Why use WordPress to build a website?

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At Skyhook Interactive, we are huge fans of WordPress. For the last several years, we’ve built 90 percent of our clients’ sites using WordPress as our platform. WordPress enhances websites at every step of the process. It helps our clients save money, take control of their own sites (add/edit/remove content), incorporate advanced functionality (e-commerce, mapping, user submitted content, etc.) and get better search results. WordPress is awesome and we take great pride in using it to make beautiful and powerful websites for our clients.

Below is a list of reasons why we think you should consider using WordPress to build your next website. If you’re interested in getting professional help setting up or optimizing a WordPress website, contact us to get a free quote.

WordPress is a true Content Management System (CMS)

The intuitive, user-friendly backend interface of WordPress is probably what has made it so popular among users and companies. We always tell our clients, “If you can do it in Word, you can do it in WordPress.” WordPress is continually improving its CMS, adding features such as threaded comments, galleries, revisions, trash, custom post types and on and on.

WordPress is Free and Open Source

WordPress is completely free for you and your company…forever. WordPress doesn’t start charging when your website hits a certain size, nor does it limit you on what you can do with it. This is one of the less tangible but probably most important elements of WordPress’ success. No fees, no gotchas, no nonsense.

Automattic is an awesome company, and it takes care of WordPress

Automattic is the company behind WordPress. Automattic is passionate about making the Web a better place. Automattic as a company protects open source programming, fights spam, hosts affordable and educational conferences and takes security seriously. I mentioned that WordPress is open source, but what’s really interesting is that it is commercial open source. That sounds like an oxymoron, but it’s actually a breakthrough. Many traditional community-based open source projects are not well guided – they end up slowly getting off the ground, splitting into separate projects or becoming stale because volunteers are not motivated to work. Automattic stays on top of their product, steering development in the right direction and constantly improving WordPress to make it a better product.

Plugins give you additional functionality

Plenty of content management systems out there offer plugin functionality, but I’ve never seen a more thorough implementation than the plugin effort for WordPress. Plugins allow you to add photo galleries, sliders, shopping carts, forums, maps and more. The possibilities are literally endless. There’s a searchable, one-click install directory of plugins on WordPress.org that allow you to extend the functionality of your site in a simple and maintainable way.

Easily add a blog to your site

WordPress really came to fame for blogging and is still considered by many to be a blogging platform. Aside from the amazing advances in WordPress as a CMS, the blog functionality is still the best in the business. With categories, tags, threaded comments, gravatars, easy theming, widgets, moderation, anti spam solutions and plugin infrastructure, you can’t find a better blog solution. Adding a blog to a WordPress site is a great way to attract and involve visitors with fresh and interesting content.

You can customize your site through WordPress themes

We love doing custom Web design for our clients, but many of them don’t need it. We’ve been able to make very beautiful sites by starting from a pre-existing theme and doing customizations rather than starting from scratch. Because themes are open source, you can buy a theme and then modify it to fit the needs and goals of your business. Themes are independent from your content, so you can edit or swap out themes at any time and keep your content and functionality in place.

WordPress is secure

WordPress is surprisingly easy to update for security and new functionality. When a new version is available, WordPress will give you an easy link for a one-click upgrade.

WordPress is great at SEO

We focus on getting new customers for our clients via Search Engine Optimization (SEO). WordPress, straight out of the box, comes ready to embrace search engines. Its features and functions guide a search engine through your pages, posts and categories to help the search engine crawl your site and gather the information it needs to rank your site. WordPress comes with several built-in search optimization tools, including the ability to use .htaccess to create apparently static URLs called permalinks. There are also a number of third party plugins that can be used for SEO.

WordPress can grow with your company

When you look at the features of WordPress, you will find that your WordPress site can grow up with your business over the years. You can easily upgrade it for new features and security. You can add a new theme without redoing all the functionality and content on your site. You can add new plugins for enhanced functionality (add e-commerce if your business grows, focus more on search results, add a store finder, etc.). WordPress is used by millions of sites, from the simplest blogs to huge brand names like TechCrunch, Mashable, CNN, Forbes, Sony, ebay and The New York Times. See the notable WordPress users and Brands.

As you can see, WordPress is a powerful platform, and we love using it to build beautiful and effective websites for our clients. If you’re looking for a professional team to create a successful WordPress website for your company or cause, contact us today for a free quote.