If you’re looking to update or start a website it would be well worth considering using WordPress due to it’s powerful features and popularity. We have put together a list of reasons why WordPress is the CMS (content management system) of choice.

1. It’s Free!

WordPress is Open Source software meaning it is free to use and modify, both personally and commercially.

2. User Friendly

WordPress makes it very easy to publish content on the web. It offers a powerful visual editor where you can format and add text as well as embedding images into pages.

3. Themes

The look of a WordPress site depends on what theme you use and there are 1000s of free themes to choose from and a massive supply of paid themes. Another great benefit of using themes is they can easily be interchanged without affecting the main content of your site.

4. Plugins

Plugins are quick and easy bolt-ons to your website – for example if you needed to add a slide show to your site or sell items online there are plenty of plugins that can help. There are currently just under 20,000 free plugins available from WordPress.org and many more commercially covering a wide range of online needs.

5. Community Support

There is a great community support for WordPress which helps from basic installation questions to advanced coding problems – the more popular WordPress gets, the better the support.

6. Security and users

If you have multiple people that need to update a website WordPress offers an easy user management that allows you to control the level of access each user has – for example you might want someone to write for your site but you might want to review and authorise this before it goes live.

7. SEO Friendly

The majority of free themes have been created with SEO (Search engine optimisation) in mind. Also due to how easy it is to add content you are more likely to add articles more often – in turn increasing your site’s awareness on the web.

8. Visitor interaction

WordPress comes with a great comment system so visitors can comment on your posts and start discussions – don’t worry you have the choice to vet these comments before they appear on the site.

Helpful links

If you’re thinking of creating a WordPress site here are some helpful links to get you started.

New to WordPress – via WordPress.org

WordPress lessons – via WordPress.org

Community Support – via WordPress.org

Free Themes – via WordPres.org

Free plugins – via WordPress.org

Plugin, Theme and general WordPress advice – via wplift.com

WordPress hosting from £10 per year – via sgis.co.uk!