The Benefits of Using WordPress for Small Business Websites

There are a lot of haters out there when it comes to WordPress. Many of these haters are trying to sell you on a different product like Wix, Shopify, or Squarespace; others are just too hooked on traditional development or their code purist ideology to get on board. Despite all of this, WordPress continues to gain popularity with at least 43.4% of all websites on the internet today using the WordPress CMS. That is a total of 810 million websites worldwide that use this technology. This is no small matter, and it is not something that will be replaced overnight or even in the foreseeable future.

Despite the wishes of many developers, WordPress has continued to grow in popularity and is here to stay. While there are certain circumstances where it may not be the right platform for a particular site, the reality is that the benefits of using WordPress to create your business’s website often far outweigh the cons.

Benefits of WordPress for Small-Businesses

#1 – Open-Source

WordPress is open-source which means it is free to install and use on your site. In addition to that, there are also many thousands of free or affordably priced plugins that you can deploy on your site so that you don’t have to reinvent everything each time. What this means for many small-businesses, is that they can establish a professional online presence without a huge initial investment.

#2 – Easy to Use

WordPress is fairly easy to use with an intuitive design. This is means that after you hire someone to develop a website, you don’t need to find another developer each time a minor change needs to happen or a new post needs to go up. If you need to add another blog post or shop item, you can simply login and add it. If you need to change the title on a page or the wording of some text, you don’t need to change the source code and re-compile it; you can simply find the area that needs to be changed and update it. Or even if there are larger changes that need to be made, the fact that WordPress holds 43% of the current website market means that you will always be able to find a developer who can make the needed updates.

#3 – SEO-Friendly

Another major benefit of using WordPress is that you can easily build your site with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in mind. Also, in the large WordPress plugin ecosystem there are great options to help with SEO like Rank Math or Yoast, make optimizing a website to rank higher on online searches and generate more organic online business far easier.

The Downside of WordPress

It is not all good news though. WordPress has its fair share of cons as well. There are security issues to keep in mind. Outdated plugins or themes can easily leave your site open to security vulnerabilities. Ensuring that plugins and themes are up-to date is a must for a WordPress site, and some of these receive updates quite regularly. Failure to update these regularly will expose your site to potential compatibility issues and security risks. Also, while the vast number of plugins available can be a good thing because it provides limitless flexibility for your site, it also can lead to performance issues on a website. It is generally a good idea to limit the number of plugins to less than ten to maintain decent performance even if it means you have to upgrade some of the plugins to the premium or paid version.

Do the Pros Outweigh the Cons?

Overall, the pros of WordPress are too impressive to ignore for anyone on a budget. With a minimal upfront investment, your business can have a site up and running relatively fast. While there are some potential downsides as well, these can be mitigated by having an experienced team of developers create, update, and manage your site on a month-to-month basis. If you would like to hear how SkyFish Development can provide you with an affordable website while mitigating most of these issues, or even how we can fix any vulnerabilities that you may have on your current site, you can get in contact with us here.

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