The popular website builder WordPress is quickly becoming the ideal tool for every small business to grow their online presence.
Whether you’re looking to dive into the world of eCommerce, or simply establish a greater online presence for your physical store or services, every small business requires its very own website.
Since these types of companies have tighter budgets, asking a professional web developer to step in is usually out of the question. Luckily, there is another way to create an elegant, fully-functional website – affordably and by yourself.
It is, of course, WordPress, the CMS (content management system) giant that powers around 40% of websites online today. Let’s explore the Top 5 reasons to consider this immensely popular platform:
Why You Should Create an SMB Website Using WordPress
1. Free, User-Friendly & Flexible
WordPress is ideal for both the technical and non-technical minded, can be installed in a single click, and is initially free to setup. CMS platforms like WordPress, unlike lightweight-leaning Website Builders, do carry steeper learning curves, but it’s fairly gentle.
WordPress’ user-friendly nature and interface, which includes a clean, simple dashboard and tools, makes the whole process of creating content, such as pages, posts, eStores, menus and contact forms, satisfyingly quick, time-efficient and convenient.
With WordPress, daily upkeep and maintenance, such as updating day-to-day copy, media and website functionality, is easy. It’s also worth baring in mind that, since WordPress is an open source development platform, there’s room for complete customization (more on that later) in the future – meaning the sky’s the limit!
2. Endless Themes & Clever Plugins
Websites that are designed from scratch can take weeks or even months to create. But courtesy of WordPress’ huge collection of themes, this isn’t something you will ever need to worry about.
Themes (or Templates) are prebuilt designs that can be activated in a single click. Themes help to fashion and style your website; in addition to creating a striking, professional look, they make your content more appealing, and can establish branding and identity.
No matter your area of business, there are literally thousands of responsive themes to choose from. Better still, once your theme has been activated, most will allow you to perform some customization.
Just as with prebuilt themes, you won’t have to worry about creating your website’s functionality from scratch either. Plugins are prebuilt features that make it a whole lot easier to create, manage and profit from your site, while enriching the customer user experience with essential eCommerce and usability features.
Whether you’re after an eCommerce store, contact form, new design feature or SEO-optimizer (more on that below), or want to bolster your website’s security, plugins provide highly effective solutions.
3. SEO-Optimized, Secure & Reliable
Lastly, but certainly not least, the clever folks behind WordPress continue to develop the platform to be SEO-optimized by default, meaning websites are already structured to be easily crawled and indexed by search engines like Google and Bing.
While SEO may be a vast topic, and can be somewhat daunting to the uninitiated, fear not; WordPress offers numerous guides and plugins to help you better understand all the best practises for website optimization that can lead to high-ranking search results.
WordPress is also renowned for being one of the most secure and reliable CMS platforms around today, with developers releasing regular updates and fixes for functionality and vulnerabilities.
You can further tighten security for your small business website by taking advantage of the many WordPress security plugins available, and also by steadily building a fundamental knowledge of preventative safety tips, for now and the future.
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4. Organic Growth & Assisted Management
Because WordPress is an open source development platform, this means that there are no discernable limits when it comes to the kind of website you can create for your customers. Right now, as a small business, this may sound relatively unimportant to you…
But what if your business were to develop into other areas, grow significantly in size, or both? If that were to happen, your website would require a platform that could evolve with your business – not be stunted by lack of customization, hindering design, functionality, and the ability to handle heavier traffic.
So long as your website is hosted on a suitable plan, WordPress is capable of handling visitors in the hundreds of thousands per month. The point is, even if you have no immediate, conscious desire to turn your business into something larger, with WordPress, at least the option will always be there.
WordPress makes general website management and upkeep simple, with core and plugin updates requiring just a single click. If you do decide, however, that you need help with some of the more technical-related maintenance matters, many web hosts can lighten the load by offering assistance (as part of certain ‘Managed’ plans).
5. Extensive WordPress Community Support
The WordPress userbase is so far-reaching that, no matter your location, you can always count on the platform’s knowledgeable community for skilled and general support; perfect for when you require technical assistance and advice.
The official WordPress.org website has a dedicated Forum which is frequented by millions of people, meaning that, chances are, a whole bunch of existing users will already have the answer you’re searching for. Help, in other words, is just around the corner.
Due to WordPress’ incredible popularity, its userbase has developed a culture all of its own. So, even if you aren’t on the hunt for a website solution per se, forums can also be great places to simply hang out and discuss all-things WordPress with like-minded people.
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