10 Reasons Why You Should Use WordPress

We love WordPress here in Yoast. Not only because we make plugins for WordPress sites, but because of all the benefits and features that the platform offers. And did you know that WordPress is the most popular web platform in the world? If you want to build a website, why not consider building on WordPress? In this article, we will tell you our 10 best reasons why you should use WordPress. Read together!

1. Is open source (and free)

WordPress is an open source project that has been around since 2003. Nearly 20 years later, the project is still powerful. Because you are open source, you can download, use and modify it for free to suit your needs. And this is one of the most attractive points for using WordPress: getting started is completely free.

Anyone can download, install WordPress and build a website according to their vision. This is especially important for small business owners, bloggers, or just about anyone who wants to create their own space online. Of course, you should pay for the domain and get a hosting provider if you want to upload your site online. But building a website can be thought of as building a house. Your hosting provider provides you with a piece of land, your domain is your home address. And WordPress provides you with the resources you need to actually build this house.

2. It is very popular and expandable

We mentioned that WordPress is the most popular web platform in the world and that’s true. It is actually a propulsion engine 43% all sites in the world at the moment. That’s a lot of sites!

WordPress can run any website, from individual blogs to large corporate websites. Websites like e.g. Sony Music, Next web, Time Magazine, Microsoft News everything runs on WordPress, and the list goes on and on. Of course, our Yoast website also works on WordPress! We’ve been on WordPress since the beginning. Although our site has grown significantly since then, we still use this platform. What’s more, thanks to our favorite plug-ins, we’ve built an entire business on WordPress. This is due to the fact that WordPress is extremely scalable. With the right infrastructure and resources, your site can serve thousands of registered users and maintain millions of monthly page views.

3. There is a huge community of users and developers

WordPress would not be the platform we know today without its massive, amazing and friendly community of developers and users. They come from all over the world and work together to make WordPress accessible to everyone. And anyone can to become a collaborator to the project. The best part is that you don’t necessarily have to be a developer to join this, there are many other ways to contribute!

Collaborative and community activities do not only take place online, there are also many offline events. Look WordCamp. It’s like a WordPress conference where you meet other enthusiasts and co-workers and listen to the conversations of the most experienced people in the field. The scope of WordCamp ranges from local meetings in your city to large, high-attendance events.

In addition, such a large community base also means that a lot of information is available. And everything is free and accessible. If you ever have a question about any aspect of using the platform, you will have many people you can turn to for answers. Most likely, the errors or problems you encounter on your site have occurred to others, so they can help you with yours.

4. WordPress is very flexible

Thanks to a wide range of themes and plugins, you have complete control over your site. If you’re new to WordPress, you’re probably unfamiliar with the concept of themes and plug-ins. In short,

• Topics: These are templates that can help you change the basic design of your website. Themes control things like website layout, color, font, and text style.
• Plugins: Install them to add additional features and functions to your site. There is an amazing range of plugins for different applications. From plug-ins for security purposes, caching, contact form management, social networking integration, … All the features and functions you can think of, there are probably plug-ins for them.

Because of these themes and plug-ins, WordPress is a powerful platform for building websites. You can turn the site into any site you want. It can be a food blog, a photo gallery, a portfolio website or a community forum. To open an online store, you can do so by installing the WooCommerce plugin. And if you want to have more payment options for your online store, there are many plugins to do so. The bottom line is that with WordPress, the possibilities are endless.

5. Great for SEO

WordPress is great for SEO and we’re not the only ones talking about it. Google and other search engines love WordPress because of its high quality code and semantic tag. And there are plug-ins like ours Yoast SEO Plugin which add additional code and tags to your site to help it communicate better with search engines. In addition, WordPress is flexible and optimized for many devices, from desktop to mobile, so you can drive traffic from a variety of sources.

Website speed is another important factor for SEO. It’s not a pleasant experience to wait for a page to load. And you certainly will lose traffic and sales if you have a slow site. Fortunately, WordPress is built for speed. Most WordPress themes on the market are lightweight to shorten loading time. In addition, there are many other things you can do in WordPress to improve your site’s speed. These include the use of caching plug-ins, the use of content delivery networks to display media,… all to ensure that your visitors do not leave due to the slow loading of the site.

6. WordPress is updated regularly

WordPress very often releases updates. These updates range from security updates and small releases to major updates that change the way people use WordPress. The version of WordPress we use today is very different from WordPress many years ago. It is much more visual and beginner friendly. There are more features and things just work better together. And WordPress always communicates the changes it makes, as well as the product development plan, so you know what to expect.

With such a large user base, you can be sure that WordPress will not disappear soon. Developers will continue to work hard to update the platform and add new features to it. This means that using WordPress ensures that you always have access to updates that make your sites more secure and powerful.

7. He is safe

The efforts of WordPress developers and plug-in makers help ensure the security of WordPress sites. WordPress’s emphasis on security is evidenced by the fact that it has a dedicated security team. The team strives to improve the security of the platform and identify and address potential security vulnerabilities before they become a problem.

In addition, plug-in manufacturers contribute to the safety equation by creating different plug-ins for different security needs. Some help you protect your site from brute force attacks, remove malware, and block unwanted comments. While others help back up your site and provide two-factor authentication and strong password enforcement.

8. WordPress is great for blogging

WordPress started out as a blogging platform, so it’s no wonder it’s so good for blogging. This is by far one of the cleanest and fastest ways to write and publish blog posts. You can easily manage, modify and monitor your content. In addition, there are many plugins designed for blogging. For example, ours Yoast SEO Plugin helps you optimize blog posts for both visitors and search engines.

We must mention blogging because content is king when it comes to SEO. People browse the internet to buy things and read content. If you want people to visit your site, you have to do it create content that people want to see. Even if the sole purpose of your site is to sell things, you can encourage people to buy with engaging, informative articles on the topic of your products. This is also the reason why you see today that many sites have a blog.

9. It is easy to maintain

WordPress can be very easy to maintain, especially if you don’t have an oversized website. Some work needs to be done to ensure a well-functioning website. You only need to take care of the following:

• When the new edition is available, update your WordPress to the latest version.
• Update your plugins and themes whenever they are available.
• Back up your site regularly.
• Test the functionality and broken connections.
• Edit your comments section and remove unwanted links.
• Monitor the security of your site.

In practice, this should not take you too long. WordPress also makes it easier for you to update things, as you can apply updates with just the click of a button. In addition, you will be notified of all updates directly in the WordPress control panel, so you won’t miss them.

10. It’s easy to learn

Getting started with WordPress is pretty easy. Because there aren’t many barriers to accessing the software, anyone can install and play with it. Spend a good few hours exploring the background and you’ll get to know each other and know where the controls and settings are.

In addition, there is a lot of learning material available, both online and offline, on all aspects of WordPress. The best part is that you can decide how you want to learn. Browse the web and you will see many blog posts, books, tutorials on forums and webinars to help you realize all the benefits of WordPress. If you don’t know where to start, attending an online course is a great option as you will have more learning structure and guidance. We have at Yoast too our own WordPress training courses!!

Final thoughts

We hope you realize the value of WordPress after reading this post. WordPress is the most widespread web platform in the world for the exact reasons we mentioned. It’s free, very flexible and easy to get started. And there are many resources to help you learn WordPress, so you should definitely take advantage of them. With enough digging, researching and trying things out, you’ll be able to build the website of your dreams in no time!

Need help learning WordPress? See our article on how to use wordpress for beginners!

Read more: WordPress 6.0: Great Edition with Great Improvements »