WordPress is a free tool for creating websites that puts you in control of the design, features, and content without requiring coding knowledge. It’s just one option in the industry of website building software. Some of the alternatives—Wix, Shopify, Squarespace to name a few—offer similar features for a monthly fee. But there are many good reasons why WordPress is a better option.
WordPress vs. Site Builder Softwares
Quick site builders like Wix and Squarespace offer many of the same features of WordPress—templates, add-ons, media file management. So what’s the difference?
WordPress is a free software program for creating websites that has open source features for development. In other words, anyone can create WordPress themes (templates) and plugins that can expand the functionality of any WordPress site. When you install WordPress, you open the door to endless possibilities and continuous development over time. Better yet, using WordPress gives you total control over every aspect of your website, something that you can’t have with a more strictly managed software like Wix.
There are so many ways WordPress is the better choice for your website, and we’ve listed 20 of the most import ones in this post. We believe these reasons are why WordPress is used by over 27% of websites on the internet, and why WordPress has an expansive, dedicated community of users and developers across the world.
Before you make a choice for your website platform, read these details and compare them with the software you’re interested in.
1. WordPress is for Everybody
WordPress was created so anyone could build their own website and manage it just as well as a developer would. Everything that would require coding to create or update is translated into a simple user interface, with everything crucial to your website design and functionality at your fingertips.
2. WordPress Keeps Your Website Standards Up-to-date
One of the biggest difficulties with managing a website is keeping your technology up-to-date. Programming languages change all the time, and new technology pops up everyday. Keeping up with changes to web browsers alone is a full-time job. But with WordPress, the core software is updated frequently, and if you buy a quality WordPress theme (website template), the developer will keep your theme software updated with the latest coding practices. The best part is this is all under-the-surface work that happens while you carry on with your work.
Another tough issue that a good WordPress theme will take care of is responsiveness. Most quality themes now have great quality on any size device from mobile phones to large desktops.
3. WordPress Themes Come in All Shapes and Sizes
WordPress themes are very similar to a Wix or Squarespace template. The big difference is that they are competitive. Developers try to produce the most versatile, user friendly, and high performance themes, hoping that you’ll buy theirs instead of using a free theme or another premium theme.
This expands the options you have by a lot. Developers have created every type of WordPress theme conceivable, and some themes even change the standard way of editing pages and posts in WordPress to make it more user friendly. (Check out this theme).
You can start with a free WordPress theme, but you will quickly find limitations and lesser quality compared to premium WordPress themes. However, by comparison with developer costs, or even a monthly subscription, great quality themes are cheap. You can buy an amazing theme with multiple design demos, infinite customization, and clean code for about $59. And that’s a one-time fee, which will include updates and developer support.
4. WordPress Themes Include Importable, Pre-made Website Designs
WordPress theme demos, which are essentially pre-made websites that you can import with all the configurations and content in tact, save you tons of time and help you create a professional website that’s lives up to standards of design and development.
For example, The Core WordPress theme includes 23 demos designed for specific types of websites, using the best design practices for each industry. With a demo design, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel, but you’re not getting a cookie cutter design, either. You can still change layout, features, and branding to make it unique.
5. WordPress Sites Can Be Expanded with Over 50,000 WordPress Plugins
WordPress plugins are pieces of software that can be added to any WordPress website to add features or expand WordPress’s stock functionality. Most plugins, from security to backups to marketing software integrations, are free. Just like themes, the best plugins are updated and managed by dedicated software developers in the WordPress community to stay in line with current standards and best practices.
6. Anyone Can Create a WordPress Theme or Plugin
Did we mention that WordPress is totally open-source? That means that developers, or aspiring developers, can build businesses or freelance work on the WordPress framework and make money. It also means that everyone has access to the core software and resources. With development open to anyone, it’s no wonder that there are so many great themes and plugins on the market. The collective WordPress community is always working to improve and add value to every aspect of WordPress.
7. WordPress is a Community… A Huge Community
With over 27% of websites running on WordPress, and 60% of CMS, or content management system, users on WordPress, there is an amazingly large and widespread community behind WordPress. A single Google search will yield you more articles than you can count for any WordPress question. On top of that, there are plenty of WordPress-focused blogs, youtube channels, meetups, forums, and support groups to keep you busy for years to come.
8. WordPress Help is Abundant and Cheap
Because of WordPress’s huge base of users and professionals, it’s incredibly easy to troubleshoot any problems or get help when you need it. In addition to the many free resources online, there are plenty of freelance WordPress developers and specialists to help you get work done. And if you want to learn it yourself, there are some great paid services, such as WP Live, which offers access to WordPress experts over the phone, email, and chat.
9. WordPress is International and Multilingual
The WordPress community hosts WordCamp conferences and meetups all over the world, where developers and users can collaborate and share knowledge. But WordPress is even more international at it’s core. WordPress has been translated into 169 languages so it may be the most accessible CMS around.
10. Many Professionals and Freelancers Already Use WordPress
If you’re running a business or other organization, freelancers will be more familiar with WordPress than any other website technology, because it has the greatest market share for CMS’s (60%). If you use WordPress, you’ll cut costs and time on training by choosing a freelancer or employee who is already familiar with it.
11. WordPress is FREE
Okay so we may have mentioned this already, but it’s important enough to have it’s own number. The self-hosted version of WordPress is 100% free. The WordPress.com version is more like your Squarespace or Wix setup, and limits how much you can control, including your website hosting.
The speed, security, and usability of your website hosting plan is dependent upon the company and plan that you choose. (If you’re not sure what hosting means, here’s a quick primer on what it is and how to set it up). With WordPress.com, Wix or Squarespace, the hosting is in their control. Whereas, when you set up hosting on your own, you get to choose how much storage, how fast your server is, and better yet—you have complete access to all the settings and data for your website.
The WordPress core software (WordPress.org) is free to download, and as mentioned before, it’s open source. Also, with most website hosting companies, WordPress is a featured one-click install so you don’t even have to get technical with it.
12. WordPress Let’s You Get Technical, Too
With WordPress, you can get as technical as you want or need to, including editing your theme code files if necessary. Other technical features, such as 301 redirects (for instance, forwarding from one domain to another) are free and easy to set up with a plugin. A basic 301 redirect feature only comes with the premium version of Wix.
WordPress’s answer, on the other hand, is a free plugin that not only redirects, but allows you to schedule content to expire and redirect.
13. Third-party Tools All Day Long
Another huge plus to WordPress is third-party tool integrations. Things like email subscriber and newsletter tools like Constant Contact or MailChimp, popups with Optinmonster, push notifications with OneSignal, and even Evernote all integrate with WordPress through free plugins. Not to mention that tracking pixels (those things that enable you to track interactions coming from websites like Facebook or Google AdWords) can easily be plugged in with, you guessed it, a free WordPress plugin.
14. Sell it Online
WordPress powers over a quarter of all websites and that includes 30% of all online stores. These online stores are running the most popular e-commerce software, WooCommerce, which is also a free WordPress plugin. Installing this plugin, or starting out with a WooCommerce specialized WordPress theme, puts the control of your lineup of products, shopping cart, and checkout in your hands.
15. WordPress is for Anything. Literally.
While WordPress started as a blogging platform, it’s now a top choice for many businesses and other types of websites, and especially for digital marketing purposes. WordPress can be used to create a social network, company intranet, cloud drive, an aggregator for multiple blog websites, a countdown, marketing landing pages, donation page, email program, word processor, and even a task manager. Try this search to find more wacky and wonderful WordPress use cases.
16. WordPress Can Always Be Changed
Without too much trouble, you can change your entire website any time with WordPress. For example, you can change themes with one click, and all of your content will carry over (you may, of course need to adjust some settings, and I recommend using the Theme Testdrive plugin to test it first). This goes for any plugins, design choices, or customizations you make, as well. WordPress even saves every version of your blog posts and pages so that you can go back on changes when you need to.
WordPress is extremely dynamic and flexible, which is great for keeping up with changing technology and digital trends.
17. WordPress Has a Bright Future
While WordPress is always changing, updating and growing, the WordPress team is always refining and improving the experience and features for users like you. For instance, WordPress’s new Gutenberg editor will change the way WordPress works to something more like a Wix or Squarespace template. You’ll be able to create amazingly complex and beautiful layouts for your posts and pages without writing any html or css. This functionality has existed for quite some time in certain WordPress Themes, and with plugins like the Visual Composer, but the Gutenberg editor will refine and update the experience of building pages visually without writing any html or css. Check out the plugin here.
18. WordPress Enables the World to Create Better Applications
While WordPress is busy powering all those websites and businesses, it’s also helping developers create better software through their REST API. Without going into too much technical detail, consider this API, or application programming interface, a way to consolidate coding languages to access databases for programming purposes. It’s all available to developers and businesses creating applications for the greater good, so it looks like WordPress is sticking around for a while.
19. WordPress is the Gateway Drug to Digital Marketing and Development
Without realizing it, if you learn WordPress, you’ve already started acquiring valuable skills for digital marketing, web development, and product management. If you want to delve into the tech world for your career, start a freelance business, or better manage your business’s marketing strategy, WordPress is the ultimate tool and the ultimate teacher.
20. WordPress is Fun
Even though something called WordPress might sound like the most boring thing ever invented, it’s actually one of the most entertaining pieces of software I’ve ever used. Being able to solve problems and create designs on your own, in minutes, without a hitch makes you feel pretty good. And, part of the fun is discovering what WordPress can do. You see people creating new businesses, works of art, and useful learning resources every minute of every day with WordPress. It’s for everybody because anybody can do something great with it.
