I read somewhere that the WordPress platform now makes up almost 30% of active websites on the internet today. I used to think WordPress was all about blogging, but it seems to be used more and more for static websites these days. I have now made the transition over to WordPress completely for my own business, having used it for a few years to host my blog which was on the back end the site I designed myself, knowing a little bit about html

But the internet is evolving so quickly I thought that WordPress, which does 80% of things you need for a good website straight out of the box, would be worth having primarily because of the support it gets from coders that provide plugins for every conceivable thing you could need, most of which are free.

I also like the fact that it is so easy to add these plugin, usually a matter of a few clicks and away you go.

More and more people are accessing the internet using their mobile phones these days and having a site that is mobile friendly is now essential as far as I’m concerned, I hate visiting websites where you need to scroll from side to side as well as up and down. Having to zoom in to read the text can also be a pain. Whereas if it were mobile friendly the text would be readable and would fit the width of your screen automatically, your images would  also resize to fit the viewers screen. Many of the themes you can download   and use for your WordPress website are already mobile friendly, and if they’re not you can easily download a plugin which will make it so. This beats redirecting your visitors to a separate mobile version of your site, with the extra hassle and cost that that entails.

Talking about themes, the choices are endless with WordPress, you can search hundreds of free themes and paid-for themes. Most can be customised so that you can make it personalised to your brand, allowing you to change text colours, backgrounds, layouts (one column, two or three), add your logo and tag lines, drop in your text from a word processor, it’s so easy with the CMS (content Management System) meaning WordPress does all the coding for you.

You simply type in the text you want to use for your content, drop in images from your online library or upload from your computer. In short if you are not very technically minded, then a CMS based website is a must for you. Designers will charge you for a custom made one, WordPress is free, it won’t cost you a penny to get from the WordPress website.

There are many other reasons to use WordPress. It’s very SEO friendly, a couple of plugins I use are ‘All in one SEO pack’, and ‘XML sitemaps’, which allow you to simply add your SEO friendly Title, Description and Keywords to each page or post

Your Sitemap is automatically updated and notifies Google and Bing of the changes. Which saves you a lot of time from having to do it manually, assuming you know how to do it manually.

The framework and code is clean, meaning Google will find it easier to index your pages, and rank them higher, meaning people will find your site more easily in Google searches.

You can add genuine customer reviews to your site, again with the use of free plugins, you can add opt-in forms easily, Social media sharing buttons, Galleries, you can engage more with your audience via the comments on posts.

WordPress relatively easy to install, and WordPress gives you a step by step guide to doing it. I do offer an installation and hosting service if you decide you can’t be bothered doing it yourself. Which is £100 for the installation and £10 per month for hosting or £180 for the installation and one years hosting up-front, with nothing more to pay other than the next years hosting in twelve months time. If you have your own host, then it’s just £100 for the installation and I’d be happy to install the plugins I use as part of the deal. Just drop me an email to info@miketurnerphotos.co.uk

For further reading check out Nigel Merricks article 17 Reasons For The Photographer To Build A Website Using WordPress