Why is WordPress the Industry Standard?

Occasionally, we do calls with prospective clients who don’t use WordPress. People have used SquareSpace, Wix, Weebly, and other platforms. More often than not, they have complaints. Now, we aren’t going to tear down these other platforms. They work for some people. However, WordPress is the industry standard, and we recommend it to all our clients. Here’s why.

Adaptability

It doesn’t matter what your site is for. WordPress does it all.

This also makes expansion easy. Maybe your business website is picking up attention and you want to add a blog to boost your authority. Or perhaps your photography site is taking off and you want to sell prints. On other platforms, that might be a headache. However, WordPress makes it easy.

WordPress’ library of plugins lets you add all kinds of functions to your site. We’ll talk more about those soon.

It’s Free

WordPress itself is free and open-source. This means anyone can download it.

Of course, that doesn’t mean owning a site is free. You’ll need to pay a host, like SiteGround or GoDaddy, to put your site online with your chosen domain name. (You can host a totally free site with a name like mysite.wordpress.com, but then you have to pay if you want a domain name and plugin privileges, so we don’t recommend that.)

Besides the hosting, all your basic WordPress features are free. You don’t need to pay to put in Google Analytics or add a little CSS to your site. It’s all there.

More Features

WordPress has 2 main features we love: themes and plugins. While some of these use a freemium or premium model, most of them are completely free. You just visit the library and install whatever you like. All kinds of features wait at your fingertips.

We’ll let you in on a little secret: in past years, EpiBuild’s website used Squarespace. Some of our interns who were new to web development liked it. After all, Squarespace is incredibly easy to use.

However, it’s easy because you can’t do much with it in the first place. We wanted our site to be able to reach its full potential. This means working at a level that other platforms just don’t provide. I (Jenna) moved us to WordPress back in 2020, and that’s when the fun began.

Plugins

Plugins are arguably the best part of WordPress. They let you add all kinds of features. From automatic site backups to tailored SEO tips to before-and-after image sliders, plugins cover just about anything you can think of (and lots of things you didn’t).

Since WordPress is open-source, just about anyone can make a plugin. Thus, there are tons of plugins at your fingertips.

While it might be tempting to install everything and anything in sight, too many plugins can slow down your site. When we work on sites, we pick a few of the best ones. This includes our must-have plugins, along with things that meet the site’s unique needs.

We’ll talk about our favorite plugins in a future post.

Themes

WordPress’ themes are sort of like templates. You pick one when you set up your site and it sets the look and feel. Then you can go in and change colors, logos, fonts, and other features. How much customization is possible depends on the theme you pick.

Of course, many sites offer themes. That’s not new. What makes WordPress unique is the fact that it’s open-source. Just like how anyone can make a plugin, anyone can make a theme. This means you have more choices to give your site a unique look.

Right now, our site uses the Astra theme. Why? Speed tests have found that it’s the fastest theme on WordPress. (You can also see it on EpiFinder’s site and my personal blog.) Astra offers a professional feel and a fair amount of customization options. While some features, like sticky headers, are limited to the paid version, our developers can get around that with a little CSS.

Community

Over 1/3 of websites use WordPress. Knowing what you know now, this might not surprise you too much.

Thanks to its popularity, there are tons of resources online. Since WordPress is the industry standard, everyone is swapping tips and advice about it. For any problem you might have, someone is likely to have a guide on it.

Adopting the Industry Standard: Switching to WordPress

If you want to grow your site, then you may decide to switch to WordPress.

Your host may offer WordPress migration for free. Check their site to see if they do it. Otherwise, if you’re afraid to do it yourself, you can hire someone (maybe us?) to do it for you.

Of course, it might feel daunting to start using an entirely new platform. That’s okay. Our WordPress guides can help you get oriented, and there are plenty of tutorials all over the internet as well. If you think you need help, just contact us for a free consultation. We’d be happy to set up your site and give you a tour.

by Jenna Breunig