As you may have guessed from my portfolio, I am a big fan of WordPress. I recommend it to all my clients and feel that it is the perfect content management solution for the websites I design for small to medium businesses.

Why is WordPress so great you ask? I can think of a number of reasons but here are my top 5…

1. It’s free. Yep, that’s right. WordPress is an Open Source project, which means there are hundreds of people all over the world working to build on and improve the product every single day. WordPress gives you access to an incredibly powerful website platform for nix. Which means your budget can be put towards a killer design rather than a complicated back end interface.

2. It is widely supported. Recent stats showed that 22 out of every 100 new active domains in the US are running WordPress. This means there is a mass of support, information and other resources out there built to support the product. If you have a question about WordPress, odds are you can type your query into Google and get at least 10 solutions to your problem.

3. It is scalable. Every business starts of small. Obviously the aim is to grow and the beauty of WordPress is it can grow with you. Aside from the ability to add infinite pages, posts and sections to your site, there are literally thousands of plug-ins, themes and widgets that have all been developed for WordPress users. And the best part is that many are developed in the spirit of the Open Source community and are therefore either very cost effective or free. Need a gallery? There’s a plug in for that. Need a custom booking form? There’s a plug-in for that. Need a members only area? Surprise, surprise, there’s a plug-in for that too.

4. It’s easy to use. You don’t need a weekend to learn how to update your WordPress site. You need a couple of hours. It’s that simple. WordPress empowers clients to take charge of their website with an intuitive back end and extensive support through online documentation and forums. You don’t need a developer to add a sentence on your “about us” page. WordPress will allow you to save money on all those little changes you need from time to time and allow me to focus on what do what I do best. Design websites.

5. Google loves it. Everybody wants to be friends with Google, and thankfully Google wants to be friends with WordPress. Page Title and Description are incredibly important in search. Permalinks allow you to place important keywords in your post titles and plug-ins such as All In One SEO allow you even greater control in this area. By it’s very nature, WordPress encourages you to organise content into relevant categories and cross link content with tags. Furthermore, it’s ease of use means your site won’t sit static for months on end. A dynamic site is an interesting and relevant site. Relevancy is the key here. If your content and keywords are relevant to what people are seeking and they well organized then Google will notice.

So have I convinced you yet? I hope so. WordPress is a great way to get your business online and noticed. Trust me. You’ll love it too.