 10, 2010

Just had to chime back in. I agree with Ian, although there are some reputable free themes out there that have been around for quite sometime, be careful of what you use. Ask around...

And I do disagree that WordPress sites look all the same. With the right premium theme and skills, there are some incredibly unique and amazing sites popping up!
Posted by Donald Otis, Arvada, Colorado | Sep 11, 2010

Joomla is also a great option, for many of the same reasons. Open source, tons of plugins, interoperability with other tools (including WordPress). I think that you have more options for look and feel, also, with Joomla.

However, either one takes some learning, so it is best to take your pick, then find the online manuals, the forums, the various download spots, and a user group or two. That is what you get with open source - unless you want to pay, YOU are your own tech support person.

This is not a bad thing, per se, as long as your expectations are in line with reality. You don't want to come on a board and say "why can't I get this #$@% thing to work?!" You want to say, "I am running (release level) on a (server), and I have installed (component). I expect it to do (whatever it is you expect), but it does (whatever it does). (Here would be a good place to insert any error messages and any websites you have looked up for that error.)

This will get you much better results. Also, thank anyone that helps you - use the forum tools for this. Opensource people respond well to getting "attaboys", as it typically is all the pay they are going to get.
Posted by Ron Zanetti, Seattle, Washington | Sep 11, 2010

Interesting thread, thank you. So is that a business opp I'm hearing - for a paid support and training service for these FREE CMSs? . . .or are there already providers out there (can anyone name any?)
Posted by Glenn Mattsson, Santa Rosa, California | Sep 11, 2010

Since Joomla was mentioned, Artisteer also allows theme development for Joomla, as well as for WordPress. Highly recommended.
Posted by Ewen Vile, Auckland, Auckland New Zealand | Oct 16, 2010

Yes I'm a great Wordpress fan.

I really don't know about other platforms, but as far as publishing goes for a recovering technophobic, it's brilliant.

Can change the whole design within a couple of clicks. No charge.

Can copy and paste in code for Youtube videos. Don't we all love watching videos.

Can copy and paste in code for advertisers and affiliates.

Can get all kinds of plugins to help out.

We get all these things for free and do it ourselves.

No need to be held to ransom by some tech guy.

There is so much help on the internet about Wordpress if stuck.

Offline business owners don't believe me what I say when they have dealt with a flash web design company.

All the best, Ewen Travel NZ
Posted by Susan M. Baker, North Hollywood, California | Nov 27, 2010

excellent info and just what I needed to hear since I'm considering going wordpress for the first time! Thanks for making the pro reasons VERY clear.