It is no secret that I love WordPress CMS.  Even people who have spent a small ounce of time with me know, I shamelessly plug WP.  My site is WP, the last site I built was WP, mores sites I am freelancing will definitely use WP, and the only websites I bookmark are WP sites.  So you might be asking, why?  Why all the shameless plugs and why the blog post glorifying WP?  It’s simple, WordPress as a CMS (not a blogger) is revolutionary.  It is the future of a CMS backed web.

The top 5 reasons to use WordPress CMS.

1) The Ubiquitous CMS

It is estimated that around 200 million people visit one or more WordPress.com blogs every month, and they view over a billion pages on those blogs.  Also, there are over 33 million publishers on 7 million hosted blogs plus 16.9 million active, private installations of WordPress CMS.  This graph shows WordPress (as a blogger) receiving twice as much traffic as its nearest competitor, Blogger (ironicly owned by Google).  Clearly, WordPress is ahead of the pack as far as content, number of installations, and overall traffic.

Web audiences are comfortable with WP sites, and are responding well.  It seems to be the most popular choice for both developers and users.   With WP remaining free (.org site), its use and popularity will only increase.

2)  Open Source FTW

As we have learned from Google, Facebook, and most new-age websites, the only e-business model that works is one that releases “freeware”.  People need to use a product before they “buy” into it.  Many sites like Fickr and Vimeo offer premium packages as an alternative for users who want a little more.  However, most sites still rely heavily on advertising to make a large portion of their money.  Facebook and Google are obviously the biggest culprits here.  However, WordPress is not really an e-business…

Luckily enough, not only is WordPress open source, but it is also a non-profit .org site.  Unlike Google and Facebook, WP isn’t trying to fill every bit of usable web space with advertisements.  Wordpress is simply trying to create a powerful web tool for developers.  People may think that this will derail competition and progress, but WP has a thriving community developing plug-ins, widgets, and even user documentation.  The developers also update the core software very regularly.  This all proves that WordPress CMS is reliable, always up-to-date, well tested, and continuously evolving.

3) A Usability Dream

Thanks to well designed UI menus, the WP-admin page allows any idiot the ability to alter a WP site.  No knowledge of web code is required for someone to add or remove content. Plug-ins can be installed, themes can be downloaded, PHP and CSS files can be edited, navigation menus can be created, widgets can be dragged and dropped, and content can be generated all from the same admin page.  This saves time and money for any small or big business.

Prior to CMS’s like WP, companies would have to work through Dreamweaver or other text edit programs that couldn’t deal with database backed websites in semi-real time.  On top of this, knowing the development and design side to produce a robust site would have required a large team of people.  Now with WP you don’t need to constantly update pages and templates with robust software, constantly re-upload edits, or deal with FTP clients.  Everything can be done in a browser with little knowledge of web code.  This is the beauty of any browser-based CMS.

4)  CMS vs Blog & Fluid Designs

I just wanted to throw this in.  WordPress is not just a blogger, it is a content management system.  The term blog implies something about a site’s content, what it is, and how it is displayed.  The idea of a blog is something that is more static, barely modifiable, and usually centers around an author or group of authors discussing a specific topic(s) for a selected niche audience.  While WordPress was originally a blog platform, it is now much more than that.  Content “posts” no longer need to be in the basic blog format.  They can be styled in an infinite number of ways, and can be called or streamed through widgets or post feeds.  A fundamental shift has occurred, the process of making a blog post has evolved into making stream-lined content “posts”.  After all, we cannot build or use a CMS without acknowledging the importance of separating form from content.

Check out a few of these sites (below) that use WP-CMS and notice the differences.  Remember that everything you are seeing is tied to a content post (with associated categories, tags, and comments) that is ultimately stored in a database.  Sites will range from personal portfolio sites, small business to large.

Ninjatown.com (Check out the Cast page, too!)

N.Design Portfolio (My favorite Portfolio site)

WP’s list of fortune 500 companies that use WP-CMS

Another list of amazing sites built with WordPress

5)  Site Longevity

Thanks to WP’s usability prowess and database driven content, updating websites is super simple.  New technologies will come in the form of plug-ins, widgets, and core updates.  These can easily be implemented within the WP-admin page and via a drag-and-drop style widget menu.  Even navigation works in this fashion.  Since content is completely separate from form (design) themes can be altered, disabled, or installed with a click of a mouse. This will allow websites to continuously update designs as web-trends come and go.  A CMS is basically a DMS, database management system.

Over the next few years, more and more sites will be backed by WordPress CMS.  They won’t always look the same, developers are already getting good at coming up with unique designs.  You can bet that that this decade of the web will be dominated by WordPress.