There is a debate about which Content Management System (CMS) to use for small businesses that just want to update their websites with new information. In this post, I will give seven reasons why WordPress is the best and most cost-effective tool to support your small business, not-for-profit organisation website or blog.
There are many reasons for using WordPress, or indeed another platform. If you are not familiar with the issues or are concerned about the number of options and the time needed to narrow them down, these are the reasons I started using WordPress myself. If you are already using WordPress, feel free to add your own reasons to the comments section below.
Open source and free
WordPress is built on an open source platform and is itself open source. It is free to use for any purpose (personal or commercial). This has to be a huge benefit for any small business or not-for-profit organisation that has a limited budget and limited resources. Also, it is simple to learn and it is quick to keep your site up to date and fresh, so you won’t need to go on any expensive or time-consuming courses.
No coding necessary
Unlike some other platforms, you may never need to touch a line of code. All the HTML, CSS, PHP and MySQL takes place in the background, where it should be. You don’t need to be an expert in web technologies to use it, which leaves you time to ensure your content is great. With many websites and some other CMS platforms, you would need to have a knowledge of the platform on which it is built to update, change or add to your existing content. With WordPress, this is not necessary, saving you time and money.
Flexibility
As WordPress is open source and has a great community following, it offers flexibility and ease of use. Indeed, one of the biggest advantages of WordPress over other platforms is its user-friendliness: you don’t need to understand the code to use it, making it a simple and intuitive solution for busy people. You can just log in, click, type and publish. Often, it is considered to be ‘only’ a blogging tool but its flexibility is astonishing at accomplishing many different tasks.
SEO and standards compliant
WordPress takes much of the pain out of ensuring your site is Search Engine friendly and automatically completes many of the tasks that have to be completed every time new content is added to a web site. It helps to generate the information that Search Engines require to properly list and recognise your site, which is really important for any business building a web presence.
The platform also ensures that new content is compliant with the latest web standards and that your site is accessible and visitor friendly. This helps to ensure that your site is compliant with legal requirements and with your objectives to be open to as many potential customers as possible. It does all of these essential things out of the box, allowing you to get on with running your business.
Self-hosting
With WordPress installed on your hosted server, you remain in control of the site and its software. You are not at the mercy of a third party being responsible for maintenance and upgrades; you have complete control. Once your installation is configured, up and running with your template published, you can do as you please. However, you will need to keep the platform and its plugins updated with the latest versions. This is a quick and simple task and you can easily obtain support to do this for you.
Plugins
If the standard setup does not do what you want it to do, there are masses of extensions to the functionality of the platform available as plugins. All that is needed is for them to be downloaded and activated and they are ready to use immediately. Plugins add huge amounts of value to the WordPress platform. This is further enhanced by the ability to change the look-and-feel of your site instantly with new themes. These are templates available for download and install and which affect the way your site looks. In general, most businesses would want to have a bespoke template installed, created for them by a designer, but if you need something mainstream, there are plenty of options available.
Community support
If you have problems with your installation, there is a vast community of professionals who are able to assist, unlike other more specialist platforms, WordPress is built on PHP and MySQL, which are codes that are readily understood by many developers and other professionals. As WordPress, PHP and MySQL are open source platforms, there is a huge amount of information and support available and in most instances this helps to save you money if you do run into difficulties and need help because fixing problems is (usually) easier and simpler than other more complex CMSes.
Overall, WordPress is a strong contender for a user-friendly, self-running CMS. In the long-run, it will help to save you time and money on maintenance and future development. It will also give you the tools at your fingertips to enable you to quickly and easily keep your site up to date.
