When it comes to creating a business site, one of the top platform options is WordPress and for good reason.

WordPress isn’t just a simple blogging platform. It’s capable of running some of the top websites in the world from major brands.

While it’s great for personal sites too, businesses are opting for WordPress too as a way to take their companies online in an easy, yet powerful way.

WordPress Popularity

WordPress is used by over 29% of websites worldwide and has a 60% market share among content management systems. While there are numerous personal sites and blogs out there, business websites make up a large portion of that 29%. If you’re curious about which brands are using WordPress, see:

• 8 Examples of Major Sites Using WordPress (by yours truly)
• 40+ Notable Big Name Brands That Are Using WordPress
• Notable WordPress Users

Tiny Learning Curve

So why choose WordPress when there are other options for your business site? The most obvious reason and the one you’ll notice the quickest is the tiny learning curve. Getting started takes minutes. The straight-forward dashboard gives you easy access to publish posts, add/update pages, add/change media, check out stats, optimise your site and much more.

While you may want a developer to help with creating a custom theme and ensuring plugins are implemented correctly, WordPress itself is incredibly easy to use and makes managing a site a stress-free process.

Update Content With Ease

You likely already know the importance of blogging. If not, take a quick look at these inspiring statistics from Writtent. Blogging helps businesses gain more customers and boosts conversion rates. WordPress has an easy to use content editor for creating and uploading content. Plus, SEO plugins and WordPress’s built-in SEO features help you to easily optimise every post for better traffic.

This means you spend less time on formatting and optimising and more time on what’s important – creating engaging content for your readers. Plus, you content is optimised to bring in more traffic, leading to more business.

Flexible For Any Use

In the past, I covered how WordPress goes far beyond blogging, which is what makes it ideal for any business website. Whether you want ecommerce or a membership style site or anything in between, WordPress has the features you need. For instance, a fashion retailer might need interactive product images and a stylish theme to match the personality of the retailer.

On the other hand, a B2B company may require a minimalist theme and a simple blog to effectively connect with customers. WordPress is flexible, plus it’s open source, which means you can customise it to your needs. For instance, if you can’t find a theme or plugin that fits your needs, a WordPress developer can work with you to create just what your business needs most.

Scales With The Business

Scalability is crucial with any business website. It might be tempting to use a free site builder, but stop and consider your limitations first. Your site will always be limited by the platform you use. With free site builder tools and even some other CMS platforms, you’re limited to only a small number of plugins (if any at all), basic themes, little to no customisation options and the amount of content you can upload.

This isn’t going to help you grow your business. This is why so many businesses choose WordPress for their business website. You download and own your installation of WordPress. All you need is a web host that offers the storage and bandwidth you need to continue growing your site. Whether you’re a business selling a few products a week or a giant like Amazon, WordPress scales as your needs change

Are you ready to use WordPress for your business website? Contact me today to find out how I can help.

Image: Anders Jildén

Your WordPress website looked great when it first went online, but how long ago was that?

Websites have to be refreshed often to look current, otherwise, they start to look more like an antique. For instance, at one point, the computer above was cutting edge, but would you use it today?

If you’re not sure if your WordPress website is old, see how your site compares with these signs. Even just a few small upgrades could make a major difference in how visitors perceive your site.

1. Takes Too Long To Load

Sadly, even some brand new sites take too long to load, but old websites often load even slower. According to one study, between 1999 to 2010, visitors’ patience decreased from 8 seconds to just 3 seconds. Today’s visitors are even less patient.

If your site takes more than a few seconds to load, you could be losing visitors. Try loading your website on different browsers to see how it performs. You can also use Pingdom to test loading times. If you have time to grab a cup of coffee, your WordPress website is old and needs a major refresh.

2. Poor Quality Or Too Few Images

No one likes to see graphics that are blurry, pixelated, or too small to even see clearly. Your visitors are visual creatures. When images are low quality or there are too few images, visitors get distracted and move on.

Improving your images and adding in more images holds attention, helps your site load faster (since quality images compressed for web pages are smaller in size) and boosts conversions.

3. It Only Fits Certain Screens

Does your site fit on all screens or just desktops? A sure sign your WordPress website is old is whether it’s mobile friendly or not. I’ve talked about why a mobile friendly or responsive design is vital to boosting your page rank and increasing visitors. This isn’t a passing trend. Google and your mobile visitors take responsive design seriously. Give your site an upgrade and appeal to your mobile audience too.

4. No Way To Contact You

Does your website only have an email address and/or phone number? That worked well in the late 90s and early 2000s, but times have changed. Visitors want an even easier way to contact you. Your WordPress website needs an easy to use contact form that sends messages directly to your email address. It’s easier for users and ensures no one sends messages to the wrong email address.

5. It’s Hard For Customers To Order

If you have an ecommerce site, it has to be easy for customers to order. Take a look at your checkout process. Is it secure and using an SSL certificate? How many steps are involved? Customers expect a secure checkout and if they don’t feel safe, they’ll move to the competition. If you make customers go through 10 screens to place an order, they’ll get frustrated and move on as well.

6. Bounce Rate Is Too High

If you use analytic software, which every website should, check your bounce rate. A high bounce rate is a sign your WordPress website is old and may have broken links, outdated content and pages that are difficult to interact with. While a high bounce rate could just indicate you need to change your content strategy, you should take a high bounce rate seriously.

Bonus: It’s Rarely Updated, if Ever

Think back to the last time your WordPress website was updated. If it’s been over a year, a refresh is needed. Simple changes to the design, optimising pages and adding in more user friendly features helps improve the user experience. If you want to stay competitive, regular updates are a necessity.

Keep Your WordPress Site Fresh

Besides updating your WordPress software, themes and plugins, updating the website itself is a crucial part of WordPress maintenance. Keep your WordPress website fresh and you’ll continue to keep your visitors happy and coming back for more.

Does your WordPress website need a makeover to make it look shiny and new? Contact Darren today to learn how to get started.

Image: Arkadiusz Sikorski

You think you’re saving money by keeping your old WordPress website just the way it is, but the opposite could be true.

Your older site could be driving away possible clients. After all, your site is often the first thing perspective clients see and something that looks like it hasn’t been changed in years isn’t going to make a great first impression.

The longer you wait to do a few upgrades to your WordPress site, the more clients that could be choosing the competition. Investing in your site today is like investing in a digital makeover for your business.

Site Style Ages Your Site

Sometimes it’s hard to tell the age of a website, unless the content itself is old. For other sites, it’s easy to see when they were last changed. Old table-based design and text heavy sites along with Flash animations throughout all show the age of your site. Web design trends have drastically changed from the 90s through today.

An old WordPress website makes clients think you’re neglecting the site, which makes them wonder about the quality of your service and products. All you get is a few seconds to make a good first impression and an outdated site isn’t the impression you want to make.

Older Features May Not Work

Many older features that were trending five years ago might not even be relevant now. For instance, Flash has been slowly fading away for years due to security problems. Plus, it’s not compatible with most mobile browsers. As browsers change, your old WordPress website might not even load properly. Instead of seeing a professional website, your clients see a disorganised mess. This just drives them away.

It’s Time To Go Mobile

Mobile devices are everywhere. This means a large part of your audience is likely searching for your on a mobile device. Odds are, your older WordPress site isn’t exactly mobile friendly. No one enjoys having to zoom in to view text or endlessly scrolling to read a single paragraph. Newer responsive themes not only help your site look good on all devices, but it may help with your search engine rank too. In fact, Google even has a tool to ensure your site meets the new mobile ranking changes Google applied in 2015.

Security Is Questionable

As you probably know, hackers are some of the hardest working people on the planet. It’s one of the reasons why WordPress rolls out updates regularly to make the core platform more secure. According to Sucuri, out of over 11,000 infected websites, 75% were WordPress sites. Old WordPress websites make visitors second guess the security of the site. To protect themselves, they leave. A newer site with the latest WordPress version is one way to keep visitors on your site.

It’s Hard To Find

If your WordPress site is old, it’s probably harder for potential clients to even find. Older sites often utilise outdated SEO practices, such as keyword stuffing. While that helped years ago, it could get your website listed as spam now. Older WordPress sites and themes might also use different coding techniques and features that hurts the rank as well. If clients can’t even find your website, it’s not going to help you.

Slow But Steady Doesn’t Help

Do you remember a time when the computers in the image above were the latest and greatest? Based on the technology when they were developed, they were fast and cutting edge. Now, they’re slow and can’t even begin to handle the needs of most programs and apps. The same holds true for an old WordPress website.

At most, visitors expect to only have to wait eight seconds for a site to load. After that point, you’re losing visitors. While some will wait, many see it as no different than the site being complete down. Outdated themes, plugins and WordPress versions means a slower site that drives visitors away before they even see your content.

Time For An Upgrade

Take a quick look at your site versus the competition. Does your site seem to be years behind? Your website works for you 24/7, but it could also work against your 24/7 if it’s too old. You’re constantly investing in your business to improve it. Your website is a crucial part of your business and your old WordPress website needs to be upgraded from time to time to look and function better, leading to more new clients.

Are you ready to try a newer site? Contact Darren today to discuss how to bring your site from the past to the present.

Image: Nicholas

There are numerous reasons why using a WordPress website for your small business is a smart move.

You’ve already worked hard to start your business, so you want a platform that works just as hard for you. This is where WordPress comes in.

It’s the most popular content management system available and for good reason. If you’re ready to take your small business online, here are eight reasons to pick WordPress for your site.

1. Room To Grow And Change

A surprising 60% of small businesses in the UK don’t have a website with a third of them saying they’re too small to need a site. The truth is, you’re never too small. The sooner you have a website, the sooner you introduce your business to a worldwide audience. The great think about using a WordPress website for your small business is it’s easy to scale it to the size of your business.

With numerous plugins and themes available, you’re able to easily change your site to grow with you. Start now and learn the ropes of using WordPress. As you grow, your site grows too and you’ll have already starting building an online audience.

2. Easy To Manage Content

The same study on UK small businesses found that a fifth of participants thought building a website took too much time. The initial setup for a basic WordPress site takes only minutes on most web hosts. Of course, it’s easier to hire someone to handle the initial setup and design, but after that, it’s easy to upload and manage your own content. Want to publish a blog post or change images on your homepage? All it takes is a few clicks and you’re done.

The ease of use is why 59.6% of all content management systems worldwide are WordPress. Everyone has the few minutes necessary to learn to use and manage their content on WordPress.

3. Powers Over A Quarter Of The Web

Yes, you read that headline correctly. WordPress now powers over a quarter of the web. As of June 2016, WordPress powers 26% of all websites. As a small business, you don’t want the hassle of trying something unproven. WordPress has proven itself time and time again and even powers some of the top websites in the world, such as Forbes and eBay.

4. Security Is A Priority

Using a WordPress website for your small business means you value security as much as your visitors. While WordPress offers security plugins for additional protection, updates are released to keep your core WordPress installation as secure as possible. This is without installing any additional software. WordPress developers are serious about security and do everything possible to keep sites safer.

5. SEO Friendly For Everyone

Trying to figure out SEO is sometimes more complicated than trying to develop a website with zero experience. Don’t let this stop you from taking your small business online. WordPress understands the struggle and has developed the platform with SEO in mind. Many themes are even responsive, making your site mobile friendly without any special coding. By adding plugins, such as Yoast SEO, you’re guided through optimisation step by step.

6. Integrates Well With Other Services

WordPress plays well with other services. If you want to accept payments, WordPress integrates with payment services, such as PayPal, easily. Want to send out newsletters? Integrate WordPress with MailChimp. Usually all you have to do is install a plugin to start using another service with WordPress. If the service you want to use isn’t available for WordPress yet, it probably will be soon.

7. Ideal For Local And Ecommerce Stores

Whether you’re a local business or selling products online, using a WordPress website for your small business is the ideal choice. It’s simple to set up a few static pages to provide more details to consumers about your business. Want to sell online? Many themes and plugins are designed specifically for ecommerce stores. Whether you need a simple information only site to drive more foot traffic through your doors or a full-fledged online store, WordPress has you covered.

8. Easy To Find Support

The vast popularity of WordPress means you’ll never find yourself without support. If you’re trying to do something on your own, the WordPress forums are filled with helpful people. Need technical support? You’ll find no shortage of experienced developers, like yours truly, to help you make changes or perform regular maintenance.

Using WordPress Yourself

A website is a must for any business and using a WordPress website for your small business is the perfect choice. Managing your site couldn’t be easier, no matter what your experience level. Give it a try and you may just see your business grow as a result.

Ready to give WordPress a try for your website? Contact Darren today to get started.

Image: Remy Baudouin