You have many options when building a website for your business or personal brand. These include a custom-built site using HTML and CSS, and site-builders such as ClickFunnels, Ghost, Shopify, Squarespace, or Wix.
However, one of the most popular choices available is WordPress.
As a business owner or entrepreneur, you need a platform that provides the tools and features necessary to create a professional-looking site without spending too much effort or money. And WordPress makes creating a website with the most up-to-date features and tools easy, without needing coding knowledge and without hiring outside help.
Here are the six main reasons you should consider using WordPress for your website:
Affordability
One of the main reasons why WordPress is so popular among entrepreneurs and business owners is its affordability. Unlike other website builders requiring monthly subscriptions or substantial one-time fees, WordPress is an open-source platform that’s completely free. You’ll only need to pay for a domain name and website hosting, which are obtained at a fraction of the cost of other website-building platforms.
Ease Of Use
Even if you’re not technologically inclined, WordPress makes creating and managing your website relatively easy. The platform’s intuitive interface makes it simple to add new pages, posts, and media files (e.g. photos), and to update existing content. In addition to all of that, WordPress now includes the Gutenberg editor, which means creating visually appealing designs is now easier than ever.
Flexibility
WordPress provides outstanding flexibility, enabling you to develop a website tailored to your specific requirements and preferences. With so many themes (which control your site’s appearance) and plug-ins (which augment the functionality of the core WordPress system) at your disposal (many of which are also free), you can easily and quickly personalize your site’s look and features without any programming expertise. WordPress offers the necessary tools and resources to accomplish your goal, whether you aim to create a blog, an online magazine, a portfolio site, or an eCommerce store.
SEO-Friendly
There used to be a time when your site could rank highly in the search engines without any specific work. However, the world is different today – the marketplace is much more competitive, so it’s crucial that your website to rank highly in search engine results. WordPress is well-known for its SEO-friendly features (SEO is short for search engine optimization), such as clean and efficient code, fast-loading pages, and built-in support for XML sitemaps. You can further optimize your site’s SEO by installing popular plug-ins such as Yoast SEO.
Scalability
As your business grows, whether it’s a popular blog or a successful eCommerce store, so too must your website. WordPress is highly scalable, allowing you to easily expand your site’s functionality and content without any hassle. Whether you need to add new products to your online store, publish more blog posts, add pages to your site, or even add membership functions, WordPress will handle it all with ease.
Large Community And Easily Available Support
The WordPress community is vast and incredibly supportive. If you ever encounter an issue or need help with your website, you can visit numerous online fora, blogs, and resources. Plus, with thousands of developers constantly working on new themes and plug-ins, you can be confident that your website will always have access to the latest features and updates.
Summary
Choosing WordPress as your website-building platform is smart for success-minded entrepreneurs and business owners. WordPress is not only affordable and easy to use, but it also offers a vast community of support, advanced customization options, plenty of themes to choose from, and the ability to easily scale your website.
However, one word of warning. WordPress offers two different versions of its platform.
One, which you can find at WordPress.com, is a hosted solution, which means you don’t need to install anything because WordPress hosts your site for you. Although they offer a free plan, there are some features you will need to pay for. And while they do provide some themes and plug-ins, you don’t have as extensive a selection as you would with the second version (see below). Finally, unless you set up what’s called a custom domain name (which is one of those additional features that is not free), your website will have a domain name that looks something like yoursite.wordpress.com, which looks less professional than having your very own domain name.
The second option, which you can find at WordPress.org, allows you to install the core WordPress code on your own site. (And don’t worry, most web hosting companies give you the ability to install this in a minute or two without any technical knowledge.) This self-hosted version of WordPress allows you much more flexibility, in terms of themes and plug-ins, and, of course, you can use whatever domain name you want (if it’s available).
I have only ever used the second, self-hosted version of WordPress, and I would recommend it to anybody, even those without a technology background. If you really get stuck setting it up, you can get help either from your web hosting company, tech-based fora, or Fiverr.
