Whether you’re just getting you business started and you are still learning how to improve your online presence or you have had a site for a while and you just aren’t happy with it, you may have heard of WordPress and might be wondering what WordPress is. Simply put WordPress is a publishing platform used for building websites and blogs.

It allows for a highly customizable user interface. WordPress powers millions of websites worldwide, and many big brands use WordPress: CNN, PlayStation, New York Times Blogs, People Magazine, and even Ford- they all use WordPress! Pretty impressive list of users, if its good enough for the big boys, its good enough for your site.

Top 9 Reasons Why You Should Build Your Website On WordPress

Reason 1: WordPress is not going anywhere

As an open source CMS (Content Management System) it has taken the world by storm – as of August 2011, “14.7% of the top million websites in the world” are powered by WordPress. WordPress is often praised by web designers, web developers and users alike for its ease-of-use. This is part of the reason it has become so popular, and why its growth just keeps on accelerating. I love stats, so here is a few more good ones: two years ago, WordPress was used by approximately 8.5% of the top million websites in the world, so to jump from 8.5% to 14.7% in one year alone speaks volumes for how popular WordPress is becoming, and how much people love this platform! Here’s my favorite statistic:

As of August 2011 WordPress powers 22% of all new websites. – Rao, Leena (19 August 2011). “WordPress Now Powers 22 Percent Of New Active Websites In The U.S.”. TechCrunch

Reason 2: WordPress is no longer just for blogging.

A long time ago, when someone said WordPress, everyone automatically thought of blogging. While it is still the best solution to use for blogging, it has come a long way and has become a very comprehensive Content Management Suite used to power many different types of websites, including business sites, job boards, sites featuring classified ads, etc.

Reason 2: WordPress is cost-effective…its free!

It would cost a lot of money to have a custom CMS developed that could do the same thing that WordPress does; so why not save money with WordPress? There’s no need to reinvent the wheel, with WordPress being freely available and customizable. Like WordPress, the plugins are generally free as well. These plugins are usually not only free but open source as well. This means that like WordPress, you can edit them if you need to.

Reason 3: WordPress is Flexible

A great thing about WordPress is, as I mentioned above, that it’s completely open source – which means that the source code used to run WordPress is available to the general public. This means that anyone on the planet can modify the code if necessary and customize WordPress even further to be what they need. Often, this isn’t necessary, but it also means that any plugins and themes (templates) created for the platform are also open source! Imagine a world-wide community working together to add more features and functionality to WordPress – you’re not limited to only being able to use specific employees or developers to produce customizations, which means it’s a powerful CMS system ready to do what you need it to, it’s flexible, and easy to customize.

Reason 4: WordPress is SEO friendly

Search engines such as Google love WordPress because it uses well-written code. If you’re looking to get a head start with Search Engine Optimization, WordPress is the way to go for your website and/or blog. While I am on the topic, adding fresh relevant content to your website is easy with WordPress which is highly recommended as part of your online marketing strategy since it tells search engines that your site is alive and well, thereby increasing your website’s rank and your chances of being found via organic searches.

Reason 6: WordPress Has Cheap Premium themes

Themes are what provide WordPress its design, it’s what connects the CMS to the end user. WordPress is very flexible and adaptable. While there are some pretty good free themes, I have found that for $70 bucks the good premium themes are simply worth every penny. Most need almost no customization!

Reason 7: WordPress Makes it easy to find a solution.

Plugins are basically add-ons that can be easily installed in the WordPress dashboard area to add features that are not part of the core code. If you need a specific feature or features that are not built-in, there are literally thousands of plugins available to enhance WordPress’ functionality. In almost every case so there is likely a solution already developed for any thing you need – the possibilities are literally limitless!

Reason 8: WordPress is supported by worldwide community.

Because WordPress is open-source, there is literally hundreds of thousands of people who are working to help make it better. You will find WordPress has a very actively supported worldwide community of WordPress developers, and users! WordPress is updated regularly, with new functionality, bug fixes, and security fixes. Also, because there is such a large community surrounding WordPress, any developer can work on a WordPress-based site to update it, make changes, etc., so you will never be held ransom by any one designer or developer. YOU own your website!

Reason 9: WordPress is easy to use!

This is maybe my favorite thing about WordPress. You don’t have to be a technical genius to learn how to use WordPress. I always tell my clients: if you know how to use a Microsoft Word, (and lets be honest who doesn’t?) YOU WILL be able to easily update the content on your WordPress site. You don’t have to be a web designer to update your content. That’s the magic of WordPress! Beyond editing content, WordPress offers a backend administrator interface that’s visually easy to navigate and very effective. Everything is organized in a logical manner, so it’s easy to find what you are looking for, weather it is adding/editing a page, Adding/editing a post or article, uploading images, managing users, etc. WordPress is the best Content Management System to use to build your website!