Why WordPress is the best CMS in 2018

Deen E David
Sep 6, 2018 · 4 min read

Did you know that WordPress powers 30% of all websites? That’s a pretty big percentage, and if you’re not on WordPress yet, you’re probably wondering, “Why?”

WordPress used to be a blogging platform, but it’s adapted well over the years and become extremely versatile, allowing users to create fully functional sites of any category. It’s also an open source software, meaning it’s completely free, redistributable, and offers unlimited validity.

Beyond the basics of what WordPress is, however, there are several features that make it great to build your website on (and totally explain why 30% of the internet is using it!).

At a glance, here’s why WordPress is the best CMS in 2018:

Built-in SEO boosts

A lot of website traffic comes from people using search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing! The rankings on search engine result pages can bring thousands of users to a website daily. That’s where website owners play a game of tug-of-war between each other for traffic, and are concerned with SEO (Search Engine Optimization). This plays a very crucial role in attracting new users. Google and other search engines have a few predefined parameters which help them rank sites. And WordPress handles those parameters effectively.

WordPress, from the get-go, gives you an advantage with SEO, especially in regards to on-page optimizations. It takes care of many crucial cornerstone elements of a website, such as:

  • Precise HTML markup. HTML markup helps search engines understand the website’s layout and content formats more easily. And some of the latest HTML5 WordPress themes make it even more compelling for users, as well as the crawlers from these search engines.
  • Content creation efficiency. Content has become the ideal solution to present your website to search engines. With WordPress’ history with blogging, it’s made the platform more user-friendly for content creators, ranging from blogging, media, news, and loads more.
  • SEO-beneficial permalinks. Permalinks, which stands for Permanent Links, are best utilized when they contain keywords related to your content, and WordPress makes it easy to customize them. For example, https://getflywheel.com/layout/best-cms-wordpress-2018 is a lot more beneficial to users and search engines than https://getflywheel.com/layout/?p3-1.
  • Image optimization. Images are crucial for your website and WordPress made sure to do their best with images as well. The built-in editor allows you to optimize images with alt tags, descriptions, captions, and further trimming.

These are just a few of the features that make WordPress special from its core. But on top of all this, there are even more you can add to it and revamp the whole CMS for your needs.

It’s easy to customize (even if you’re not a developer)

WordPress powers millions of sites around the world. But does that mean everyone building them is a trained developer? Not really. That’s due to the platform’s simple user interface, easy-to-understand options, and the functionalities present in it’s dashboard. It can effectively be used by anyone with zero coding knowledge, thanks to its power-packed WordPress themes, plugins, and tools. These help anyone create beautiful, dynamic websites.

Managing the site is even easier once it’s done and live. WordPress constantly rolls out updates for themes, better tools, and new plugins that you can install with a single click of a mouse.

WordPress is used by 59.9% of all websites whose content management system we know. This is 31.4% of all websites.

FREE vs. PREMIUM WordPress themes and plugins

The amount of themes and plugins available for WordPress is immense. There are literally thousands of options to use on your site. For plugins, you can download some from the WordPress.org Plugin Directory. But, here’s the catch: there are a fair number of premium plugins for you to use, as well, and these aren’t found in that directory.

What’s the big difference between the two?

For starters, premium plugins are not free. They also usually offer full-time customer support, better security, and increased compatibility with the latest versions of WordPress. You might not need customer support very often, but it’s sure nice to have when you have questions about the plugin and your particular site setup.

Premium plugins also offer more features than free plugins. You won’t always need the additional functionality to achieve your goals, but it’s nice to know there are even more robust options out there if the free versions aren’t getting the job done.

WordPress themes also operate in this same style. There are a plethora of free options built into WordPress, but you can also find premium themes from a wide variety of developers and these companies. The premium options tend to have more customizable options built-in, some “trendier” designs, and again, customer support.

Mobile optimization

With every passing year, there are more and more users actively visiting websites through their hand-held devices, but many sites still aren’t optimized for different screen ratios and fast-paced loading. Luckily, between some built-in WordPress functionality and most WordPress themes, your site will be packed with mobile features right off the bat.

From site design to image scaling, as long as you have a responsive WordPress theme, most of these important features will just naturally happen — no extra coding required. This will help both users and search engines access your site on all devices, leading to a great user experience no matter the screen size.

The WordPress community keeps growing

As the numbers suggested earlier, of sites with a known CMS, nearly 60% are using WordPress. The WordPress community can’t be rivaled anytime soon, and it’s only continuing to grow. With new SEO features, improved dashboard functionality, and UI updates coming in the future, the platform is only getting better and better.

This article was originally featured for Flywheel. You can read the full article here.

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