WordPress Review
WordPress Review
Online presence is one of the most important parts of your business nowadays. You need to have that before losing the game to your competitors. These days, companies use many different ways to get visibility on the internet. Back then in the past, people used to advertise on TV, radio, newspaper, local stands, etc.
Now, everything has changed. You have endless opportunities to show your products and services to your target audience very easily. Do you want to know all these methods? If yes, you might want to read this article until the end. We are going to focus on only one of the best ways of getting visibility and making money. It is a bit different from the conventional ways of advertising.
Advertising On The Internet
Let's start with the simplest ideas. How do companies and businesses show themselves to their customers? What is the most convenient way? Of course, social networking sites are the answer. They give you an amazing chance to cheaply and quickly find people who might be interested in your products or services.
How do people advertise on social media? The first thing to do is open several social media accounts. Then, you have to start creating content on them. In this way, you will attract people interested in your business. Also, you will let people interact with your businesses and get to know you better. When they trust you, you will be able to introduce your products/services. Then, they might buy from you and make you rich.
What else? Oh! This is an interesting one! Do you know why there are millions of businesses and companies present on social networking sites? This is one of the most important reasons. There are people on social media who are called influencers. They could be normal people, celebrities, athletes, politicians, models, etc. All of them have something in common. They have millions of followers, subscribers, or simply fans.
People will follow influencers' styles. So, if they wear a specific type of clothes, people will buy them. If they suggest a movie, people will go to the movies and watch it. So, businesses and companies exploit this opportunity by paying influencers to advertise their products. For example, when a superstar like C. Ronaldo advertises for Nike sneakers, who can resist buying them? This is how businesses benefit greatly from social media. There are many other innovative and novel ways to introduce your business on social media.
Limitations Of Advertising On Social Platforms
However, not everything is great with advertising on social platforms. Here are some reasons for you to get convinced why social platforms are not always the best idea.
Competitive Atmosphere
First of all, the atmosphere on social platforms is extremely competitive. Millions of people are actively trying to sell their products/services on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, etc. the more people join social media, the harder the competition becomes. Basically, you have to devote yourself to your business and create excellent innovative content and act professionally to surpass others. Therefore, although social accounts are fairly cheap and available to anyone, their great availability to everyone with a smartphone makes the competition even harder and much more serious.
Time-Consuming
As we said, the atmosphere on social platforms demands you to be the best of the best. So, it means that you have to dedicate your time to your social accounts. This includes constant content creation, not just copying from other places. Also, you need to have someone online all the time to be responsive. Perhaps, a customer likes a product and wants to have more information about it. When they send you a message, they are not patient. They expect you to answer as quickly as possible. Otherwise, they will leave your page right away. So, you have to either pay someone to do it for you or answer them one by one.
Negative Feedback And Tarnish Brand
You have to be completely open to all criticisms even the unfair ones because you are going to receive thousands of them. If you are a sensitive person, these messages might get on your nerves and influence your behaviour.
No Control Over Your Accounts
It is true that creating content and selling/buying products and services are free. However, it is tricky to be 100% dependent on social media. I mean you are not the owner of social platforms. So, you have to follow their rules, otherwise, they will cut you off very quickly and easily. Imagine that you try for several years and gather four million followers on Instagram, but suddenly your page or group gets blocked/deactivated.
Commercial Websites! The Best Alternative For Businesses!
Relying on advertisements, low rate of engagement and security issues are some other challenges related to social networking websites. So, what is the solution to all these issues? There is one! It is publishing a website for your business. Did you know that only 30% of all businesses have websites? Why is that? Why is everybody more interested in social platforms than websites?
Maybe, people think running a website is a very complicated task that requires lots of skills. Or, they think they have to hire several people and pay them to do the job for you. Well, if you think like them, you are totally wrong! There is an excellent and practical tool for you that can solve all the problems you have. Before introducing this great tool, you need to know all the good things about having a business website for your company.
A High Budget Is Not Required
This is against all the things you have heard about publishing a website online. No, it is not going to be expensive thanks to all the new technologies in the market. Also, you don’t need to hire anybody and pay them to run it for you. Now, thanks to that magical tool I mentioned earlier, you will be able to act like a professional and do all the things you need to have a good-looking website.
Website Accessibility 24/7
Imagine that your business relies a lot on selling products. Well, if you want to sell on a social networking website, you need to keep someone online all the time to answer people and guide them through the process. However, with a website, you don’t need anybody. You can sell your products 24 hours a day without any limitations. Even when people have questions on your website and send you a message through your website channel, they are more patient than when they send a message via social media accounts.
Brand Visibility And Brand Recognition
With a website, you can fill it with all the information you need in order to convince people why you are the best. Interviews, review articles, tutorial videos, podcasts, and many more features are just the tip of the iceberg. All this multimedia content will force customers to remember your name and start thinking about buying something from you. Your contact information will stay there forever and increase the number of calls, emails, etc.
Tracking User Behaviour
A website gives you a good source of information to analyze the market and act accordingly. If you see a page on your website that is receiving lots of attention, just try to repeat it with another similar topic. Or, when people buy a specific product more than others, try to come up with some new ideas about that product and make it more interesting. In this way, you will become an expert and know in what direction you need to guide your website.
WordPress, A Magical Tool For All Businesses
Well, so far, we have learnt that running a website for our business is an alternative to owning social media accounts. But many people have never thought about it because of some not very good impressions they have about websites. However, I'm here to tell you something completely different. I'm here to tell you WordPress is the answer to all your questions. So, what is WordPress, and how it is helping website owners to expand their imagination and create a website as they wish? And, we are not just talking about publishing and running a website. upgrading, security, extra functions, more designs, and features, etc. are all included in this single amazing tool.
What Is WordPress?
I don’t want to make it complicated. So, let's stick to the basics. Here is some absolute basic information about WordPress.
- WordPress is essentially software you use to create your website and make it available on the internet. sometimes, people call it a Content Management System or CMS for short. We will get back to this later.
- Since its establishment several years ago, WordPress has been extremely successful because now nearly more than 30% of all websites in the world are powered by WordPress which is followed by other names such as Joomla, Drupal, Squarespace, and other web-publishing software.
- You might not believe this but WordPress is still a free tool. Why is that? Well, it is because WordPress is open-source software. What does this mean? It means that there are thousands of computer experts working on WordPress and trying to make it even better.
- WordPress lets you get creative limitlessly! For example, people have very different ideas when it comes to designing a website. For that, you will need to access many themes. Well, here is the good news. with WordPress, you can pick your favourite theme from more than 11 thousand patterns.
- Every feature of your website, even the tiniest and least important ones such as fonts, font size, colours, the place of pictures, and text are all customizable.
- After publishing your website, you will get into new demands and needs. For example, it could be possible that you will get thousands of views every day and need to have a long email list of your visitors for follow-ups. So, what should you do, if you don't have an email list builder on your website? The best way to collect the email addresses of your customers is by installing a plugin designed to collect email addresses. Well, there are more than 50 thousand useful and practical plugins that can be easily installed in your WordPress-supported website and get the result you want.
- The same is true with themes. They can be nicely downloaded and add aesthetic features to your website. You can download them just like plugins.
How Does WordPress Work?
Well, we learnt that WordPress is software that lets us create and expand our website. It makes your website accessible to everyone. Now, we want to understand how it works. We should start with the basics. For getting online, your website should have a domain name and q host. A domain is basically your address and the host is where all your data is stored in.
So, this is where WordPress comes into the picture. WordPress is placed on top of the domain and host. It is responsible for managing all your files and data. That's why sometimes it is called a content management system. WordPress is just several PHP files with a database that keeps all the content.
Now, what do we have on top of WordPress? We have themes and plugins. What are they? Let's start with themes. Themes are patterns and designs created by web developers to make your website look more professional. You can change the theme of your website thanks to many different variations of them. The same is true with plugins, you can add new functions to your website by installing them. The good thing about WordPress is that it has thousands of themes and plugins you can choose from and easily install. I hope that's enough for understanding how WordPress works.
WordPress ORG And WordPress COM – What Is The Difference?
People often get confused and wonder what the difference between WordPress ORG and COM is. WordPress ORG and COM create a lot of confusion for internet users. You should first know that WordPress was originally designed for blogs. There are two things about WordPress which make it so popular.
First, it is free. Second, it is an open-source platform. We mentioned that thanks to this popularity, more than 30% of websites in the world are powered by WordPress. Now, it doesn’t matter what the content of your website is. In fact, whether you are running an online shop, or creating content for eco-friendly people, or selling houses to people, you can always have WordPress to power your website. It is so compatible with all content and topics.
Features
WordPress is software. So, it means that you have to install it on your web server. Now, be careful because this is where the difference between WordPress ORG and COM is going to be revealed. WordPress.ORG is where you can go and download the software for free. Then, web hosting and organization must be done by you. However, you have to pay to use WordPress.COM. After installation, it will take care of everything including the hosting.
With WordPress.ORG, you can do whatever you want to do with your themes and plugins. For example, you are free to change the style, font, and colour of everything on your website. And, for every new function, you want to add, you have to download it yourself and install it on your website. There are so many options of customization available on WordPress.ORG.
However, with WordPress COM you have lots of options and customizations. Unfortunately, these features are limited to the plan you have paid for. For example, for accessing SEO options and the ability to install external plugins you have to go for the expensive business plan. You might think it is not good. However, sometimes it is better to have fewer options not to get busy creating content. In WordPress COM, installation and security are well-supported by the experts. Also, you have access to email and live support.
Pricing
What about the pricing? You might say that it is obvious. WordPress ORG is free and then it is a better option. Don’t go so fast. Yes, WordPress ORG is free but what about other things you need to run your website? You will need web hosting, a domain name, premium themes, and paid plugins. In fact, you have to pay for all these. But, with WordPress COM, there are several plans including:
- Free
- Personal which is 5 dollars per month and lets you choose a domain name related to your business.
- The next one is the premium plan which costs 8 dollars per month. it includes premium themes.
- The next plan is a business plan which costs 25 dollars per month. With this, you will have access to all paid plugins and live support if you run into any problems.
- The next plan is eCommerce which costs 45 dollars per month.
When you compare all the different factors, you will see that WordPress ORG is going to be cheaper in the long run. However, and this is very important because WordPress ORG doesn’t offer technical support and live support, if you run into a problem, you have to pay an expert to solve your problem. This could cost a lot. So, if you are running a small site, it is better to go for WordPress COM. With q personal or premium plan, you are good to go.
WordPress Alternatives
There are several alternatives to WordPress. The market is pretty competitive. All companies are trying to dominate the market which seems impossible with powerful newcomers. Here, it is better to have a comparison to see whether we can find an alternative for WordPress. Thinking of WordPress alternatives, several options come to my mind.
They include:
- Wix,
- Weebly,
- Jimdo,
- IONOS,
- WebNode,
- Mozello, and
- SITE123.
Of course, your choice is influenced by your expectations, level of professionalism, budget, the size of your company, the application of your website, and many other factors. However, we can compare some factors and parameters to clarify the comparison and make it easier for everyone.
WordPress vs. Wix
We don’t have time to compare all the abovementioned platforms with WordPress. So, we have just picked one of the most important ones which is Wix. Let's compare the two. They take different approaches to create websites.
Ease Of Use
Wix is very easy to work with thanks to its amazing drag & drop style of web building. WordPress, on the other hand, has thousands of themes to choose from. However, some technical requirements must be obtained. So, Wix is the winner here.
SEO
Wix offers you many options for optimizing your site for SEO. For example, you can edit your website title, URL, etc. However, WordPress gives you more. For example, you will have access to very powerful plugins to improve your SEO. So, WordPress is the winner here.
Blogging
Adding a blog to your website powered by Wix is fine but a bit limited. The control over your post is not very flexible. Editing and posting, on the other hand, is amazing on WordPress. This is quite true because WordPress was traditionally the best tool for blogging. Adding tags and categories is possible. Also, plugs for comments, posts, and polls are doable in WordPress. So, the winner here is WordPress.
Additional Apps
Sometimes, you have to add new functionalities to your website. You don't have to worry about this with either Wix or WordPress because they are both amazing. Wix has an app market with thousands of new apps. The same is true with WordPress because it lets you add thousands of features to your website.
Conclusion
It doesn’t matter what you are doing. Are you a hairstylist? Are you a teacher? Or do you an HVAC company? You will need a cool website to expand your business. Aside from domain, host, and other things, you have to power your website. This is done by software. Now, nearly one-third of all websites in the world are powered by WordPress.
There are two kinds of WordPress websites. WordPress.ORG which is free, and WordPress.COM which costs money. Here, in this article, we introduced WordPress and explained how it works. Then, we reviewed some of its features and then compared it with Wix. I hope you got enough information about WordPress to start creating your own website. You might also enjoy this WordPress Tutorial for Beginners, which I wrote.
I trust you enjoyed this WordPress Review. Please stay tuned for more articles to come. Take care!
JeannetteZ
Your Opinion Is Important To Me
Ideas? Thoughts? Questions? I would love to hear from you. Please leave me your questions, experiences, remarks, and/or suggestions about this WordPress Review in the comments section below. You can also reach me by email at Jeannette@WorkFromAnywhereInTheWorld.com.
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