Almost every day, someone is contacting us asking our opinion on WordPress. WordPress is AWESOME! It’s one of the best and cost effective ways to create an online presence for your business online.
In this article I’ll explain what WordPress is and if it’s a good fit for you or your business.
What is WordPress?
At it’s core, WordPress is the easiest, most popular way to create your very own blog or website. According to recent studies, WordPress is utilized by over 37.6% of all the websites on the internet. That means one out of four websites you visit are utilizing WordPress.
So why is it so popular?
Well it’s an easy to use platform for one, but the main reason is because it’s an open-source CMS licensed under GPLv2(anyone can use or modify the WordPress software at no cost.) So basically it’s easy to use and it’s free as long as you build it yourself!
Did you know WordPress was originally created just for blogging?
After it’s initial launch people found the system was so easy to use, that they could modify it enough to function for a full blown business website! Since then it’s evolved as more than just a blogging software, it’s an entire CMS that powers most of the small to mid-sized business websites in the world.
Since then it’s been evolved with the feature rich plugins built for WordPress. A couple of the most popular ones are WooCommerce and Buddypress – which give a huge functionality improvement to the core WordPress build.
WooCommerce turns a normal WordPress website into an eCommerce website. Allowing you to sell products and collect payments similar to Shopify and Magento. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that a traditional eCommerce solution has, but it get’s the job done. Plus it’s major advantage is the pricing model, instead of renting the software you’re essentially paying to have it built so you own it. There are many eCommerce options, feel free to contact us at Farkal and we can help guide you in the right solution for your business.
Buddypress turns a normal WordPress website into a social or membership website. This came out when the huge social network boom was happening with Facebook and Myspace. Everyone wanted to create their own social network specific to their own interests and hobbies. Buddypress allowed you to achieve that without spending thousands of dollars building it from scratch. Check it out if you want to create a social network for fellow deer hunters in Iowa(I know my uncle would love this website!).
Why is there a WordPress.org and a WordPress.com?
WordPress.org is traditionally referred to a self-hosted WordPress version, it’s free(open-source) software that you’ll have to install on your own server and it’s 100% yours. It’s all on you to build and maintain the website yourself(or with your team of experts)
WordPress.com is a hosted solution from the developers of WordPress which was created for-profit. It’s a lot more simple to get something online and it’s for more of the actual blogging community versus an actual business. Most of the users don’t even utilize their own domain name with this solution.
Who are the founders of WordPress?
WordPress was originally created by two individuals by the name of Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. It dates back all the way to 2003 when the internet was a different place and I still saw a majority of websites being built in straight HTML. I still remember my web programming 101 class using the Dreamweaver software back then.
Are there any popular websites utilizing WordPress, or is it just for small companies?
You shouldn’t base using a software by your peers using it or not(I know that is important in high school, but this is the internet). Although there are a couple very popular websites that utilize the WordPress Engine.
Whitehouse.gov
Microsoft blog
Should I use WordPress?
Again you need to really take a look at what you’re trying to achieve before making that decision, but here are some advantages to using WordPress over the majority of other CMS solutions.
WordPress is Open Source meaning it’s free and always will be. That’s very appealing because no one likes to pay rent right? Well the beauty of this is it will cost you nothing if you have some design/development skills, but even if you hire someone it’s a one-time investment to get your website live and online! If you’re hosted at Farkal, we actually provide a pre-built WordPress theme at no cost included in your services here.
WordPress is widely used. This helps because you’ll know that it needs to be properly maintained and will stay up to date for the most part. Think of investing in a new home in this planned awesome community that fall short and the community never get’s established? That’s why it’s nice to know it will always be around for a long time.
WordPress has many plugins that solve the most common problems already. If you ask me about the most common functionalities, I probably can name off at least 3 options for plugins that are available and actively developed. That’s a good sign, because the last thing you want to do is build something from scratch when an already superior product is on the market for a fraction of the cost to build it.
Ultimately it’s going to be up to you to decide, but if you need some additional help, feel free to comment with any questions below or contact us directly at Farkal.
