by Created in 2003, WordPress started as a small project with very few users. Nearly ten years later, it is the largest self-hosted blogging platform project in the world, seeing tens of millions of users every day. The platform is an open source project that is created and shared by its own users, allowing it to be used freely by your grandma or the local Wal-Mart without requiring a license. WordPress offers a variety of benefits over other blogging platforms circling the World Wide Web today.
Search Engine Optimization at Its Best
Without a doubt, WordPress beats all of its counterparts in the race for the best Search Engine Optimization (SEO) features. The ease at which a user can add content is comparable to simply typing into a word document, making it easier to add SEO keywords throughout the content. Inserting keywords into header tags no longer requires complicated HTML, as it’s a breeze to do straight from the platform’s text box. The fact that WordPress is an open source platform also contributes to the ease of website SEO. Since the platform is constantly updated, it is easy for developers and users to keep up-to-date on the latest trends in SEO and web marketing and develop plugins and other features that complement those trends. In the platform itself, users can easily customize permalinks, allowing for search engines to pull the website up in searches in more quickly. For example, if a website about SEO has a URL that is “www.mydomain.com/1/2/3/4”, it will not get as many hits as the customizable URL that might read “www.mydomain.com/seo/how-to”. The clean coding, ability to add categories and tags and the integrated SEO plugins only add to the benefits of WordPress for SEO purposes.
WordPress vs. HTML
You might be asking why you can’t simply save yourself the effort of learning a new platform and use basic HTML to create the same website. The answer is simple. What you spend in time learning how to use WordPress, you will save in time in the future. Using HTML to update a website, especially one that is for business purposes is time consuming and can often become frustrating. Though HTML is widely-known and used, it is also a bit outdated. Although you can use CSS to make things a bit easier, WordPress coding is based largely on PHP, a language that uses small snippets of code to change many small things all at one time. Manual SEO coding will require much time. Using WordPress, you can simply install an SEO plugin and type in your keywords. The platform will do the rest of the work, inputting your keywords into the coding as needed without you ever having to even look at the code. WordPress also offers many plugins to ensure that your website is highly secure, whereas HTML is left more vulnerable to security breaches.
Let’s Recap
WordPress is easy to install, easy to update, allows multiple users and is fully customizable. Other platforms don’t always allow multiple users, will require a lot of hassle for customization and don’t install nearly as seamlessly as WordPress. The intuitive interface makes it easy to add new pages and blog posts from any computer without having to carry files around on a flash drive and constantly re-upload them via FTP. Search engines love WordPress and pick up WordPress-based websites much quicker than those made with traditional coding. The initial install takes less than ten minutes and once it is done, you are ready to go. Easily grow your blog, your company or your cat’s homepage with the click of a few buttons.
