WordPress, the powerful website publishing tool, turned 15 last month. Founded in 2003 from humble Stockport origins – the co-founder, Mike Little is Stockport born and bred – the open source software has, literally taken the internet by storm, currently running over 30% of the world’s estimated 2 billion websites, including The White House, BBC America, The Rolling Stones, Mercedes Benz, Disney, M&S and even the official website of Sweden! Not bad for a ‘blogging’ platform started by two guys on different continents following an online chat.
Sue Fernandes, of Stockport development company Fernandes Creative says:
“Eighty-one percent (81%) of people research a business online before making a purchase, which means that if you don’t have a website which showcases your brand and business message you are loosing potential customers at the first hurdle. A well crafted website with a strong brand, easy to find information and a great company message will really help engage with visitors, encouraging them to get in touch or sign up for whatever it is you are selling.”
In its early days, WordPress was known simply as an easy Content Management System (CMS) for bloggers and while it’s still a massively popular for blogs of all kinds, it has now grown into a powerful tool for all kinds of business use, from simple brochure websites to large and sophisticated websites and eCommerce platforms.
WordPress co-founder, Mike Little told us:
“WordPress is the best choice to run your business website because it is free, opensource, and fairly easy to setup and to learn. It will expand and grow with your business to any type of site you need. From a simple marketing site to a customer hub, or an eCommerce shop, and so much more. To back all that up there is an excellent worldwide community behind it.”
So why should you join the WordPress revolution for your business?
Its easy!
Well, we won’t lie, as with any new software there is still a learning curve, but once you spend a little bit of time working with WordPress you will find adding/changing and managing your online content easy to do.
Great for SEO
Out of the box WordPress is great for SEO, it follows all the best practices and code standards that the Search Engines are looking for. It won’t do your SEO optimisation for you but it will certainly give you a great place to start from.
Grows with your business
No more having to re-write your website from scratch every few years. While WordPress is great for a simple site or blog, it is also easy to grow; meaning you can add new functionality as your business grows. Want to start selling online? Then just download the plugin from the WordPress library and get selling! Need to book your events online? Again, no problem. Your site can be extended using any of the thousands of Plugins available, many of which are free to use.
Well documented
The WordPress community is second to none and the web is positively teeming with tutorials, how-to’s, advice and help for anyone wanting to get the most out of their WordPress site.
Sue Fernandes concludes:
“Our advice would always be to let the experts set up, design and build your site. There is a huge range of possibilities with WordPress and so having a full understanding of client needs is the most important thing because almost anything is possible. Once designed and built a good WordPress site is an easy to use business tool which our clients modify, update and change as they wish. And when they need help and support we provide that.
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