WordPress is a popular platform that allows users to build websites easily and publish their content online. It’s the most popular website-building platform in the world, having launched in 2003.
WordPress was initially a simple platform for blogs, but it eventually became a Content Management System (CMS) rich with features.
A lot of managing your site on WordPress are things you can do on your own, although most businesses will work with WordPress web developers initially for a custom, tailored design.
So what makes WordPress so popular? Why is it that WordPress is good for SEO? Below we go into eight of the key advantages of using it as a CMS.
1. It’s Free
WordPress is free software, so you can download, install, modify, and use it as you need. You can also use it to create any kind of website. Do keep in mind that while the software itself is free, you need web hosting and a domain name to use it.
You can use a paid version if you prefer or use plugins that you pay for, but still, it’s unlikely that the total cost for the use of the platform will exceed $100.
2. The CMS Is Great for SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is critical to your site’s success. Without your site being well-optimized for Google and other search engines, you’re not going to show up. No matter how good your site and content are, if people aren’t seeing it, it’s not beneficial.
WordPress is highly preferred by Google, and there are a lot of ways that it’s good for SEO, including:
- The themes and plugins of WordPress all work together for sites that are user-friendly and visually appealing. User-friendly, attractive sites mean you’ll reduce your bounce rate. Google rewards sites that offer a good experience.
- Metadata is easy to manage. SEO titles and metadata improve how search engines are able to interpret whether or not your site is relevant to a query. Metadata is what helps search engine crawlers understand what your pages are about. With WordPress, you can use plugins, and with those, you can add metadata to your posts in minutes.
- Optimizing images is easy on WordPress. You can create alternative text for every image, which means you can add your keywords as your image descriptions.
- If you’re using WordPress for your site, it’s already optimized for mobile users. Google has directly said the search engine takes a mobile-first approach to indexing.
- There is an abundance of plugins that are designed specifically for SEO, like Yoast SEO.
3. Responsive Design
We touched on this above in terms of being SEO-friendly, but WordPress automatically offers responsive designs and themes. Responsive design means that your site is going to show up in a user-friendly way across different devices. Your design’s going to look the way it should, no matter what device a user is accessing it from.
WordPress is also mobile-friendly, and considering more than half of the world’s online traffic is from mobile devices, you obviously have to prioritize this.
4. Extensive App and Plugin Options
WordPress has tens of thousands of plugins. Plugins are apps that allow you to customize and run your site how you want. You can find a plugin to achieve pretty much anything. The level of customization with available plugins is beyond anything else available.
A plugin is a small piece of code essentially that’s designed to perform certain tasks and add features like contact forms, shopping carts, and more. You can also activate or deactivate and then uninstall your plugins as your needs change or evolve.
5. Design Options
There are a lot of themes you can choose from in the design of your site, or you can go with a custom design as well. If you choose a theme, you can still customize it beyond the original framework.
The themes all have different looks, and it’s easy to find what’s going to best represent your business and niche.
6. Built-in Blog
As a content management system software, WordPress has many features that make it easy to publish content.
One such feature is a blog capability that’s built-in, which you can access at any time and from any device. You can add a blog to your website without having to do it separately. Even if your site isn’t a blog at its core, you can still use the blogging feature available from WordPress to include announcements or updates.
7. User-Friendly and Intuitive
You can install and have a WordPress site up and running in minutes, even if you don’t have technical experience or expertise. All you really need are a domain name and a web hosting account. You can install WordPress for free through your hosting provider. From there, the Admin dashboard is easy to use and manage, and everything is there in front of you to start creating content.
While you might initially work with your web developer as you’re creating your site, if there are small updates and changes you want to make, you can usually do them on your own. You maintain a lot of control over your site.
The system is self-contained and doesn’t require HTML editing software.
When you log in on the admin side, you’ll find a simple dashboard with your menu options listed. You can create your pages and posts, add navigation menus and customize your site design.
WordPress regularly releases core updates which you can install by simply clicking a button. The same is true for the themes and plugins, which release their own updates as well.
8. Security
Finally, WordPress is developed with security as a top priority, making it a safe platform to run your site from.
You can take other steps beyond what’s fundamentally offered by WordPress to make your site even more secure from malware, hackers, and the like. For example, there are plugins that you can use to protect your site against threats like brute attacks.
Undoubtedly, WordPress, as open-source software, is likely to stick around for the long haul, making it a great option regardless of your website needs.
Interesting Related Article: “Wix vs. WordPress: Top 5 Differences You Should Be Aware Of“