Personally, I only work with the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) – but why WordPress?
If you have found your way to this article, you have probably started to ask yourself the same question. Overall, why do I recommend WordPress? Because I believe it is, hands down, the best platform for small businesses like yours!
Note – I’m talking about self-hosted WordPress websites, not wordpress.com
Here are 5 rock-solid reasons why WordPress is the best CMS for your small business, whether you use us to design your website or not. It is:
1. It’s free
Complex content management systems can cost a lot of money and are out of reach for most small businesses. Yet, WordPress is different. It is an open-source project with many developers freely and continually contributing to its functionality. That means it is free for people to download and host on their servers to power their websites.
The fact that it is free is a key reason WordPress is the best choice for small businesses.
But, this doesn’t mean you won’t have to pay anything to build and run a WP website.
You need to pay someone to design your site (why not me). Designing your site involves getting WordPress to look and behave the way you want it to.
You also need to pay to register a domain name and hosting (I can make recommendations with no affiliation to any of the providers). A domain name is your web address. For example, wpwheelie.com.au or facebook.com, while hosting is renting space on someone’s computer servers to host your website.
2. Why WordPress? It’s flexible
No two websites need to be the same. This is why WordPress allows for flexibility in both:
Design
Functionality
WordPress allows designers to creatively combine images, text, colour and other elements to create a unique look and feel to a website. Collectively, these combinations are known as themes. With programming (mainly CSS), a good designer can transform the WordPress platform into a website theme that reflects your brand’s personality.
Another reason why WordPress is the best choice for your small business is that it offers a wide array of functionality. Website developers (primarily using PHP) have created over 58,000 WordPress plugins to enhance functionality. A plugin is simply an addition to WordPress coding that achieves a specific function. They are akin to appliances in your house that plugin and achieve a specific job. Functions can vary from shopping carts, to FAQs and to reCAPTCHA on contact forms.
3. It’s secure
Another reason why WordPress is our CMS of choice is that it offers a very secure platform, with a 5-star privacy rating. Yet, no website is ever 100% impenetrable. But, you can reduce your risk of being hacked if you follow some basic guidelines at the:
Server level
Website level
Personal level
At the server level, it is really about choosing a reputable host who takes server-side security seriously. Things like server-level firewalls, DDoS protection, malware scanning and cleanup. Furthermore, you want a host on securely encapsulates each user in shared environments. For Australian small businesses, my pick is VentalIP (no affiliation) and it is also reasonably priced.
Your web developer (hopefully me) can also do things to harden security at the website level. For example, setting software to update automatically (defeats vulnerabilities in the previous version), locking down folders others don’t need to access and requiring HTTPS authentication. You can also use a paid service, although, in my opinion, they don’t add much value.
At the personal level, you need to ensure that your own computers are protected from malware. You also need to choose an administrative username that isn’t ‘admin’, and that doesn’t relate to either your own name or the name of your business. Finally, you need to choose a password that is:
Strong (letters + numbers + symbols)
Unique (not the same password that you use for anything else)
Longer than 10 characters.
4. WHY WORDPRESS? It’s popular + TRUSTED
WordPress is an incredibly popular content management system (CMS). There are over 28 million websites across the world using WordPress as their CMS, with over 200,000 in Australia alone1. In total, 40% of the web uses WordPress2.
When compared only to other websites using a content management system, WordPress dominates with65% of the market share. Its closest rivals have less than 3% of the market share.
The top 1,000 websites in the world are dominated by the big end of town, who can afford custom content management systems. Yet, WordPress is still used by 52% of these sites, including Sony Music, Forbes, the White House and the Walt Disney Company.
There is a reason why WordPress is so popular – it is that good!
5. Search Engine Optimised
Search Engine Optimisation or SEO involves doing things that make it more likely that you will rank well in Google’s search results. There are many aspects to this, but one of them is clean code that tells Google what it needs to know.
The coding behind WordPress does this well. So well, Matt Cutts from Google, stated that WordPress is an excellent choice as solves a tonne of SEO issues.
Of course, your own website developer also needs to use clean code when customising your website and there is far more to SEO than good coding. But choosing WordPress as your CMS is a great start.
While WordPress is the best CMS, it may not be right for your circumstances. Wix and Shopify are two alternatives. See: Is WordPress right for you?
