As many of our readers know, we here at at Oak City Technology in Durham, NC are really into WordPress. In the past we have discussed Why businesses should use WordPress and also WordPress’ benefits over website builders but the question I still hear all the time is, why? Why would full service web developers who can code in nearly any language, use WordPress as their predominant web development platform.

#1 Flexibility

By far the most poignant reason for a developer to use WordPress is the fact that it is almost infinitely flexible. Because WordPress is so robust, it has to ability to be molded by capable hands into just about any type of website (with the exception of web applications.) WordPress can be transformed into a fully functional ecommerce store, a SEO driven content site, or even a membership website for paid access. The secret is that it’s open source, meaning all of it’s code is available to the public at all times. This has enabled the platform to evolve and grow over time into what we have come to know today. Just a few years ago you would never hear a developer saying they prefer WordPress over other platforms but because of the huge growth and improvement of the platform, it is able to support nearly any type of website you could imagine.

#2 It’s SEO Friendly (Says Google)

One thing that get’s overlooked by other developers or businesses in general is how friendly WordPress websites are to SEO. The platform itself is built in a way that inherently allows google to efficiently scan, index and rank WordPress website at a much easier than other platforms or website builders. As a developer we live in a world where we are all subject to the reign of Google. If they say we should use WordPress for SEO, we listen. A few reasons for this are…

 

• Great Coding Practices: The back-end of WordPress is a thing of beauty. It is well organized for developers and has a great base level of organized code that search engines love.
• Fast Loading Speed: Page load speed is a full ranking factor on mobile for Google now. This is extremely important to recognize because WordPress already has very high page load times.
• Social Media Integration: Major search engines like Google grant higher rankings to websites that have solid traffic from social media websites, which is a basic tool of all WordPress sites.
• XML Sitemap: This is basically a cheat sheet for Google letting it know what pages are on the website as well as its structure.
• User Experience: WordPress can be used as a fully responsive web development tool. In a world where mobile internet traffic is growing by the day, a responsive website is today a requirement of good web design.
• Image Optimization: Adding Title & Alt Tags in images is incredibly easy with WordPress. This allows you to quickly optimize your images for good rankings.

#3 Huge Repository Of Available Tools

One thing I love about WordPress is the astronomical number of plugins and tools available for both free and paid usage. By the last count, there were over 40,000 plugins on WordPress.org and this number get larger every single day. While being a developer, we are able to get around using plugins almost entirely using good coding practices and a developmental framework but for most people plugins are what makes WordPress websites run. They are easily downloaded, installed and used by most people without any use of code but there are many that are a developers dream that offer full custom access to the source code and allow a level of flexibility that is unmatched in the current CMS market.

#4 WordPress Is Secure

WordPress takes security seriously. Many of us hear all the time that hackers target WordPress websites and yes this is true because WordPress make up OVER 25 PERCENT of all websites on the internet. This makes it a lucrative target for hackers who are playing a game of numbers. That being said, a good developer with a nose for security can easily secure a WordPress website if given the appropriate tools. Updates are extremely important as well, the WordPress core dev team pushes updates constantly to fix exploits that are almost always found by the WordPress community itself, making it one of the safest platforms on the internet if treated right. Almost all successful hacks of WordPress websites stem from neglect of updates, don’t be that guy!

Just remember these points:

• Always use security tools like WP Security & Firewall And Wordfence Security.
• Download plugins from WordPress.org only, anything else could be compromised
• Use recently updated plugins that are current to the most recent version of WordPress
• Update WordPress with its recent version, always!

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We're local to the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area known as RTP, we take in person meetings, and we love to help local businesses and organizations succeed online. Contact us today and let us know how we can help you. We're serving actual local businesses and organizations and they're talking about us online.