Over this past decade WordPress has gained legitimacy, and notoriety, as a user-friendly, efficient and inexpensive way to build professional and personal websites. It’s not just mom bloggers using WordPress anymore; major companies and publications (including this one) are also trusting WordPress as their go-to platform for building their professional websites. So what makes WordPress different from the hundreds of other options, and how has it outlasted so many others?
Plug-Ins
WordPress plug-ins include some of the most innovative and intuitive around. For example, consider the new Buddy Press plug-in.With the promise to be able to “run your own social network,” this powerful plug-in gives your website social network features like sharing and streaming. It goes beyond simply linking your current social media sites to the website, which you of course can also do; it adds an intuitive element that is easier to use since almost all of the sites we now visit are “social” in some way. This is an example of new WordPress plug-ins that grow with the trends of its users.
SEO plug-ins are also popular. Even though WordPress is already optimized for search engines, the Yoast SEO plug-in, for example, can analyze your page content and send you analytic reports that are a great tool for marketing, e.g. learning who’s reading your content and how you can better reach that target demographic.
Beyond Blogging
In a recent study, 74,652,825 sites depend on WordPress, including many that use the platform for more than blogging.
WordPress is a sort of chameleon compared to some competitors because it is so easily adaptable to multiple industries and is very user-friendly, so you don’t need a fleet of techies to run your website, whether you are an individual blogger or a Fortune 500 Company.
WordPress has even evolved to assist those who have previously been wary of free platforms, by offering advanced monitoring options. Take for instance the “Site Stats” option accessible through the Dashboard, with which users can easily see a detailed pie chart showing the number of views the site receives on any given day and see what domains viewers went through to get to their site. Way beyond basic blogging.
No Coding Required
Finally, another evolved aspect of WordPress that separates this platform from others is a need for less coding. HTML coding is not the easiest to handle, nor is it entertaining. With WordPress, menus, tabs, pages, titles, posts, and pictures can be added without any coding, so beginners as well as tech geeks can rejoice.
Who knows what the next decade may hold, but as a free service, WordPress has only gotten better with age.
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