Building a website is a crucial component for any new or existing business. A website provides valuable information about your product or service that customers have come to expect when engaging with a brand or business.  

One of the most fundamental stages of building a website is deciding on what platform the website should be built on. There is now a huge number of platforms to choose from when building a website, each of which offer varying degrees of capabilities, integrations, features and of course, price. 

One platform however that is consistently ranked as one of the best website platforms for any sized business is WordPress – the platform that we at Strong Digital specialize in.

What is WordPress?

WordPress is the worlds most used CMS (content management system) platform with over 41% of all websites now powered by WordPress. There are two WordPress platforms – WordPress.org and WordPress.com. 

WordPress.org is often referred to as the self-hosted WordPress which is Free and open-sourced which you can install on your own web host. 

WordPress.com on the other hand is a paid service platform that is essentially powered by WordPress.org software but a great deal of flexibility is lost compared to the self-hosted .org version. This is why we always recommend to self-host your 

Why you should use WordPress

It’s Free!

As mentioned before, WordPress is a free platform to build your website compared to other platforms that charge you monthly fees or deduct a percentage of your sales as a fee. Of course, for a better performing website, users have the option to upgrade their package which usually includes domain registration, hosting and plugins. 

Capabilities

WordPress can be used for a variety of different types of websites – from basic landing pages to eCommerce sites. Microsoft uses WordPress for its own blog page whilst the White House website is built on WordPress too. If you’re wondering, here’s a list of 19 different types of websites that can be built on WordPress.

Simple Integration

Due to WordPress’s popularity, hundreds of third-party tools are available for integration through the website. Things like marketing software, Google Analytics and payment tools integrate seamlessly through the WordPress platform allowing efficient and effective running of your online business.

Huge Community of developers

Due to its popularity, WordPress has a dedicated community of users, developers and designers which can be tremendously useful when trying to solve backend issues during the development phase of a website. 

Functionality

The beauty of WordPress is simply its plugins – 58,000 free ones that is! No matter the complexity or operating objectives of the website, the vast array of free and paid plugins on offer from the WordPress plugin database is sure to match one’s requirements. 

SEO Friendly

A lot of business owners often forget that there is more to just building a visually appealing website that showcases your product or service. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) helps to rank your website with Google and other search engines. WordPress has been designed to offer users a powerful SEO plugin which allows greater visibility and opportunity to rank above competitors.

Security

The security of a website falls onto the owner/developer, but WordPress does pride itself on providing excellent security plugins and constant platform updates in order to minimize any unwanted intrusions.

Ease of Management

Another great feature of WordPress is the ease at which owners can manage their own website once the development phase has been completed. This is a huge bonus for business owners who don’t want to be tied down by a web developer but rather have the autonomy to navigate the backend themselves and make necessary tweaks as they occur. 

Speed

The page load time of your website has a huge affect on the behaviour of your visitors. Slow page load times, of between 2-7 seconds, can result in a 42% visitor bounce rate. This could have terrible consequences for a business which is why so many decide to use the WordPress platform. WordPress websites that are built and setup professionally are lightning fast which helps improve overall user experience and satisfaction. 

Media Ability 

An often-overlooked feature of WordPress is it’s ability to upload various forms of media such as images, audio and video files. WordPress also supports the embedding of YouTube videos, Tweets, Instagram photos and Soundcloud audio providing websites with a stunning array of media options at the click of a button. 

There’s a reason why WordPress is the most popular CMS platform in the world. Its varying features, ease of use, build capabilities and unreal support put it way ahead of any other platform that a small, medium or large business might want to consider.

To learn more about why Strong Digital uses WordPress and to see what we’ve built on the WordPress platform then get in touch with us!