What Makes WordPress the Best Platform for Business Websites

A few well-known facts about WordPress:

• Powers approximately 25% of all live websites (the ones that use a CMS, that is)
• Open-source platform, available for use and customization at no charge

“WordPress websites are a source of livelihood for thousands of developers, designers, and businesses worldwide.”
This is not fan-speak or pure hearsay. These are facts.

Despite misconceptions about platform security issues (which, by the way, has nothing to do with the platform itself and more to do with the massive number of users who still take website security and maintenance casually), thousands of business websites make the switch to WordPress everyday while new ones are joining in.
What makes it so special, especially for business websites?
You get more than general user-friendliness and extreme versatility of the platform when you download WordPress. Given below are some facts which makes it worth it:

Free platform with Free Goodies on the side

It’s common knowledge that WordPress (the core software) is free, but so are a very many other content management platforms (case(s) in point: Joomla and Drupal). No, what makes WordPress special is the amount of free goodies (themes, plugins, and widgets) at your disposal.

This means that for the price equivalent of pocket change, you can style a website and add powerful functionality to it. The pocket change goes to buying domain name and the hosting provider.
It’s not just a handful of rejects from the premium bucket either. WordPress has free plugins with the kind of powerful features that make the most loyal users of other platforms turn green with envy.
The SEO suite (All in One SEO pack, WordPress SEO by Yoast), the killer caching plugin (W3 Total Cache), amazing social sharing plugins (Ultimate Social Media Icons Plus, Super Socializer), superb security (WordFence), Spam protection (WP SpamShield Antispam) form builders, forum builders, and every possible feature up to and including eCommerce (WooCommerce) are available for free. And the plugin examples given here are the best in class.
That’s what makes WordPress different. While any other platform will charge you for tiniest addition in features, WordPress hands you total control and free tools to realize your dreams. Even the free themes will not leave you wanting.

• Must Read: WordPress or Blogger: Which is Better?

SEO-friendly

First off: there’s a significant difference between SEO-optimized and SEO-friendly. WordPress falls into the latter category. This means that instead of doing everything on its own, WordPress hands you the best features (and plugins, see above) to do with as you please.

It’s not just the plugins either. Out of the box, WordPress “takes care of 80-90% of the mechanics of Search Engine Optimization” (direct quote from former Google search wizard Matt Cutts).
This can be attributed to little details that matter a lot: Permalinks, Titles and Tags, Metadata and ALT tags, and more are right there. For the more hardened SEO professionals, there are countless free as well as premium plugins that can be added on an as-needed basis.

Basically, significant factors that make a website rank better: Localization and translatability (WPML plugin), Schema.org markup, performance (see caching plugin mentioned above, along with countless other speed-related tools and themes), Social sharing, XML and HTML sitemaps, et al can be added to a WordPress website without hassle.

Versatility

“Is WordPress good for anything besides blogging?”
I get that question a lot. Short Answer: Yes.
Long answer: Of course. WordPress websites are prevalent in any industry vertical you can think of, and it’s not just because of the ease of use and management that’s inherent to the platform. This is because, thanks to endless customization possibilities, developers have created themes and plugins with industry specific functionalities woven intricately in the code.

Whether it’s eCommerce, education, real estate/ jobs/ other directories and listings, events/ hotel bookings and reservations, restaurants, community forums, portfolios of any shape and size, landing pages/ mini-sites (single page website), or anything else you could want, WordPress can take it.

• Must Read: Ultimate On-Page SEO Ecommerce Solutions For Business Websites

If you have an ingenious web developer who specializes in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP, you can (figuratively) create an entire ecosystem on using WordPress as the glue and other business centric tools and services (ERP or CRM software, analytics tools, etc. for starters). If not, you can look up WordPress development services on the net and get it made for you. The result will be exactly what you need and want, all created using a ‘simple blogging tool’, as some people still insist on calling WordPress.

Endnote

There’s more to WordPress than meets the casual eye. Those astonishingly vast numbers I mentioned at the beginning aren’t there because people are ready to jump at the bandwagon. They are there because WordPress is, at the end of the day, the best choice for your website. Try it yourself and find out. It costs nothing.

Article contributed by Tracey Jones who works with HireWPGeeks Ltd., a leading firm that convert Drupal to WordPress theme with best in class quality.