Is WordPress Just for Blogging?

Is WordPress just for blogging, or can you do more with it? These 5 points will show you why the answer is yes!

Is WordPress just for blogging? I’ve heard this question hundreds of times. Yes, it’s true that back when it was first created, WordPress was designed specifically as a blogging platform—but this definitely isn’t the case nowadays.

Of course, there are some ins and outs to this discussion. While it’s true that WordPress might not have an answer to every web-design conundrum, it’s also true that it can do far more than a lot of people give it credit for.

In this post, we’re going to discuss 5 reasons for why WordPress isn’t just for blogging anymore.

Please keep in mind that every website’s needs are different, and that it is possible that WordPress won’t work for yours. But on the other hand, there are literally thousands of tools that have been created specifically to address different needs within the platform—so the odds that you’ll find a way to make it work for you if you try are pretty good!

You can publish any type of content on a WordPress site

One major reason for why WordPress isn’t just for blogging anymore is because you can publish basically anything on it. You can post images, videos, and text, add captions, display documents, offer downloads, and more.

You can even design a storefront and display images of your products for your customers to see, just like any other e-commerce site would enable you to do.

Being able to publish content like this certainly gives WordPress an edge in the website-design realm—and is a big part of why it’s so popular.

Because professionals are using WordPress to create dynamic, professional websites every day

For anyone concerned with the belief that WordPress is just for blogging, I would definitely recommend a look at the WordPress showcase. Some of the sites that have been created with it are nothing short of amazing—and if those companies and people can do it, so can you!

There are a ton of themes that’ll work well for static content

WordPress themes come in all shapes and sizes—and there are definitely some awesome options out there that don’t require you to have a blog at all.

A quick look at the WordPress Theme Repository will show you that there are more than enough different types of themes to satisfy almost any website need. You can seriously do just about anything with WordPress nowadays—and now, blogging isn’t always a requirement.

The idea that WordPress is just for blogging is seriously outdated

To be completely honest, the idea that WordPress was just for blogging was an old notion even as far back as 2013!

The platform has come such a long way now that it’s almost not even in the same category. Yes, WordPress starting as a blogging platform for hobbyists and amateur writers—but nowadays, even top-level businesses sometimes choose to use WordPress to power their websites.

You can do basically anything with a WordPress site

Whether you want to inform, educate, sell, display, or network, WordPress has the plugins, tools, widgets, and themes to get you started and working. Gone are the days when you had to work everything around a blog. Now, you can choose and customize a theme based on what you actually need your site to do—and then work outward from there.

WordPress is Open Source, requires no licensing fees, can be used for any purpose, can be changed or altered to fit your needs and vision, and can be distributed as needed for any reason. It’s a true free software, but it’s also flexible and contains a wealth of resources to help you make your website as good as it can possibly be!

You may still need to buy a custom theme or a few plugins, but this is a small price to pay for the benefits that you’ll receive in terms of flexibility, ease-of-use, and cost-effectiveness.

Some people say that WordPress works fine if you don’t need your website to be ‘serious’ or ‘professional’, but these are also misconceptions. There are a lot of businesses and entrepreneurs that choose to use WordPress, mainly because it offers so much flexibility and has the potential to be customized to just about any extent.

With this platform, your imagination is truly the limit. If you can dream it, then you can probably (at least for the most part) do it with WordPress.

Photo Credit: Flickr creative commons, Nic McPhee. Sourced from this page.

WordPress Business Website. Awesome!

3 Reasons to use a WordPress Business Website over Hiring a Coder

Many businesses has a WordPress Business Website. In fact WordPress is the CMS of choice for over 73 million websites, and many of them is a Wordpress Business Website. As an open-source platform, it’s grown by staggering leaps and bounds over the past few years—and for good reason. It’s free to use, easy to figure out, and is available to basically anyone with access to a computer and the internet.

It can even be self-hosted for those among us who are ‘tech savvy’ enough to figure it out!

But what about the idea of using a WordPress business website? Does it really bring enough to the table to be useful for e-commerce, or does it leave a bit to be desired on the modern business medium of the World Wide Web?

Can you use a WordPress business site and have confidence that you’ll be taken care of two, three, or four years down the road—or will you reach a disappointing end and be forced to start over from scratch with a coder or a web-design company anyway?

In this article, we’re going to discuss this topic and give you 3 great reasons for why you should definitely consider using WordPress for your online business web-presence. Granted, WordPress might have a few shortcomings, but you may be surprised at what this open-source powerhouse can do for you on a low to medium-sized budget (or no budget at all, for that matter).

Setting up a WordPress business website is easy

WordPress is inherently easy to work with. With that being said, customizing it all by yourself can be a bit daunting!

But that’s what themes are for. And if you’re thinking of using a WordPress business site, then you’re definitely going to want to shop for some business or e-commerce themes that fit your plan and sales model.

As a general rule, you’re going to want to look for premium themes if you plan on using your website for business purposes—especially if you plan on maintaining an online storefront. It’s not uncommon to spend $60 or so on a good one—but still, this is much cheaper than hiring a coder or a web designer. We are launching a WordPress theme and plugins marketplace real soon as well, so you should be able to find some good ones there, when it’s up and running.

Thousands of plugin choices make adding e-commerce features to your website easy

If you don’t need a full-fledged theme, then you can still create a functional WordPress business website by utilizing plugins. There are quite a few good ones out there, but you might need to do some shopping around to find them.

One possible option is Selz. This is actually a free plugin that makes selling physical and digital products extremely easy—and it can be integrated into virtually any WordPress site.

Of course, your choice of plugins will depend mostly on what you plan on doing. Certain types of e-commerce might require different tools, so schedule plenty of time for research. Remember to test everything thorougly before launching, to make sure that you won’t be struggling with technical difficulties on website-launch day.

WordPress is mobile-friendly

Believe it or not, more personal internet time is now spent on mobile devices than desktop computers! In fact, in October of 2015, the average adult was spending nearly 3 hours using their mobile phones! This was up quite a bit from what it was back in 2010, when it was estimated to be somewhere around 24 minutes.

In the meantime, desktop use has pretty much remained the same—sitting right at 2.4 hours.

So what does this mean for you?

It means that if you want to successfully build and operate a WordPress business website, you’re going to have to make sure that you build it to be mobile-optimized.

But thankfully, with WordPress, that’s not a problem. From responsive admin screens, to responsive images, to fully-fleshed-out responsive themes, finding the right tools to make your site mobile-friendly shouldn’t be that big of a problem.

It is true that a bit of customization might be required to make it look as good as possible—but in general, this is another area of internet technology that WordPress has been keeping up with rather well.

Building a WordPress business website might not necessarily be hassle-free at every turn—but it’ll save you money, and the truth is that even larger businesses can make use of it and experience very professional results while doing so.

Photo Credit: www.joshmacdonald.net. Found on Flicker Creative Commons.

WordPress: Why use it?

Looking to build a cheap website without hiring a coder? Here’s why WordPress might be the tool for you!

WordPress has almost re-defined what it means to start a website nowadays. Since its inception back in 2003, it’s graduated from a small blogging platform to a major player in the do-it-yourself website industry. In fact, according to this survey, it powers approximately 22.5% of all of the websites that are currently on the internet!

It also helps to start 100,000 websites each and every day, and is currently the most popular content management system in existence.

If you’re thinking about starting a new website, or are wondering if WordPress might be a good choice for you, then maybe this post will help to give you some reasons to at least consider it.

In this article, we’re going to answer a few basic questions and provide you some relevant answers that will hopefully give you a better idea as to what you’re looking at as you consider WordPress for your web development needs.

• Is WordPress supported by a lot of web hosts and providers?
• Is WordPress easy to use?
• Does WordPress work well for SEO?
• Is WordPress free to use?

Let’s talk about these!

There are a ton of web providers that support it

Not too long ago, finding the right hosting provider for your website was a big deal, because moving once your online web presence was established could very well become problematic. Unless you were a coder and built your website with this in mind (or hired someone to do this for you), then there was always a chance that you were going to get ‘stuck’ with a provider until you figured out a way to move without losing data or racking up hours of extra work.

This was especially true (and continues to be so) with hosting services that used any kind of ‘build it yourself’ tools.

But WordPress helps to mitigate this problem by offering you a platform that you can pack up and take with you basically anywhere. So many providers and developers can work with it that the fear of getting stuck in one place with WordPress is basically nonexistent.

It’s easy to use

WordPress designers are definitely worth their weight in gold, and if you hire a good one, you’ll be amazed at what you can achieve.

At the same time, however, it is possible for a complete novice to build a working, functional, and attractive website with it (and to do so relatively quickly). If you can fire up your computer, load a browser, and use the internet, then you basically have all of the skills required to get a website up-and-running with this system.

WordPress is awesome for SEO

SEO is definitely a big deal nowadays. Everyone wants to know that their website is going to have a chance to rank well with search engines, and WordPress is definitely capable of fulfilling this function.

For one, it works well on mobile devices—which is something that Google is caring more and more about these days. Secondly, it gives you the ability to customize your SEO settings—which is a must these days. And of course, Google has always loved text based websites (especially blogs), so it’s not too difficult to see how Google and WordPress are literally an almost-perfect match for one-another.

It’s Free

WordPress is basically free to use—which makes it even better for small business owners and individuals who need a functional, attractive website on a budget. You’ll still need to pay for things like web and domain hosting (in most cases, anyway), but these are pretty small recurring costs.

One of the biggest costs associated with a new web startup is the cost for the website itself. It can often cost thousands of dollars to get a professional site designed—and that’s not including any of the content!

Granted, there might be some extremely technical things that would be a challenge to accomplish with it, but for the vast majority of businesses and individuals, WordPress (with the assistance of thousands of plugins and downloadable themes), will work for just about any type of site that you could possibly want to build.

In the end, there’s no better way to determine whether or not WordPress might be right for you other than to give it a try. Visit the official company website for more information, and to figure out how to get started. Odds are good that you’ll be glad you did!

Photo Credit: Wonderlane. To view the original image, click here.