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Why WordPress Is #1


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Some clients don’t care how we build their sites, as long as we build them well. Others, however, know just enough to be dangerous – they want the details and…

Some clients don’t care how we build their sites, as long as we build them well. Others, however, know just enough to be dangerous – they want the details and some are even skeptical of WordPress. Worse yet, some uninformed folks erroneously think less of developers who use WordPress, even though it is the best CMS on the planet, bar none.

As WordPress professionals, we know why our favorite CMS works for so many projects; however, we internalize so much knowledge in our day-to-day work that it can be difficult to communicate why we have such overwhelming confidence in the WordPress CMS Framework.

Some folks confuse the open-source WordPress Content Management System (CMS) – found at WordPress.org – with WordPress.com. The former is a fully-fledged software package while the latter is a service that hosts basic personal websites in much the same way as Blogger, Tumblr and other such managed offerings.

WordPress began as a personal publishing system back in 2001, but by 2008 or so had evolved into a complete content management system. It can be installed on independent hosting servers. You own everything that’s created there and have full, unlimited creative freedom. Furthermore, WordPress is built using widely used, fully tested programming languages including PHP and SQL, and can accomplish just about any task asked of a website. It’s eminently extensible with a vast and growing library of plugins. Many plugins are free, which means you can get the site you want faster and at a lower cost than if it were hand-coded from scratch. While we’re not limited to preexisting ‘themes’ (design frameworks built for WordPress), we often use these as time-saving starting points so that they can create unique WP-based websites without having to reinvent the proverbial wheel.

 

The #1 Rated CMS in the World

WordPress is used by some of the most widely recognized brands in the world such as CNN, CBS New York, Harvard Business Review, Boise State University, New York Times, Dole, Glad, Mercedes-Benz and Vogue. Boom. Think of it this way: If WordPress is good enough for the Library of Congress, government sites in the U.S. and Great Britain, and the U.S. military, it’s probably robust enough for your needs, too. As of August 2018, WordPress powers nearly one in three sites on the Web – and of all sites that use a CMS, WordPress is the choice of more than 80%. In 2018, WordPress remains the fastest-growing CMS in the world – and for good reasons.

Super SEO using the Latest Standards
Some clients wonder whether WordPress negatively affects SEO. To the contrary, WordPress is an SEO powerhouse coded to be SEO-friendly “right out of the box.” It supports a wide variety of plugins that help developers fine-tune every aspect of SEO. Google’s latest algorithms put fresh, original content in the spotlight – and at the top of search result pages. WordPress makes adding content easy for you and your staff, if you’d like to do it on your own.

Beautiful Websites on Any Device
Most new coding and theme frameworks built in WordPress are “responsive.” Some clients are unsure as to whether they care about that. You should! A “responsive site” means that it’s built to perform well across all devices used to access the Web. Think you need a site that looks good only on desktop computers? Think again. More people now access the Web on mobile devices than on desktops. Responsive sites are better for SEO. Google’s latest ranking methodology gives props to sites that perform well on mobile devices. You reach more people on more devices, and score higher in Google searches, thus adding reach and credibility to your brand. WordPress helps with all this by supporting responsive themes – and if a given theme is not mobile-friendly, WordPress enables developers, who have the skillset needed, to change that without trashing the site. Like a boss.

Built with Tough, Top Level Security
“Is WordPress Secure?” Bam! Yes, indeed. The company behind WordPress, Automattic, employs a security team consisting of 50+ experts whose only job is to make sure the WordPress core is safe from attacks such as injections, viruses, etc. They even have a Security Czar, Nikolay Bachiyski, who really knows his stuff.

What’s the Catch?
There isn’t any. Really. WordPress (and its updates) are open-source, which means you are free to use the software any way you like. And unlike sites hosted on WordPress.com and other DIY template-based website services, you have complete creative and functional freedom. If it can be coded, it’s okay to do. A worldwide team of developers is constantly improving and rigorously testing WordPress. Some are employees of Automattic (the company behind WordPress), while others do it simply to contribute to the very active, supportive WordPress community. Updates are released regularly at no charge whatsoever. IThe WordPress software package is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL), meaning that anyone can use, copy and distribute the software itself. (Don’t worry: You have full copyright to the styling and content you add.)

Coded and Maintained by the Best in the Biz
The WordPress community comprises top-notch coders, testers and other contributors. Unlike software that’s marketed by a single company and developed and maintained by a single team, WordPress has thousands of talented, dedicated folks behind it. Updates, fixes and improvements come at a steady pace. WordPress meets all guidelines of the World Wide Web Consortium, an international community that aims to develop across-the-Web standards for coding, and follows best practices as laid out by Google, Bing and Yahoo. It works in all modern browsers. Some browsers (particularly Internet Explorer) have their individual quirks that require special coding to display correctly. Such compatibility is baked right into WordPress. Developers who make extensive changes and customizations to websites built with WordPress can easily make sure those changes work across all browsers.

Immense Advantages Without Added Cost
WordPress gives a developer all the basics, so they don’t have to create the internal framework from scratch for each website, and it’s ready to be customized to your liking. Finally, if you need to move the site or change web developers, WordPress makes it easy to pick up where the previous developer left off. Not bad, eh?

I Heard that Developers are Supposed to Hand-Code Everything
Really?! All developers – regardless of their approaches to designing and developing your site – must be proficient in, at a minimum, HTML and CSS. Most also know some JavaScript (and its related libraries, such as JQuery). WordPress developers, however, need to know the intricacies of PHP modulation and have a decent familiarity with SQL database structure and management; they must know the architecture and coding specific to WordPress, which extends far beyond simple HTML and CSS. Long story short, the skillsets of WordPress and traditional developers complement and overlap each other, and WordPress developers are certainly no less professional than any other. The difference? The latter doesn’t start every project with a blank screen. Instead, they begin with tested, widely used and well-coded framework that’s already done a lot of heavy lifting and proven itself to be superior – and spend more time on custom design, styling and coding work that serves the needs of the client best. Sounds smart, doesn’t it?

The Truth: WordPress ROCKS!

That’s a fact. Unfortunately, WordPress is still often vastly misunderstood. As with most problems, information is your best ally. When someone you know thinks that WordPress is a simple word-processing program, simply show them this

Continues . . .

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