Five Benefits Of A WordPress Website: Why It’s A Top Choice For Businesses
A company website is an important part of your marketing toolbox – there’s no question about it. However, which platform should you choose? While there are many options, we recommend looking into the benefits of a WordPress website for your business.
One of the first things people do when they want to know more about you is to “Google” your company name, and while your social media accounts may show up, they aren’t “owned” marketing assets that you have control over. Your website though is, as you can control how people interact with it and what information you want to share with them.
As a business owner, there are many website options, for example, Wix or Squarespace.
You may have also heard about WordPress, but it can seem at first a bit complicated with things like hosting, domain names, themes and plugins to consider.
While there may be a slight learning curve associated with managing a self-hosted site, it’s essential to recognize the numerous benefits of opting for a WordPress website. We’re eager to highlight the top five advantages it offers.
WordPress.com Versus A Self-Hosted WordPress Site
Before we look at the advantages of a WordPress website, we need to clarify something first.
There are two types of WordPress content management systems: WordPress.com and a self-hosted WordPress site.
WordPress.com is a freemium service that gives you a taste of what WordPress can do. You can try it for free, or upgrade to have WordPress host your site, with your own domain.
While this may seem like an easy thing to do, there are limitations. You don’t get the same level of customization as you would with a self-hosted WordPress site.
What does a self-hosted WordPress site mean?
It’s when you pay a hosting service, such as GoDaddy, Bluehost, BigScoots or other reputable hosting providers, to house your site’s content on their servers. You’re using an open-source content management system – WordPress – to build your site, with more power to customize it.
Now that we know the difference, let’s look at the benefits.
Top 5 Benefits Of A WordPress Website
Here are some key benefits of a WordPress site and why we recommend it to our clients.
1. Flexibility And Adaptability
Unlike other content management systems, a self-hosted WordPress site gives you all the flexibility and customization options you need.
Consider what a WordPress site offers:
- Thousands of plugins (software add-ons for customization) from SEO to contact forms and more
- Thousands of WordPress themes (templates, stylesheets, images and other files that create a website design) – that you can choose to suit your needs and branding
- WordPress functions for customizing your site
Numerous resources are available online to help you build the website that creates the best site visitor experience and a positive perception of your brand.
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2. User-Friendly Dashboard and Interface
At first, it may seem a bit intimidating, but the reality is that WordPress is very user-friendly.
When you get past the initial fear of using it, the WordPress dashboard, interface and functionality of the platform make you feel like a content creation pro.
There’s no need to use FTP to upload media, or difficult systems to organize your content. Customize your settings for essential website features by toggling things off and on.
If you have a blog, you can create posts quickly and easily. Built-in features and external plugins make creating, maintaining and updating your website a breeze.
As previously mentioned, many “how-to” videos on YouTube and a large community of WordPress users will help you get past any hurdles.
3. Customizable Design
Another of the key advantages of a WordPress website is its ability to customize how it looks.
With WordPress, the sky’s the limit regarding your site’s design.
There are many powerful WordPress themes and frameworks, such as Astra, Kadence and Divi, among others, that are customizable for any type of business.
Integrations with page builders such as Elementor give you the power to build pages to your specifications and needs.
While it’s a good idea to work with a web design team for optimal results, we collaborate closely with our partners at BrainyYack, there are many WordPress customization features that you can use on your own.
4. WordPress Websites Are SEO Friendly
Google loves WordPress websites because of how they are set up for SEO.
We’re going to get a bit technical here for a second, but bear with us. Working with Google and other search engines, WordPress has implemented many features and options for website optimization.
For example, you can use the SEO plugins Yoast SEO or Rank Math SEO to ensure your posts and pages are optimized for keywords, schema and are indexable by search engines. Rank Math has a feature that connects to Google Search Console, making it easier to understand your stats and how your posts are doing organically.
Here are some key tips on how to maximize your SEO with your WordPress website:
- Ensure there are no technical errors with your website including speed, theme and content optimization, security and link health by using tools such as Google’s PageSpeed Insights, Semrush or Ahrefs
- Use on-page SEO best practices by adding in relevant keywords
- Organize your content and site structure to make it easy for search engines to crawl and index your website. This involves things like using clear and descriptive page titles, organizing your content into categories or sections, creating a sitemap (which is like a table of contents for your website), and using keywords that people might use when searching for content like yours.
5. Easy Maintenance and Security
WordPress has regular core updates, ensuring your website is secure and functioning.
Similarly, WordPress themes and plugins are regularly updated to reflect core WordPress changes. Outdated themes and plugins can cause security or functionality issues that can have a cascading effect on your site.
Luckily, in most cases, updates are as easy as toggling a button and letting the update proceed.
Examples Of WordPress Sites We’ve Worked On For Clients
Here are some of the WordPress-based sites we’ve worked on for our clients.
Scale Up With WordPress As Your Business Grows
One more reason you may want to switch to a self-hosted WordPress website for your business is that it’s scalable.
As your business grows and you need more content and functionality on your site, WordPress gives you the power to do so.
Is it time to update your website and move it over to WordPress?
Do you have more questions about the benefits of WordPress for business?
Let’s talk about getting you started with a self-hosted WordPress site, that’s on-brand and creating positive first impressions of your business.