In the last few years I have grown in my respect for WordPress websites. For small, growing and, sometimes surprisingly, large businesses, it is the website development platform of choice. From my experience in B2B Marketing, it is a valuable tool, but I didn’t always think this way. In this post I’ll outline why this change has occurred and list 5 WordPress features that make WordPress websites great. (Hover over words with an asterisk to read what they mean.)
Located in Alton, Hampshire, Paul Cranston is Headway Marketing’s Client Services Director. With extensive experience in B2B marketing for many companies seeking growth, here he writes about the rise and rise of the use of WordPress websites.
My First Website
In 1997, when I was still fresh-faced from film school, the company that I worked for had its first website.
Like many websites of the era it was simple, used colours to catch the eye and was all text.
The 5 pages were hand built using code. The most striking feature, it now shames me a little to say, was that the coloured dots along the bottom of the screen sparked.
Unlike with its design, the principles behind the content stand the test of time! There is a whole page for Customer Testimonials – something that I believe maintains significant value for the B2B Marketer.
Note that there are no images, no Parallax effects*, or no real functionality beyond linking to another page. But the website served its purpose; we directed people to it and we may have received new business. We don’t know.
If you want to check out your first website, or any website from over the years, go to the brilliant Internet Archive.
Twenty years later, I look at that site and see how far both I and the technology behind websites have come!
WordPress began life in 2003. It now accounts for an estimated 30% of all websites and just over 50% of all CMS (Content Management System* powered) websites. That is impressive.
In contrast, my second son also began life in 2003. He accounts for 50% of my grey hairs and 70% of my domestic food spend and is still in school.
One article suggests that 22% of all new US domains rely on WordPress websites. There are very good reasons why WordPress websites are popular and still growing in use. I think that it is largely because WordPress has developed a multi-community environment.
WordPress Websites for Everyone
Anyone can create a blog and host it for free on WordPress.org. Anyone. And it can take no more than 30 minutes to become a blogger. There are thousands of ‘lifestyle bloggers*’ that are living their lives in blogs, sharing their stories with the world through on the WordPress platform.
WordPress Websites for Business
Anyone can use WordPress to build a website. Anyone. I’m not a developer, but I build websites with WordPress. For complex ones I get help! But within an hour an IT literate person is able to buy a hosting package that runs WordPress, download a ‘theme*’ and add their content with WYSIWYG editors* and put live a website. This has empowered millions of businesses to create websites themselves. (And grown an industry of agencies that can help.)
WordPress Opportunities for Developers
Developers can contribute to the worldwide WordPress use. WordPress has made it possible for developers to create functionality that can be distributed to users of the WordPress platform. Every WordPress website has the ability to search for ‘plugins’, software that allows you to perform specific functions, often for free and sometimes, because of the economies of scale, for a very small fee. And where these plugins do not exist, it is possible to have developers make them.
Through building these multi-dimensional communities, WordPress has built a foundation for growth that surely will continue.
5 WordPress Website Plugins You Need
These plugins are suggested from a marketer’s perspective, to help maximise the value of the website for typical marketing purposes.
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Yoast SEO
This WordPress plugin is a must have for content marketers. It can be a little harsh at first – you might think your writing is hot, but the tool provides constructive criticism to improve keyword-based content.
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Any Tracking Plugin
There are plenty of WordPress plugins that allow for adding Google Analytics / Tag Manager (or your choice of analytics) to the pages of your website. Doing this ensures that you are able to monitor the performance of your website.
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Ninja Forms
There are other form builders around, but this is, in my opinion, the easiest to use. The Ninja Forms WordPress plugin allows you to create a number of forms and define what activities you want them to perform. I’ve created forms to capture enquiries, membership applications, content submission and more.
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Recaptcha
As above, there are plenty of WordPress plugins that allow you to ensure that form submissions or website logins are from real people and not bots*. The benefit is clear; protect your website and reduce the quantity of spammy messages. It’s a simple app, but so useful.
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Something Bespoke
If you believe that your business is different, that it solves a different problem to that of your competitors, then do something different on your website. Too many websites look like a WordPress website, or many other websites. (I redesigned mine recently because I kept seeing the same theme layout elsewhere.) Bespoke functionality can make your online presence stand out. One site that Headway Marketing specified and consulted on through its development, benefits from the ability to quickly publish an event’s itinerary. New pages are created within minutes instead of days. Additionally, because this content is often accessed from mobile devices, the company’s customers have an improved experience during engagement with the company.
Websites have been a critical tool in the marketer’s arsenal for a long time; WordPress is changing the game. Within a comprehensive marketing strategy, a WordPress website can make all the difference between surviving and thriving. Thanks to the WordPress website community, websites can bring many new opportunities to the customer experience and to the value placed on a website by the audience that counts; the customer.
If you need to rethink the value of your website to your business and customers, please get in touch. We’d love to discuss what a great website can do.