Why So Many Designers Choose WordPress
Today’s post is a guest post by Paul Gray. Paul is the voice behind IMCasts, the internet marketing website where you can learn through the free internet marketing training videos covering everything from keyword research to advanced link building. Today he’s writing about the topic of WordPress, and why so many developers choose to use it as their framework of choice.
Over the last five years, WordPress has grown from an experimental blogging platform to fast become the go to choice for powering any website that servers content. WordPress is currently powering the blogs of companies of all different sizes, from small bootstrapped startups to multi million dollar corporations (and this very blog that you read this on).
With so many people now using WordPress, it’s worth taking a step back and looking at why so many people choose to use WordPress and why it is worth considering for your next project.
Ease of Installation
One of the leading reasons that WordPress has grown in popularity is because of just how simple it is to install. With most hosting providers including a one click installer on their control panels – there is virtually zero technical setup involved in getting up and running.
Speed of Installation
With the ease of installation comes another benefit – speed. Once you have installed the software a couple of times, the installation process can take as little as 30 seconds to get up and runnings.
Design Options
Due to the popularity of WordPress there are a number of theme websites on the web where you can download both free and paid themes to suit every kind of business or project. With so many designers and themes on the market, it’s easy to find the exact theme to match your business.
SEO Optimized
It is the SEO optimization features where WordPress truly shines. From day one, WordPress was designed to be the most optimized blogging software on the market. If you run a search for any number of terms you can guarantee that there will be a WordPress powered website ranking somewhere in the top 20 results for that term.
Not only is WordPress extremely well optimized right out of the box but there are also a number of fantastic free seo plugins.
From xml sitemap generation to keyword targeting and onpage seo, the number of seo plugins is limitless.
It is this impressive built in seo that makes WordPress the natural choice for content management. It means that you don’t have to be an expert in SEO to feel the benefits of the built in tols.
Plugins
As with the theme marketplace, a whole retail niche has grown up around WordPress plugins. WordPress plugins are easy to install scripts that extend the functionality of the WordPress platform.
The plugins are installed with the click of a button so there is no technical knowledge required to get them working and the most you will ever have to do is configure a few options.
Due to the number of plugins available, you can always be a plugin solution to your problem. Using a WordPress plugin you can do everything from managing your mailing list to managing your digital media and running an ecommerce store.
Flexibility of Design
The final benefit of using WordPress is that it is just so easy to customise. With a huge range of built in features and theme options, even the most novice of designers can make impressive customisations to their blog.
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Great post, Paul. Between web developers and those of us who’ve next to no idea how websites are made, WordPress is a great head start.
It just makes me wonder, with the thriving ecosystem of plugins and themes, how can some bloggers say that WordPress is nearing its sell-by date?
I think it has a little to do with the indie/hipster attitude of “I use to use WordPress before it was cool” which means that some bloggers go off and try different platforms such as Tumblr but chances are that they will be back as it really is the best option at the moment for content management.