Which of these choices would you prefer?
One that involves custom programming costing $3000 or more, requires a knowledge of complex programming languages in order to make even simple changes to the content, and requires a complete redesign (again costing thousands of dollars) if you decide the look is outdated?
Or one that is created using software that costs you nothing, has content in a structure that lets you easily update it yourself and has hundreds of professional templates available so if you think the look is outdated you can replace it with a new one in less than 5 minutes?
No brainer, right?
If you aren’t familiar with it, an introduction to WordPress is in order.
WordPress, originally used solely for blogs, has morphed into an incredibly powerful Content Management System you can use to easily and inexpensively create a very professional and functional website for your small business.
Here are 7 reasons WordPress may be the perfect option for your small business’ website:
1. It costs nothing! Not one penny! WordPress is available for download at WordPress.org at no cost – you won’t even have to give up your email address. To host a WordPress site yourself, however, you will need to find a hosting company. That’s generally not free. But it’s not expensive either. For just $5 – $10 a month you can host your WordPress site at any number of quality web host providers. Many of them include Fantastico with your hosting plan which is software that lets you install WordPress in just a few clicks without even having to download the software.
2. Ease of Use. Besides being easy to install, WordPress is very easy to use. Sure, if you’re technically challenged, there will be a learning curve in using WordPress. But there are plenty of tutorials around on the web to help you. And once you get the hang of things it’s quite easy to add or update content – it’s basically like using a word processing program like Microsoft Word. You don’t need to have a programming bone in your body to successfully maintain a WordPress site.
3. Themes. A theme is kind of like a template that will change the appearance of your WordPress site (themes may also change some “behind-the-scenes” functionality of WordPress). There are thousands of WordPress themes available for download – some of them are free, some aren’t. You can even have a designer create a custom theme for you to get your WordPress site to look exactly the way you want it.
With themes, it’s easy to get a clean, professional looking site without paying a lot for custom design work. And if one day you decide you don’t like the look of your site – no problem. Find a theme you like better, activate it in WordPress and you instantly have a new look and feel to your site – all without having to change the blog posts or pages on your site.
4. Plugins. Plugins are software the extend the capabilities of WordPress to do pretty much anything you want. Using plugins, you can track site visits, add social bookmarking to your site, automate backups of your site, fight spam, create contact forms, improve site security and a lot more. And, with few exceptions, the plugins are absolutely free.
5. Search Engine Love. Google (and the other search engines) love WordPress. Using WordPress can give your search engine optimization efforts a big boost. And if you take advantage of some of the SEO-related plugins available for WordPress, the searc engines will really think your site is the bee’s knees.
6. Support. WordPress is an extremely popular and commonly used piece of software. There are thousands of people available to help you if you have problems. Whether it’s asking for help in a forum or hiring a WordPress pro, a solution to whatever issue you may have is not far away.
7. Control. Hosting your own WordPress website puts you in control of your web presence. Need to update your content, add new posts or pages? You can easily do it yourself. Want to update the appearance of your site? Find a new Theme, upload it, activate it and you’re done. Don’t like the hosting company you’re using? Find another and move your site – there are plenty of good hosting companies around.
These seven reasons are why I use WordPress for virtually all the websites I own and recommend it to most of my clients. Before I get any hate mail from web developers, I will point out that there are situations where spending the money to get a professionally designed custom website built to your specifications.
However, for the needs of most small businesses, WordPress provides a combination of functionality, flexibility and cost-effectiveness that is tough to beat.
Adam Kreitman is a Saint Louis online marketing consultant. While he is not a designer, he got tired of seeing small business clients with overpriced, poorly designed websites so he started helping clients develop sites using WordPress. To get the word out to a larger audience he started a website which provides tips, video tutorials and resources for using WordPress for small business websites.


