Several Compelling Reasons Why WordPress It’s the Best Site Builder
It’s super easy to use Wordpress. Yes. Even absolute beginners can start using it and create their own website.
Table of Contents
- 1. It doesn’t cost anything to use, the software is free and open-source
- 2. You can make any type of website
- 3. It supports numerous media types
- 4. It’s easy to learn and has a huge community, big name brands use it too
- 5. Search engine friendly
- 6. Secure and safe
- 7. Mobile friendly and optimized for speed
1. It doesn’t cost anything to use, the software is free and open-source
WordPress is an open-source software and it’s free for all. You can easily download it from WordPress.org. Once downloaded, you can use WordPress to create your website. However, you’ll need to purchase a domain name and web hosting. Also, you will need a theme and maybe a few plugins that can be easily installed. Both WordPress.com and WordPress.org are completely free to use.
Warning: You can typically find themes and plugins for free, but the premium (paid) ones often provide better features and quality support. Finally, many WordPress users end up paying for additional services. When you navigate to the WordPress.org website, it explains the basics about the platform.
2. You can make any type of website
The list is endless, but here are a few examples of the types of websites you can make with WordPress:
- Blogs
- Business websites
- Portfolios
- Forums
- E-Commerce sites
- Rating websites
- Membership sites
- eLearning modules
- Non-profit websites for collecting donations
- Chatrooms
- Galleries
- Personal websites for self-promotion
- Job boards
- Business Directories
- Q&A websites like Quora
- Wikis and knowledgebases
- Media-centric sites like YouTube
- Auction and coupon sites
3. It supports numerous media types
Feel free to check out the list of accepted file types for WordPress, but know that the following primary categories are all accepted:
- Images
- Documents
- Audio
- Video
You can expect to upload common files like .jpg, .png, .gif .pdf, .doc, .pptx, .mp3, .m4a, .mp4, .mov, .wmv, and .avi. Along with that, you won’t have any problems with more obscure file types like .odt, .key, .ogg, and .3gp.
Here are some places to find legal media such as photos and videos:
4. It’s easy to learn and has a huge community, big name brands use it too
As an open-source software, WordPress can be used by anyone. The user base isn’t limited by pricing, premium customer support, or even skill level. Sure, there are plenty of things to learn about WordPress, but any person could play around with the dashboard for ten minutes and start to absorb how the interface works. WordPress powers some of the world’s most well-known brands with millions of page views per day, for example, Mashable, Nasa, Mozilla, Coca-Cola, Wall Street Journal, and many more.
5. Search engine friendly
Popular search engines, like Google and Bing, tend to rank websites that use WordPress higher than those that don’t. This is because the CMS’ framework makes it easy for the search engines’ spiders to crawl. WordPress is known for having SEO built into the platform. In fact, WordPress automatically generates title tags and meta descriptions for all of your pages and posts. This lets search engines know about your content, and it will get you indexed and potentially moved up in the rankings. Although most of you will want to upgrade from the basic SEO tools and install a WordPress SEO plugin. If you’re interested in this, Yoast SEO will be a top option for you to consider.
6. Secure and safe
With the popularity of WordPress comes the interest of would-be hackers. In general, WordPress is a safe and secure platform. But it doesn’t mean you’re completely safe from malicious attacks, hackers, and malware on your website. Fortunately, WordPress makes it easy for you to enhance your site’s security with features like password protection for folder contents. Keeping your WordPress version up to date will also fight off bugs and potential security threats. Of course, users should use caution and only download plugins from trusted sources, preferably while directly logged into WordPress itself.
Here’s a list of some good and well-known theme hotspots:
- The WordPress Theme Directory
- ThemeIsle
- Proteus Themes
- Themify
- Elegant Themes
- Tesla Themes
- Theme Fuse
- MH Themes
- Meridianthemes
- Templatic
- MyThemeShop
- StudioPress
7. Mobile friendly and optimized for speed
Google is penalizing sites that aren’t mobile-friendly by ranking them lower on their result pages. With WordPress, you don’t have to overhaul your entire site to make it accessible on tablets and smartphones, since most themes are automatically responsive. WordPress also has an option for websites to be viewed in “mobile view” for themes that aren’t responsive. Slow websites are useless. WordPress knows this, so it has specific features and elements that you can take advantage of that will speed up your website. For example, you can install a lightweight theme that won’t weigh down your code. You could add a plugin to reduce the size of your image files. Take advantage of options for Gzip compression, advanced caching, and minifying CSS and JS files.