WordPress is a CMS (Content Management System) used to build and manage websites for businesses. It is the dominant number one CMS used to build websites globally with approximately 40% of the market.
This article provides information detailing why WordPress has such a dominant share and why recent changes to the platform will see WordPress extend its market share despite the emergence of more competitors.
Over our 40+ years in the computing industry Stephen and I have seen many technologies and platforms come and go.
For one thing, we were both working in the the industry before Microsoft and Apple even existed nevermind before there was a Windows or an Apple Mac.
Whilst we have diverged on our areas of speciality over time we have both witnessed, and been involved with, the major technology platforms available to SMEs over that period.
For me, I have been working in website development and web marketing now from just after the turn of the new century and many of those years have been spent working with the WordPress Content Management System (CMS).
Revisiting The Key Benefits of WordPress
Prior to continuing it is worth re-emphasising the key benefits of WordPress;-
Some Criticisms of WordPress
Of course, to keep this article balanced we need to look at some of the criticisms WordPress has faced in the past and some it still faces.
The State of WordPress in 2021 – The Gutenberg Editor and Full Site Editing (FSE)
As I write this article WordPress is going through perhaps the largest change in its 20 year lifespan.
The heart of any CMS is its editor where admins, authors, editors or even contributors add content / write articles etc etc…
Over the past 2 years WordPress has been on a mission to bring its editor into the 2020’s and position the CMS for the next generation.
The new editor, known as Gutenberg (for obvious reasons), has deeply divided the WordPress community with many of the old stagers and, I imagine, lots of new ones, preferring to stick with what came before, rather descriptively called Classic editor.
If it matters to you (and perhaps, why should it) I have been a strong supporter of change and thus Gutenberg since I first heard about it.
We have bought in on Gutenberg (and Full Site Editing for that matter) because we firmly believe it makes WordPress far simpler to use, far more powerful and open to a much wider audience. It also significantly reduces the need for WordPress developers which is a huge benefit (despite WP development being a big part of what we do here).
The Gutenberg editor is an ongoing development. Every few months new enhancements are released making it better, simpler to use and including additional functionality.
Not only that, the huge WordPress community has seen commercial opportunities around Gutenberg and, as such, continues to release tools that take the editor to the next level dramatically reducing the time required to deliver stunning and complex websites.
Full Site Editing (FSE) is on the Way in 2021
Full Site Editing in WordPress means being able to customise the header and footers of your website. Site by site, page template by template or even page by page if you want to.
It will also allow Gutenberg blocks to be used in widgets (widgets are small sections of content that can appear in multiple preset locations like a sidebar).
All from the Gutenberg WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor.
Whilst this may not seem like a big deal, it certainly is for anyone who has developed in the WordPress ecosystem for the last 16 years.
This gives people who are not adept at the PHP programming knowledge and who do not know how to manipulate WordPress theme template files the opportunity to deliver fully uniques pages and websites.
The next major release is WordPress 5.8 which is scheduled for late July 2021 which will not only include the FSE experience, however, will also include further enhancements to the Gutenberg editor in the area of image customisation amongst others.
What are Popular Alternatives to WordPress?
There are many alternatives to WordPress and each has its own target user base.
Static websites can be developed using html and programming languages such as Javascript. These are commonly fast to load, however, rely heavily on a development team to make changes and add new content.
Other CMS systems such as Joomla and Drupal were once considered competitors of WordPress and share a technology base, however, these have fallen way behind and are perhaps now struggling for a future.
To my mind, the major competitors to WordPress are the subscription WYSIWYG website builders such as Wix, Squarespace and Webflow.
There are others but these are much of a much so we will concentrate on the 3 above.
Each of the above website builders promote themselves as very easy to use for non-developers and to some extent this claim is true.
They offer limited flexibility and limited options compared to a full CMS, however, in fairness, this is all that many tiny businesses require.
One criticism that is often raised is that they are not very Google friendly in terms of SEO, however, each of these companies dispute such claims.
Another criticism is that, once locked into one of these platforms, it is difficult to get your data out in such a manner that you can easily migrate to another platform if you so desire. Not being an expert in migrating from these platforms in recent times we will not comment either way.
To us here at BBG any way of delivering marketing tools to our clients in the quickest and most cost effective manner is a big plus so discounting any of these platforms out of hand would be churlish at best.
What we will say though is that they are extremely limited in terms of their flexibility and functionality for anything over and above visual design and page layout.
Whilst the above is very important, it is also important to have the functionality to hand in a CMS to extend the usability of a website such that it presents out customer’s content to site visitors in the best possible way(s) especially when the data is a bit more complex than an online brochure.
Why Your Business Should Use WordPress
The world and the Internet have come a long way from the days where you could put up your brochure online with a few pretty pictures and get a bucket load of online leads (if, in fact, that was ever possible at all).
Site visitors these days are often looking at your products and services and comparing those with your competitors.
They do their in-depth research online before they contact your business and the website that can provide the best user experience and quickly and informatively answer their questions is quite often the business that gets the first form submission or call.
WordPress is a much better platform for ensuring that business is yours…