Web developers have many good content management systems to choose from these days. However, one clearly stands out from the crowd – WordPress.
According to a W3Techs survey, the top three content management systems in terms of use are WordPress, Joomla and Drupal. But the race for #1 isn’t even close. WordPress is currently used by 20% of web sites. Joomla and Drupal lag way behind at 3.3% and 2% respectively.
What puts WordPress so far ahead of the pack?
For starters, it offers a very user-friendly backend, especially for people with little or no technical training. In fact, WordPress was designed with the non-techie in mind. Just about anyone can set up a blog on WordPress. And employees with minimal computer skills can set up a basic company website simply by following the online tutorials. WordPress is committed to serving non-technical users, and it shows in the way they design their content management system for ease of use.
For professional web developers who know what they’re doing, WordPress offers other important advantages. The system is easy to install and maintain. Adding new content or reformatting existing pages can be done quickly and easily without any special coding. WordPress site builders don’t need to use HTML editing software – such as Adobe or Dreamweaver – that require more advanced development skills. And they can upload documents, video files, image galleries, and other graphical content without the need for additional HTML or FTP software.
Thanks to its popularity, WordPress has a larger global user community than either Joomla or Drupal. As a result, users can turn to a wide variety of tutorials and help forums to develop their skills and customize their web sites. WordPress also has more plugins, extensions and themes, giving users greater choice in the look, feel and functionality of their WordPress sites. Plus, if a plugin breaks or a security issue arises, the global WordPress community works together to achieve a swift resolution.
One of the biggest advantages of WordPress is that search engines love its clean and simple coding, which makes it easy for them to read and index the content. As a result, WordPress sites are more likely to attain higher search rankings than Joomla and Drupal sites, especially when people search on a company’s targeted keywords. To further optimize search engine results, WordPress makes it easy to give each page, post, and image its own metatag keywords. Also, Drupal and Joomla developers typically charge more – an important consideration for startups and small businesses on a limited budget.
But the real source of WordPress’ overwhelming popularity is one that doesn’t get talked about much because it’s not a technology issue; it’s a marketing/positioning issue.
Joomla and Drupal were designed by technical people who sought to build good content management systems with lots of bells and whistles. In contrast, WordPress was designed by bloggers who were looking to solve a problem. Joomla and Drupal developers focused on the technical aspects of the product. WordPress developers focused on solving customer problems.
There’s an important lesson in the WordPress story for all of us that make a living with technology-related products or services. Customers don’t necessarily want the technology; they want what it does for them. In fact, most customers don’t even care about the technology. They just want it to work right and solve their problems.
Web developers, are you listening?
