Many businesses regard WordPress as a powerful content management system, a versatile website builder, and much more. It powers over 35% of websites across the world, according to a recent trustworthy survey. The software that started as a blogging tool has significantly evolved over the years.

It presently features robust elements that top brands, including The New York Times, Facebook, Disney, Time Magazine, and Sony, rely on to power their valuable sites.

Let us accurately define WordPress before we consider why you can use it and how it can help you to achieve your personal and corporate objectives without any problem.

What is WordPress?

The simplest definition of WordPress is free software that empowers businesses and individuals to both create and run their sites on the internet. As open-source software, you have the full right to use or modify this software whenever you want in a manner that suits you. This exceptional level of flexibility and the large community of talented individuals from all backgrounds that use WordPress have made this brainchild of Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little become the all-purpose giant it is today.

If you Google “WordPress,” you find two websites that bear the same name, which is WordPress.com and WordPress.org (WordPress). Many people are confused by the existence of two different platforms with the same name. The latter is the open-source software that allows you to create websites, and it empowers WordPress.com, which is a paid service.

It is excellent to remember that, in most cases, whenever people say “WordPress,” they are referring to the open-source software. If you want to create and own your site using this software, all you need to do is purchase your preferred domain name and web hosting.

Now that we all have a clear picture of what WordPress is, we can move on to our core areas of concern.

Why Use WordPress?

The Most Popular Content Management Software (CMS)

The CMS market share shows that WordPress does not have a close competitor. Right now, in 2020, WordPress serves 60.4% of the market. Joomla and Drupal follow with 5.2% and 3.4%, respectively. As you can see, there is a significant gap between WordPress, which is at position one, and Joomla in the second position.

Despite the existence of many other useful CMS software, the unmatched popularity of WordPress makes it the easiest to use. Many website owners already have the required skills to use this software. As a result, you need little or no specialized staff training when building WordPress-powered sites.

1. SEO Friendly

The standard compliance code that has been used to write WordPress enables the software to produce semantic markup. This means that search engines, including Google, Bing, and others, often rank most of the WordPress websites higher than others.

To optimize your site further, you can use many free SEO plugins. In total, they are more than 50 000. Some of the plugins are contact forms, slideshows, video manuals, and SEO optimization.

2. Customized for Flexibility

WordPress has been designed to deliver the highest degree of flexibility to users. Since the majority of website developers and designers cherish the freedom to create and modify applications and layouts with the needs of their clients in mind, they consider WordPress as the best CMS. The user-generated extensions also ensure that enterprise extensions do not limit the sites.

3. Easy to Use

WordPress is designed to serve all users, not only developers. In the initial days of this CMS software, it was the best blogging tool for most non-tech savvy bloggers across the word. The designers have maintained the same principle of employing user-friendly interface components.

So, you do not have to pay an expert to learn how to install WordPress or use it to manage your content. If you have any problems and need guidance, you can look for some of the best manuals online and acquire the requisite skills at your own pace.

4. Incredibly Low Setup and Maintenance Fees

Due to the extent to which many people are familiar with WordPress, it incurs incredibly little setup costs. The maintenance and customization costs are also fewer than others are, such as Joomla and Drupal, for the same reason.

Thus, in case you require additional design or customization, you can easily find the right expert and cheap premium themes within a few minutes. This means costs cannot lock you down after the initial development of your website.

5. Supports Various Forms of Media

Another great thing with WordPress is that it comes with an easy to use media uploader that efficiently manages images, video, and audio files. What’s more, you can embed Soundcloud audio, Instagram photos, Tweets, YouTube videos, and more. This shows you why you can use it despite the type of content that you intend to upload.

6. Secure

If you are concerned about your security, WordPress is the ideal choice for you. The developers had the safety issue in mind, and users agree with the claim.

However, we agree that the present unrelenting advancement in technology is making the internet an uncertain place. Some criminals out there are working day and night to find ways to access as many sites as possible. To be safe, be sure you do not take chances despite the ability of the site to secure your content. For example, do not share your logins with anyone. Avoid the temptation to down suspicious content. Moreover, use credible tools, such as Sucuri, to mitigate these risks.

What is WordPress used for?

As we have stated above, WordPress gives people the ability to not only create but also run a wide assortment of websites. One of the reasons almost everyone uses this open-source software is the exceptional level of flexibility that it offers. With a little creativity, businesses and individuals can use a credible tool to build sites that meet a wide variety of their needs. The most straightforward answer to the above question is “just about everything.”

However, WordPress is more robust in some areas than others, and we are going to focus on these here.

1. Blogging

If you have read the brief history of WordPress, you already fully understand that WordPress started as a blogging site. Due to this, the perception that this software is only good at creating blogs persists to date. The truth is that WordPress is one of the perfect blogging platforms you can find out there.

WordPress comes with a serviceable default theme that is suitable for simple blogs. You can reap the most from it. However, if you do not want to keep things simple for any reason, the flexible nature of the platform allows you to add a few themes and plugins of your choice. With these bells and whistles, you can run a successful blog without necessarily spending your money. What’s more, it empowers you to be able to add new features to your blog and maintain it alongside other types of sites that we shall consider after this.

Before we move on to the other types of sites, let us see all that you need to create a fully functional blog.

Blogging Themes:

WordPress gives you a wide assortment of clean and simple blogging themes that can change your experience without any hustle. Use Bloggers WordPress theme to achieve this level of success are.

This classy theme comes with excellent responsive design, left-right sidebar, live customizer, and unlimited color options. It also offers bloggers a stylish online presence. These features make the theme the best choice for bloggers who love to share their personal experiences online.

Blogging Plugins

Choose plugins that can optimize your blog for search engines and protect it. The SEO framework is excellent as it ensures you rank favorable on Google and other engines. AkismetAnti-Spam is another incredible resource that you need to protect your site from spam.

Another essential plugin is Jetpack. It is useful for enhancing the performance of your website as well as security. You can also use W3 Total Cache. However, this option can reduce your site’s loading times a bit. Finally, you need UpdraftPlus to back up your blog.

With the Blogger theme, you can get Avartan Slider Lite, which is excellent for making the face of your site beautiful.

It is necessary to note that you should use these major plugins on all your WordPress sites. It does not matter whether it is a business site, personal website, blog, or any other.

Successful bloggers also use the best social media plugins. You can choose Easy Social Sharing to be able to add the appropriate media share buttons on your blog with ease.

2. Business

We have already established that WordPress has significantly evolved over the years. If you are looking for the best software that empowers you to present your business in a professional way to the world, this is most likely what you are seeking. If you remember, in our introduction, we mentioned a couple of top brands that rely on the self-hosted platform to remain competitive in the global market.

Since this is free software, you are also able to use it to create a professional business site that fully markets your brand to the world. Here is a collection of valuable resources that WordPress provides to help you realize your business goals:

Business Themes:

Using Biznetic can make your life quite easy. This dominant WordPress theme empowers businesses to build whatever they like. It is designed to look awe-inspiring both on desktop and mobile devices. Therefore, when using it, you can reach all your customers that are online with ease.

Business Plugins:

The platform grants you plenty of plugins to market your products and give your customers the best experience. To run a successful email marketing campaign, you can use the valuable WordPress WooCommerce Mailchimp. Moreover, you can utilize MonsterInsights or any other efficient analytics plugin to evaluate Google Analytics and get an accurate picture of the performance of your business.

If you are registering a low conversion rate, you can choose the appropriate contact form plugin. Everest Forms is one of such that allows you to create engaging contact forms in the most strategic places to help more of the visitors get in touch with you whenever they want.

Moreover, you can take advantage of the right pricing table plugin like Pricing Table for Supsystic to help your visitors to compare different prices and make the right decision.

3. Magazine/News Site

The New Yorker is just one example of news/magazine websites that use WordPress. There are plenty of such cases. These companies choose this platform because they know how easy it is to build sites on the platform. While it is not as easy as creating blogs, you will still not struggle to come up with a functional news or magazine website when you are using WordPress.

The main difference between blogs and news-and-magazine websites is the layout. The details may also differ depending on the exact nature of content that an organization provides its users. As a rule, sites should go with the type of appearance that fully complements their content without limiting the organization’s mission.

WordPress provides numerous themes and plugins that can help you to achieve just that. For you to be able to build a successful magazine/news website, you need the following:

Magazine Themes:

Plenty of magazine themes out there can be helpful to you. However, you need to choose the best one, and that is Ybrant.

If you are looking for a premium WordPress theme that is designed with a responsive layout and widgetized pages that will give you the layout that perfectly stands out, Ybrant is your ideal solution. The features make it best for magazines, newspapers, and other news related sites.

However, the other remarkable reason many people in the news industry prefer this theme over the others is that it supports plenty of valuable shortcodes. This means that you can use it to decorate your page content to match your desired look and feel.

Newsletter Plugin:

For exceptional results, use plugins such as newsletters. It can empower you to reach out to most of your users and take the level of engagement to the next level.

4. Online Store

If you are asking whether you can successfully use a WordPress website as your online store, then the answer is “yes.” You can do this with incredible ease too. In the past, many people thought this is impossible. However, with the introduction of plenty of useful plugins, this has significantly changed.

If this has not convinced you, then all you need to do is look at the millions of professional sites that WordPress powers.

We mentioned that WordPress comes with plenty of inbuilt blogging features. However, that is not the same with eCommerce. You cannot find in-built eCommerce features in WordPress. Thus, if you desire to create a business-friendly online store, you have to use a few plugins that support that. Otherwise, you may never be able to create an online store that is engaging, functional, and safe. As a businessperson, you know that you cannot withstand such a disappointment.

The good news is that most of these valuable resources are available at no cost. Here are the items that you need to boost the conversion rate of your online store:

Ecommerce Themes:

Choose a WordPress theme that can support all your plugins and allow you to create a responsive and attractive site as well. We are happy to recommend Kosmic. This modern WordPress theme is ready to use, and you can successfully employ it to build a wide variety of websites.

The multipurpose theme comes with option panels that enable you to play with custom skins, several color options, header styles, and much more.

However, do not forget that Kosmic is based on the WooCommerce plugin. Use it to create multipurpose eCommerce sites that increase your ability to sell to your targeted users.

Ecommerce Plugins:

Other than using the right WordPress theme, ensure you opt for the ideal WooCommerce plugin too. Your site will not be complete and useful to you if you skip this one. But you have nothing to worry about, given that this free resource contains almost all the features that you require to achieve your business success.

Among the great features that you get by installing it are 400+ extensions. The plugin can expand the functionality of your site significantly and give you the experience that you desire to realize.

But you still need to have the right support plugin to be more competitive. You can use Facebook’s Messenger Customer Chat for this purpose. Online-store owners that use it well can interact with many of their prospects. In the process, they substantially increase their customer base.

Another crucial one for your online business is business plugins. We suggest that business websites should use analytics, Contact Form, and marketing to be more efficient.

5. Portfolio

In the Internet world, portfolios are quickly replacing traditional resumes. If you want to showcase your skills to the international audience online, you only need to create a professional portfolio site using WordPress.

The professionals that have succeeded use platforms that ensure their sites are well designed and accurate. This way, their portfolios reflect well on them, and they win the hearts of many potential employers or customers.

Like with the other sites above, you need to make use of the relevant theme and plugins to build your portfolio site stand out from the crowd. Since you can achieve a simple website with free plugins and themes, you can start creating your portfolio anytime with WordPress. When you are ready for a site with sophisticated features, such as animations, you can purchase the premium solutions. For you to create a basic professional portfolio that can leave your prospects with a fantastic impression regarding your expertise, you should use the following resources.

Portfolio Themes:

Choose any portfolio theme that comes with a classic professional design and other incredible features that extend the functionality of your site. You need the “About,” “Testimonials,” “Service,” and more sections. So go for one that provides all that. Veriyas PRO offers these features, and you can consider it.

Veriyas PRO is designed to fully meet all the needs of businesses that desire to display their portfolio to the targeted audience.

The shortcodes, drop-down menu, and widgetized customer homepage that this beautiful WordPress theme comes with makes the site the ideal platform for your professional business, corporate, or marketing website.

Portfolio Plugins:

Like in other cases, you need the right plugins to create the best portfolio layouts and display the content correctly. This can make the difference between a good portfolio and an excellent one. If you are asking for one of the best plugins that can improve the appearance of your site, you can consider Portfolio Designer.

You also likely need a pricing table plugin. You can see your portfolio site as a business platform where you market your ability to help your clients achieve their success. As we said earlier, Pricing Table for Supsystic is a leading plugin that can help you to realize a similar goal for your businesses. Use it here too to present your services and the corresponding rates to your audience.

Contact form plugin is another crucial basic that you need for your portfolio. It helps you to give your visitors the power and opportunity to contact you with great ease. Choose any that you deem is the best for you. If you have none in mind, you can choose Everest Forms and expect great results.

Wrapping Up

WordPress is powering the Internet world in a way that no one would imagine a few years ago. The software started as a blogging platform, but it is presently the leading CSM, and top brands across the world use it to power their high-value websites.

At this point, we trust you can now fully answer the questions, “What is WordPress” and “What is WordPress used for.” Most likely, the examples above have shown you how you can use this versatile open-source software to achieve your varied career and personal life objectives. To boost the success of your business or blog drastically now, all you need is to put whatever you have learned into practice.