In recent years, millions of household brands have switched to WordPress because it’s known for offering improved security, performance, and reliability across all fronts. From Facebook and Disney to Verizon and ebay, WordPress now powers more than a quarter of all websites worldwide.
Despite such popularity, you may still be wondering: what are the benefits of a WordPress-powered site?
To better understand why companies make the leap (and see if you should too) here are three reasons why big brands are switching to WordPress.
1. Security You Can Depend on
Getting hacked is just about the worst thing that can happen to a professional website. If you’ve experienced this before, you understand how challenging it is to have your site content erased or your sensitive personal information stolen.
Despite these consequences, there’s still good news: switching to WordPress can greatly reduce your chances of being hacked. In fact, properly architected and maintained WordPress sites are much more secure than most other hosting solutions.
But how?
To start, managed WordPress hosts monitor customer websites 24/7. This gives big brands peace of mind (and time to focus on more important tasks). Most hosts that implement consistent monitoring have also implemented step-by-step mitigation processes. This ensures that attacks will be resolved quickly and accurately.
Some managed WordPress hosts have even created their own security systems to further enhance website safety. A great example of a custom security system comes from Pagely, a leading managed WordPress host. Pagely’s security system PressArmour takes a preventative approach to security by implementing features such as 2-factor authentication, system-wide comment spam prevention, and customized firewall rules. As a result, Pagely-hosted sites have significantly reduced chances of experiencing a successful brute force or DDoS attack.
2. Seamless Scalability
Growing companies are often plagued by slow website loading times, error reports, and unexpected crashes. Your site’s inability to handle high volumes of traffic is certainly inconvenient, but it’s also detrimental to your bottom line. Poor website performance leads to increased page abandonment, decreased user experience, and lower overall search rankings.
What many big brands don’t realize is that just a one second delay can have a huge impact on future sales. In fact, 79% of shoppers who are dissatisfied with website performance are less likely to visit that site again. Such high expectations for site performance place a great deal of pressure on brands to maintain optimal website speed and performance.
WordPress takes this pressure off by making it easy to scale quickly and efficiently. Some managed sites utilize Amazon Web Services because of its advanced geo routing services. Geo routing is essential for keeping high traffic websites fast and reliable. Whether you want to increase conversions, raise subscriber rates, or boost brand recognition, WordPress makes it easy to scale quickly and efficiently — all without impacting website performance.
Take lead generation SaaS app OptinMonster, for example. The company switched to WordPress because it needed a scalable solution that would accommodate increasing API requests. OptinMonster used managed WordPress to identify bandwidth blockages and implement custom cache purging — two changes which allow the site to manage millions of API requests daily. As the team continues to grow, get more leads for more clients, and experience increased traffic, OptinMonster’s website remains fast, reliable, and uninterrupted.
3. Infinite Customization Options
Paying for a web host that limits customization is like buying a car you can only drive certain places. If you’re shelling out top dollar for a website that’s supposed to increase revenue, don’t you want it to properly reflect your brand?
A WordPress-powered site allows infinite customization in both design and functionality. One of the key reasons that big brands are making the smart move to WordPress is because it offers over 47,000 plugins for extending site capabilities. From advanced SEO and analytics plugins to industry-specific galleries, it’s no wonder that WordPress is used by so many big brands in so many different industries.
WordPress also has a number of features and add-ons specifically designed to support the needs of eCommerce brands. Online retailers can set up a shop with WooCommerce, which offers more advanced customization options over competitors like Shopify. WooCommerce allows you to host your site on your own URL. This boosts searchability and is great for SEO, plus it isn’t an option on other leading eCommerce sites.
Another benefit of WooCommerce is that it has thousands of extensions for everything from inventory management to marketing. Whether you want to start accepting PayPal payments, get shipping rates for UPS or add the option for product personalization, WooCommerce has an extension for practically any functionality. This kind of flexibility makes it easy to create the brand site you’ve always desired, without having to make any exceptions or sacrifices.
Drew Hendricks is a startup advisor and Co-Founder of GuestPost.com
