People always like talking about market domination of certain products and services. However, if you’ve ever wondered what real market domination looks like, you should take a look at some of these stats:
- According to Web Technology Surveys, WordPress controls around 59% of content management system market, its closest competitor Joomla in comparison, controls only around 6%.
- Furthermore, according to statistics compiled and published by Royal Pingdom, more than 49% of the top 100 blogs on the entire Internet are powered and managed with WordPress.
- Last but definitely not the least, as the Tech Republic reports, thanks mostly to the open source developer community, WordPress now “quietly” powers more than 27% of the entire Internet.
When you just look at those numbers, you may quickly draw the conclusion that WordPress is the only solution for your business. But you cannot jump to conclusion that quickly – so the question is – is WordPress the best solution for a small business today?
Well, we’re about to find out exactly that…
Advantages of WordPress
· Professional templates for a professional look
For starters, WordPress has more developers creating new themes, templates and plugins than any other CMS platform on the Internet today. This means that there are literally thousands of different templates you can use on your business website – for instance, if you want to take a closer look, WP Beginner has a nice list of free business themes for your WP-powered website…
· It’s an incredibly powerful platform
WordPress can help you save a lot of money because of its free plugins and themes. While some plugins out there could cost you a couple of dollars, but as you can see in this Forbes article, a number of free plugins will dramatically extended your website. By installing these plugins, you can add any functionality to your site like adding a reservation system, a photo gallery or a contact from.
· You’ll have complete control and ownership
The things you can do with your site are basically limitless… You see, with WordPress, you’ll have complete control of everything from your site’s name to all of its contents. So you’ll be able to make any changes you wish without anyone controlling you and there’s no limit on how much your website could grow in traffic, popularity, authority and users…
Disadvantages of WordPress
· You’ll have a bug learning curve
Although most people will tell you that WordPress is quite user-friendly – after all, you probably know about its famous “5-Minute Install” – but while you can install it in just a couple of minutes, it still doesn’t mean you’ll know how to use it properly. If you didn’t have any experience with running a site in the past, it will take you a couple months to get used to things…
· Updates could ruin your site
You have to be careful when updating your website, because a number of WordPress plugins ignore former customizations. Therefore, you may find yourself with basically nothing just after one update. These updates can be so bad as to give you eh infamous “white screen of death” when trying to load your website. So you have to make sure that you’re staying on top of your updates at all times…
· You’ll have to invest in maintenance
As you can clearly see, if you opt for WordPress you’ll be the one responsible for keeping everything from the themes to plugins up-to-date. And if you’re running a one-man operation, this can be a big problem. However, you can always hire a capable company like WP Perk to run your site for you, while you’re concentrating on other aspects of your business operation… But this will require some investment…
Final Thoughts
While you have a number of WordPress alternatives out there, such Joomla, Blogger and Drupal, it seems like WP’s developers are the only ones who’ve managed to master the critical balance of powerful functionality and user-friendliness…
As we mentioned above, the learning curve might be steep, but thanks to its large user-base, you have a number of both paid and free online resources that will make the curve a lot easier…
So when it comes to choosing a feature-rich, affordable CMS for a small business, WordPress is definitely one of the best solutions available on the market for you today. Just keep in mind that learning to make the most out of the platform can be a challenge, so make sure to take some time to get familiar with WordPress before you finally start using it…
