WordPress is hands-down the most popular CMS (Content Management System) in the world today. Nothing else really even comes close. There are a number of reasons for that including, ironically, the fact that it’s so popular; which means business owners and web designers choose it because everyone is familiar with it. But are there practical benefits to using WordPress for your local business site other than the fact that everyone’s heard of it? Of course. And below we’ll get into some of them.
What Makes WordPress a Winner for Local Business Web Sites
WordPress isn’t just famous for being famous. It got famous in the first place because it provides a number of benefits to the website owner, including:
- It’s Easy to Customize – WordPress has been around since the turn of the century and in that time developers have created an astonishing number of ready-to-go plugins and add-ons that make customizing your WordPress site a relative walk in the park. Some estimate the number of add-ons to be in the thousands. This is good news for the website owner who wants a unique look and feel for their site.
- It’s Easy to Use – You could probably go from never having touched the program before to posting a finished, highly-polished blog entry in a couple of hours. The interface offers the option of image-based editing or code-based editing. Or you can choose to do a bit of both. There are premade HTML snippets that you can just cut and paste along with widgets and CSS commands ready to become part of your unique website.
- It’s Easily Scalable – Anytime you enlist a web design company to build your new website one of the most important things to consider is where you think your business will be in a year, two years or maybe five years. Your website should be designed to allow quick integration of new products or services without having to subject it to a lengthy and expensive redesign. Your WordPress site will be infinitely scalable from the moment it goes live.
- Search Engines Love it – If you don’t have a robust search engine optimization strategy in place your website is going to founder right off the launch ramp. If you do have a well-planned SEO campaign working for you and you have a WordPress site your chances of gaining search engine visibility are excellent. WordPress code is designed with the top search engines in mind so about the only thing you’ll need to optimize will be your content.
- It Saves You Money – You can hire a web designer to perform every update to your website or you can have John from marketing do it whenever he has a few minutes to spare. Chances are good John is going to save you money over the web designer.
There are a number of real benefits to using WordPress but perhaps none more important than the fact that, once the website is built, anyone with a few hours of training can use it to make updates.
