Having an online presence for your company is essential to operate in any field nowadays. However, not everyone has the resources and expertise to publish a website online. That is why you should consider using WordPress for small business sites.
You have probably already heard about WordPress.
It is the most popular platform for website publishing as well as the easiest to use. Since it is free and effective, it is a great choice for companies with limited budgets.
However, it not costing anything does not detract from its quality. WordPress is open-source, which means it is maintained by a wide range of developers from around the world that are focused on patching its security and adding new useful features.
In this article, you will learn about the following:
- What is WordPress and why is it important for small businesses?
- Why is it beneficial to use WordPress for small business sites?
- How to make a professional small business website with WordPress?
Are you ready? Then, read on!
What is WordPress and why is it important for small businesses?
WordPress is the most popular Content Management System (CMS) around. It powers 38% of all internet websites among big and small businesses.
With it, you can create, manage, and scale any kind of website, personal blog, online store, and others for your small business.
It is also free and open-source, which means anyone can use it and it receives constant updates from various developers worldwide.
Choosing WordPress for small business sites is a natural process as it provides great value without needing to invest heavily into a paid solution. Since it is intuitive and easy to use, it also does not require a time commitment to training to use it.
By installing and running WordPress, your small business is able to achieve a quality online presence to rival big companies.
With a wide variety of themes, plugins, and support, you are able to reach your goals in smarter ways.
Why is it beneficial to use WordPress for small business sites?
Using WordPress for small business sites is a great way to add value to your online presence without needing to commit a lot of time and resources to it.
Even if you do not have the same budget as big companies, that does not mean you cannot enjoy the benefits of quality WordPress websites to drive business to you.
Below, you will find a list of the most important benefits of using WordPress for small business sites. Check it out!
Easy and quick set-up
With just a quick download and upload to your hosting service, you are able to install WordPress easily and quickly. You will soon be inside your CMS interface with plenty of features to use and explore.
Also, plenty of hosting services offer automated WordPress installations. This means you can make this process even faster with just a single click to start using your new CMS.
User-friendly interface
WordPress is highly popular partly due to its user-friendly interface. Its menus and settings are easy to find and understand, which is highly needed for small businesses with no time or resources to learn complex systems.
By navigating within the left sidebar, you can easily find what you are looking for.
While browsing your settings, those usually have a short description that tells you what they do. In addition, WordPress has a visual editor, which shows you the results of your changes in real-time.
Google Analytics integration
Google Analytics helps you keep track of various pieces of data related to your website and drive more results to your small business.
However, depending on what CMS you use, its integration might now be easy. Thankfully, WordPress works really well with Google Analytics tracking.
This means you are able to use WordPress for small business websites and enjoy all of Google Analytics’ features to learn more about your users and results. There is no technical knowledge required to install and use it.
Helpful support community
While running your small business, there might be times you have questions about how to use WordPress and little time to do extensive research on it.
Fortunately, WordPress has an official support community that is frequented by other users and developers where you can post your questions and comments.
It also has a vast knowledge base wiki with multiple subjects and guides on how to use WordPress’s various features.
The database is constantly updated with more information so there are high chances you will find what you need.
Broad variety of themes
You can use a wide variety of visual themes to completely change the appearance of your WordPress site.
Those add a new design to your pages, which you can further customize with widgets and scripts.
WordPress also supports custom WordPress themes which you can build with the help of a web designer.
This is the best option to help your small business website stand out and carry your brand on its design features.
Access to third-party plugins
WordPress already comes with plenty of features by default, however, you can extend those by installing third-party plugins from its wide library.
They are able to completely change how you interact with the CMS and help you turn your small business website into exactly what it needs to be.
Currently, there are over 50 thousand WordPress plugins at the official library.
With them, you can obtain additional features for security, SEO, design, special pages, scripting, and several others. In case you have access to the development experience, you can also create and install your own plugins.
SEO-friendliness
Another advantage of using WordPress for small business websites is that, by default, it is highly SEO-friendly.
It has numerous features and settings that work well to give visibility to your content for web-crawlers such as Google’s. Among those, are attractive permalinks, easy metadata handling, image optimization, mobile-friendliness, and others.
Additionally, you can work with some WordPress plugins to have even more SEO-focused features.
Yoast is a great example, as it helps you further optimize your content with a dynamic checklist that gives you context-based suggestions.
Security and reliability
WordPress receives constant updates to always stay secure. Since it is open-source, that means a large group of developers work worldwide to address potential security threats and add new features to protect your data and your user’s experience.
As usual, you are able to install third-party WordPress security plugins that further extend these features.
Those include cloud-based backups, firewalls, virus and malware real-time scanners, anti-spam for comments, and more.
Advanced e-commerce features
In case you might think WordPress is only good for personal and small business corporate sites, you should know it also works as an e-commerce engine.
Thanks to plugins such as WooCommerce and BigCommerce, you can turn your WordPress site into an online store easily and quickly.
That way, you are able to mix WordPress’ ease of use with e-commerce functionality, therefore achieving your goals without having to completely change your CMS and workflow.
That saves time and resources.
How to make a professional small business website with WordPress?
As WordPress can be highly beneficial to your small business, you just need to learn how to create your own website with this useful tool.
Below is the step-by-step process on how to make a professional small business website while using WordPress.
1. Choose a domain name
Picking the domain name for your small business website is what determines its web address. It needs to be simple and easy to remember if you expect people to visit it.
There are multiple companies called registrars that handle domain name registrations but you might also be able to do this through your hosting service (see the following step).
2. Purchase a website host
You also need a host to store your website’s data. They work as virtual drives where you can upload your files, which includes your WordPress installation, images, and others.
As there are several different hosting services online, you should pick the one that fits your needs.
Consider how much traffic you expect to get, the kinds of resources you need, and additional features such as tech support.
If you choose a managed hosting, such as Stage, you won’t need to bother with the technical aspects and maintenance of your WordPress website. This type of hosting is ideal for small businesses because you don’t need to rely on a IT staff (which is expensive) to keep your page running smoothly.
3. Download and install WordPress
As you already know, WordPress is free.
To install it, you just need to go to the official website, download the latest version, and extract the files to your hosting service space. You should also create a database for it using MySQL.
Conclude the setup process by accessing your website URL on your browser. Fill out the information it asks for and you will be redirected to the WordPress admin panel.
4. Choose and activate a theme
In order for your small business website to stand out and capture your brand’s identity, you need a good visual theme. Thankfully, there are plenty of options to choose from, including customized ones.
Make sure to work with a theme that offers a good amount of features and fits your business appropriately.
5. Add extra features by using plugins
You can further extend your small business website’s features by installing third-party plugins. You can search for them within the Plugins section and install them right away.
Just be careful not to activate too many plugins. Also, make sure to only work with credible add-ons, as they can seriously damage your website.
6. Create worthwhile content
The best way to bring the right audience to your small business is by creating quality content on your website. Consider those people’s needs and motivations and use your newly created WordPress site to host such content.
Additionally, make sure to promote this content and optimize it by considering SEO in your plans.
Choosing WordPress for small business websites is a great decision as it gives you plenty of features in a free and easy to use package.
This CMS is also very flexible since the right selection of themes and plugins can turn it into exactly what your company needs, ranging from a corporate website to an online store.
How about learning more about this powerful tool? Download our WordPress Guide for Corporate Blogs and find out how to turn it into your main tool in any Content Marketing strategy.
