How WordPress grows with your small business
Given that WordPress now powers roughly 40% of the top ten million websites globally, many small business owners might hear this impressive statistic and immediately shy away from using it.
Au contraire! WordPress empowers everyone to publish online and create their own website, whether you’re an established corporation or a budding small business owner.
Because as your business grows, so can your WordPress website. Simple and flexible, WordPress gives you the freedom to build your business website and promote your offerings straight off the bat. It’s also the only platform where you own and control your data outright, compared to site builders like Wix or Squarespace.
Whichever way you look at it, think of WordPress as the foundation on which your business website is built. Let’s now delve into all the reasons why a WordPress website is the best bet for a small business.
Why WordPress?
WordPress is referred to as a free, open-source CMS (content management system) in tech speak. A content management system allows you to edit and alter your website’s appearance without using code.
And when we talk about open source, this means that anybody can see the software code, modify it, or fix it, if necessary. WordPress has a massive community of people who contribute to code or provide plugins and themes. What’s not to love about that?
Keep in mind, though, that if you’re new to WordPress, there are two options to choose from when you’re starting out:
- Using WordPress.com (a commercial business owned by Automattic)
- Using WordPress.org (software that the non-profit WordPress Foundation manages)
While WordPress.com is a hosted platform that runs on WordPress software in the cloud, WordPress.org makes a WordPress website available for download, either by self-hosting it or using a web hosting provider Namecheap’s EasyWP or Shared Hosting.
If you’re curious, we offer a closer look at the differences between WordPress.com vs. Managed WordPress so you can make an informed decision for which might be better for you.
You choose from a variety of themes/plugins/page builders
WordPress is designed in such a way that if you’re code-averse, you don’t have to touch a single line of it. Hooray!
Instead of designing your website yourself, you thankfully have a whole slew of talented designers who continuously create “themes” that you can install and use with your website, which are endless ways to adjust how your website looks and behaves. These themes are templates or ready-made designs designed to work with the WordPress CMS interface as soon as you upload and install the zipped WordPress theme file.
Because WordPress has a broader selection of theme templates than any other CMS or site builder, you’re bound to find something that fits your needs.
Speaking of themes, you can find some pretty stylish ones for free in the WordPress theme directory, which has over 10,000. Just be aware that they may not be as professional or loaded with features like paid premium themes are. Need some theme inspiration? Here are some of our favorite magazine themes and photography themes.
And if you’re looking to install a page builder, we recommend Divi. Ideal for non-tech savvy users, Divi is very user-friendly and lets you choose from various pre-built, fully-responsive page layouts that also happen to be aesthetically beautiful.
While testing themes, we strongly advise having a free emergency recovery script prepared. It will help you recover your site if something goes wrong while testing other themes and plugins.
You won’t break the bank
Did we mention that WordPress is free? Yes, this means you can download it for free, install it for free, and update it for free. The only thing you need to pay for is your domain name and web hosting service.
Luckily you can find awesome yet inexpensive hosting plans starting from just a few dollars a month (Namecheap’s EasyWP, for example, is $1.00 for the first month), and as you scale, you can easily upgrade.
You can build an online store with ease
If you want to sell anything on your website, look no further than the free plugin WooCommerce. Powering 25% of the e-commerce stores in the top million websites worldwide, simply install the WooCommerce plugin to your WordPress website, and start selling straight away.
Working across all devices, WooCommerce prides itself on being human-friendly, meaning you don’t need to be an expert developer to launch your e-commerce shop.
Looking for tips on how to start your e-commerce website? I cover this topic in one of my previous articles.
You can monitor your statistics
WordPress lets you monitor and analyze your marketing strategies right from your dashboard, thanks to the MonsterInsights plugin for Google Analytics.
Allowing you to easily connect your WordPress website with Google Analytics (without hiring a developer or writing any code), MonsterInsights makes it easy to view all the stats that matter.
While the basic version is free, the premium version is also available. For a comprehensive guide on all things Google Analytics, Namecheap’s Jamie Long gives a tutorial.
Final thoughts
If you ask anyone familiar with WordPress, they’ll tell you it’s far more than just your average CMS.
Really, it’s the perfect platform to publish anything you like as a small business owner. So now that you’re aware that you don’t need to know a single line of code or that you’ll inevitably have to hire a professional web developer, the possibilities suddenly seem endless.
So who’s ready to choose WordPress for your small business website? Don’t forget to install these five plugins when starting out and if you’re thinking about selling, check out these awesome e-commerce themes.
