WordPress has been the most popular Content Management System (CMS) for over a decade, and its dominance continues in 2023. WordPress usage statistics show that it is the preferred platform for website creation and management for millions of individuals and organizations worldwide. Here are some of the most recent WordPress usage statistics that demonstrate its growth and popularity.

WordPress Usage Statistics Overview

WordPress is powering 41% of all websites globally, as of 2023. In other words, four out of every ten websites you visit are likely to be built on WordPress. This statistic has been growing steadily over the years and is a testament to the platform’s flexibility, ease of use, and versatility.

In terms of the types of websites built on WordPress, it caters to a wide range of industries and niches. WordPress powers everything from personal blogs and small business websites to large e-commerce stores, news websites, and even government portals.

WordPress usage statistics show that the platform is also popular with developers, who use it as a base for building custom websites and applications. WordPress’s open-source nature means that it’s highly customizable and extendable, making it an ideal platform for developers to work with.

WordPress Market Share

When it comes to market share, WordPress is the clear leader in the CMS space. As mentioned earlier, it powers 41% of all websites, with the next closest CMS being Joomla, which has a market share of just 2.8%.

WordPress’s dominance in the market is unlikely to change anytime soon, as it continues to grow in popularity and attract new users. Its vast community of developers, designers, and users creates a virtuous cycle that reinforces its position as the go-to platform for website creation and management.

WordPress vs. Other CMS Platforms

While WordPress is the clear leader in the CMS space, it’s worth comparing it to other popular platforms to see how it stacks up.

One of WordPress’s main competitors is Wix, a cloud-based website builder that has been growing in popularity in recent years. However, WordPress still has a significant lead over Wix, with a 41% market share compared to Wix’s 3.3%.

Another competitor is Shopify, a platform that specializes in e-commerce websites. While Shopify is the leader in the e-commerce space, with a 10% market share, it still trails behind WordPress’s overall market share.

Overall, WordPress’s flexibility and versatility make it a more attractive platform than specialized solutions like Shopify, which are limited in scope.

Mobile WordPress Usage Statistics

In today’s mobile-first world, it’s essential for websites to be mobile-friendly. WordPress has made significant strides in this area, with mobile usage accounting for a substantial portion of its overall usage.

WordPress mobile usage statistics show that over 50% of all WordPress websites are accessed via mobile devices. This is a significant increase from just a few years ago when mobile usage was closer to 30%.

This increase in mobile usage can be attributed to several factors, including the rise of mobile devices and the increasing importance of mobile-friendly websites for search engine optimization (SEO).

WordPress Security

One concern that many users have when it comes to WordPress is security. WordPress is often targeted by hackers and malicious actors due to its popularity and the large number of websites built on the platform.

However, WordPress has made significant strides in improving security in recent years. The platform is regularly updated with security patches and fixes, and there is a robust ecosystem of security plugins and services available to WordPress users.

WordPress’s security features and practices make it a safe and secure platform for building and managing websites. As with any platform, users must take appropriate security precautions, such as using strong passwords and keeping their WordPress installations up to date.

Want to get started with your own WordPress site?

All of our web hosting packages come with WordPress Toolkit to allow you to install, update and manage WordPress from a single user-friendly interface.  Why not give it a try?

If you have read our last article “What is WordPress?” Then you will have seen we mentioned plugins. One very popular plugin is WooCommerce with over 5 million active users, but what is WooCommerce?

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a free to use open-source online platform that allows you to turn your website into an E-Commerce site. This means you will be able to sell goods and services from your website. Due to WooCommerce being open-source you are not limited like traditional E-commerce platforms, you can modify and customise every aspect of your store to create what is right for you to make you stand out from the crowd.

Features of WooCommerce

WooCommerce works seamlessly with WordPress and allows business owners to run their online store without the need of a web developer unlike other E-commerce platforms, making running an online store more accessible than ever. It offers all the features needed to run your online store and more. Some of these features include:

• Unrestricted customisation. Every aspect of your site can be changed to truly make it your own whether it is the theme or something small such as the design of your checkout button
• Reviews and ratings. Ratings and reviews can be placed on the product page for your customers to see.
• Search filtering. Products searches can be refined for newness, popularity and so on helping the right products be found on your site.
• Built-in payment processing. Take payments using a variety of methods from PayPal to debit card or cash on delivery, it’s up to you.
• Shipping rates. Calculate and change shipping rates dependant on product size or weight so the right price is shown for the customer at the checkout.
• Tax rates. Automatically calculate tax rates based on the customer’s address and changes based on major country or state tax rates.

The features available on WooCommerce are endless and cover every aspect of running an online business from the design of your web page to the managing of taxes and product shipping.

The way WooCommerce offers a variety of features is through its add ons and extensions. Extensions can be free or paid for and cover a multitude of features allowing the user to only add features they require creating a leaner and less cluttered online store.

Why choose WooCommerce?

So why should you choose WooCommerce? It is built to work flawlessly with WordPress the world’s most popular Content Management system. It is free to use and allows users to customise every aspect of their online store without the need of a web developer. Also, there is also a huge range of extensions on offer (free or paid) that aid in creating the best E-Commerce site for you.

How to Set-up WooCommerce on your WordPress site

You can find a link here to our guide on setting up WooCommerce.

So you just started hosting your website with NetWeaver. The next step is to design your website, but how? One answer is WordPress.

What is WordPress?

WordPress is an online free to use website creation tool that is based upon PHP. The Content Management System (CMS) is renowned for its easy to use interface and a huge range of plugins that allow even novice web developers to create a professional and unique website. It is one of the most powerful CMS’s available and it is the choice of over 34% of the internet along with many massive corporations such as Spotify, Disney, TIME and more.

What can you do with WordPress?

WordPress is very versatile. It can be used to create  a variety of different websites such as:

• E-commerce, WordPress enables its users to process payments, configure taxes and shipping and more. Making it the perfect place to build your online store
• Blog, The easy to use design means it’s never been simpler to share your thoughts and opinions on your very own website. Anything from blogs posts about family recipes to tech support, WordPress makes getting yourself heard by millions easier than ever.
• Photography, WordPress’ beautiful and sleek designs are the ideal place to showcase your work. The hundreds of templates available are ideal for creating a website that can pair with your unique style of photography and showcase the best of your work to the world.

That is just a few of the many possibilities of your WordPress site, you can follow the link here to another one of our blog posts, ” 10 Things you can build with WordPress.”

How to personalise your website.

When using WordPress it is important to personalise your website and make it unique. The best way to do this is with plugins. Plugins are software additions that allow for customisation. There are hundreds too choose from and they all offer something unique and different from improved security or extra themes. Some of our favourite plugins include:

• Yoast SEO, SEO stands for search engine optimisation. This is what affects how highly you will show up on a search engine’s search results. The better your SEO the more likely your website is to be visited. Read more about SEO plugins here.
• WP Super Cache, Cache plugins reuse data from previous requests helping improve the loading time of a page. This is important because higher page speeds mean better search rankings. Ultimately meaning more traffic for your website. Read more about cache plugins here.
• WordFence, One important thing to do with your website is to make it secure as possible. This is one of the most popular security plugins. The plugin alerts you of potential security risks and recommendations on how to deal with them, as well as blocking brute force attacks and more. To find out more about WordFence and the security of your website read our blog post, Improving the security of your WordPress site.

How to Start using WordPress.

Once you have made a web hosting account with NetWeaver you will be able to install it via your control panel. To find our full step by step guide on how to install WordPress click here. All of our web hosting packages are fully optimised for the use of WordPress. Providing exceptionally fast, stable and secure hosting for your WordPress website.

It’s a commonly held thought that launching your own website takes hundreds of hours spread over many months.  What if you want to do it in just 15 minutes?  Not possible, surely?

With the combined power of NetWeaver and WordPress – we think it is.  You’ve got an idea for your site, you’ve decided what to call it –  let’s start the clock….

0:00 – 1 min – Setup your hosting

Head to www.netweaver.uk and place an order.  Your account will be setup instantly.

1:00 – 1 min – Install WordPress

Login to your control panel and find the ‘WordPress Toolkit‘ option.  Install the latest version of WordPress.

2:00 – 2 mins – Choose a theme

There are hundreds of free themes available to use for your site – choose the one that appeals to you.

4:00 – 5 mins – Customise your site

Spend a few minutes adding relevant content to the Pages of your website in WordPress.  Details of your products or services, contact details and opening times.

9:00 – 2 mins – Add a blog post

On the Posts section of WordPress add a post introducing you and/or your business to the world.  The Posts section allows to you keep your website up to date and relevant, whilst adding new content to keep your visitors interested.

11:00 – 2 mins – SEO optimise your site

From the Plugins menu, install Yoast SEO and follow the advice.

13:00 – 2 mins – Secure your site.

Again, from the Plugins menu, install a security plugin to help keep your new site secure.

15:00 – You’re all done.

A simple website online within 15 minutes.  Don’t leave it there though, over the coming weeks you can add all kinds of functionality to your website.  Check out this blog post from Alan on the types of sites you can make with WordPress.

WordPress is a content management system used by millions of websites all over the world. But what exactly can you build with it? Is WordPress just about publishing blogs, or are there other applications too?

It turns out that you can do a lot more with WordPress than publish blogs. Yes, WordPress is a content management platform, but the universe of possibilities that it offers far exceeds what most people expect. In truth, it’s a kind of operating system for the internet, providing hundreds, if not thousands, of features through its network of helpful plugins.

So what esoteric things can you build with this wonder platform? Let’s take a look.

E-Commerce Websites

Although Shopify would have you believe that it is the only game in town when it comes to e-commerce websites, WordPress provides a fabulously rich resource for newbie entrepreneurs to flog their wares over the internet. No, it’s not as intuitive as Shopify by any stretch of the imagination, but what WordPress lacks in user-friendliness it more than makes up for in features. With WordPress, you can create a bespoke e-commerce shopping site, integrate payment, manage inventory, and do practically everything that you can do on off-the-shelf solutions, like Shopify. What’s more, it’s relatively cheap to run too. 

Podcasts

Despite the plethora of videocasts out there on the internet, there’s still a role for podcasts in the modern world thanks to the fact that people like to move around and do other things as they listen. WordPress provides a platform that helps to manage and arrange podcasts, as well as giving users search tools to browse through them.

Contact Books

If you run a small enterprise or a consulting business, managing all your clients can soon become a difficult task. But with the help of WordPress contacts plugin, you can quickly view which of your contacts are currently on your site, allowing you to manage them more effectively and deploy better marketing.

Web Soapboxes

Web soapboxes are a little bit like the internet’s version of talk radio. They’re an opportunity for every Tom, Dick and Harry out there to share their opinions with others. WordPress provides tools that allow you to create websites that make it easy for people to voice their views, whether that’s through forum plugins, comments plugins, or the ability to upload video.

Review Sites

Review sites have jumped enormously in popularity over recent years. People view review sites to try to find genuine information about products that they want to buy. There are, in general, two ways to build a review website, both facilitated by WordPress. The first is to write the reviews yourself – a bit like an editorial column at a magazine. WordPress provides you with facilities to periodically publish reports in a highly structured and formatted way.

The second is to get customers to write reviews themselves. If you’re an e-commerce company, this could come in handy. As the vendor, you can verify that a customer has made the purchase and that their review is authentic. Customer reviews are becoming increasingly popular and are being driven by people’s desire to find out what peers think about the goods that they are considering buying online.

Resume Sites

While most people will be satisfied uploading their CVs to LinkedIn and Indeed, for some, that just isn’t enough. WordPress allows you to build resume sites where you can include much more information about who you are, what you do, and where you’ve come from than any CV ever could.

Photo Galleries

Let’s say you’ve just taken your business to an event and you want to show customers and record of what you did. Perhaps you want to share images of people enjoying your products or of the props you used at a tradeshow. Whatever it is, WordPress can help. WordPress has tools that allow you to share all your photos with friends and followers online, and an intuitive user interface that makes browsing those pictures easy.

Business Websites

For most businesses, their websites aren’t the primary way they generate sales. But merely having a site can help a great deal. Prospective customers will usually want to check out your website as a matter of course to see what your company is about, what your values are, and, frankly, whether you have the expertise to construct a great website (as that might be an indication of the quality of your products).

WordPress is an excellent tool for creating company websites because it offers much more functionality than standard website builder templates. With its many plugins and the ability to edit the source code, WordPress provides a world of opportunities to savvy companies who want to create bespoke experiences for their users.

News Sites

Many companies need outlets through which they can tell the world about stories that they are interested in. And while many will choose to push them through a blog or articles section on their main site, others will create an entirely new website just for current affairs.

WordPress can help in this regard too. In fact, WordPress is such a great tool for news that some of the most prominent news organisations in the world, like CNN and Techcrunch, use the platform to distribute their stories. WordPress allows the builders of news sites to create summary pages that link to articled and automatically update once new stories come through.

Question And Answer Sites

You’ve no doubt heard of Quora. It’s a website where you can ask pretty much any question you like and hope that somebody, somewhere has an answer. One of the great things about Quora is the fact that the site allows users to vote on whether they think an answer is good or not, pushing the best responses to the top of the list, and relegating those that do not make the grade.

Because of its rich set of features, WordPress can be used to build question and answer sites too. WordPress users can choose between several plugins, including DW Questions and Answers and CM Answers.

Get Started Today

Ultra-optimised WordPress Hosting from NetWeaver is just £5/month and you can be up and running in minutes.  Click here for more information.

What is a Cache Plugin?

Cache plugins create a static version of your site’s content and deliver it to visitors. This reuses data from previous requests so that visitors don’t have to request the same information every time they view a page.

Why is this important?

Caching reduces the amount of fresh information that a visitor loads when viewing your page, improving its loading time significantly. The higher the page speed, the better your search rankings, so the more traffic your website will attract. To further improve you search rankings, see our article on SEO plugins here.

Now that you know what a cache plugin is, let’s take a look at the 4 best WordPress cache plugins available.

WP Super Cache

With over 1 million active installations and a 4.5 star average rating from 1,000+ reviews it is one of the most popular WordPress plugins.

WP Super Cache features 3 methods of caching files:

• Expert: This is the fastest method, recommended only if you are experienced with editing PHP files.
• Simple: With an easy configuration and no PHP file editing, this method is recommended to most users.
• WP-Cache caching: This is the slowest method but has its advantages. It is useful for known users such as those who are logged in or leave comments.

Advantages:

• Free.
• Flexible. With 3 methods of caching files you are sure to find one that is perfect for you website.

W3 Total Cache

With over 1 million active installations and an average rating of 4.5 stars based on nearly 4,000 reviews, W3 Total Cache is even more well regarded than WP Super Cache.

The wide range of features that this plugin offers is impressive. Perhaps its only downside is that this number of features can be overwhelming.  However, W3 Total Cache manages this fairly well as the default settings are ideal for most users. If you do wish to configure each feature, there is a dedicated settings page for each one.

Advantages:

• Free.
• Huge number of features.

WP Fastest Cache

Despite its lower 700,000 active installations this is the most highly rated free plugin available. It received a 5 star average rating from over 2,000 reviews.

WP Fastest Cache describes itself as the ‘simplest WP cache system’ and it certainly delivers in this regard. It is the easiest free WordPress cache plugin available, featuring fewer configuration options allowing for an easy setup.

Advantages:

• Free with the option of a premium upgrade for $40.
• Simple interface with a lack of overwhelming features.
• Simple setup.

WP Rocket

WP Rocket is this most popular premium cache plugin for WordPress with an average 5 star rating from 2,000+ reviews.

This plugin begins caching on activation meaning no setup is required. This is great if you don’t want to mess around with setup configurations. You can of course alter the settings if you wish however the default configuration is perfect for most users. The only downside to this plugin is its price of $39 for 1 website. However we believe that the benefit of this plugin justifies its cost.

Advantages:

• Effective caching and customer support
• Instant setup on activation makes this the simplest caching plugin to configure

Which Plugin is Best for You?

When trying to determine which of these plugins are best for you and your site, we would wager that any one of these would more than meet your demands. However here are some guidelines to assist you in your decision:

•  If you are willing to spend money on a caching plugin, we highly recommend WP Rocket. This is the best premium WordPress cache plugin available regardless if you are more interested in simplicity or effectiveness.
• If you are looking for a free caching system that prioritises simplicity, or you are a beginner, we recommend WP Fastest Cache.
• For a wide range of features and a more advanced setup, give W3 Total Cache a try for free.

We hope this article helped you find the caching plugin that is best your site. If we left any out please let us know in the comments.

SEO is the acronym for Search Engine Optimisation. It allows websites to reach a higher position in a search engine’s search results. This leads to more traffic reaching your website and is therefore crucial to a successful site.

Luckily WordPress offers many plugins that make SEO an easy task. Since you only need one SEO plugin, we have narrowed it down to what we believe are the three best WordPress SEO plugins.

It is no secret that Yoast SEO is the most popular WordPress SEO plugin out there however it should not be the default plugin in all situations. The other plugins up for contention are the All in One SEO Pack and The SEO Framework.

What Makes a Good SEO Plugin?

The most popular plugins are almost always beginner friendly. While SEO pros will have a use for plugins, it is the beginners that will be most reliant on them. Therefore a good SEO plugin should include a simple installation process and an easy to use interface.

However, this is not the only factor that makes a good plugin. Many SEO plugins are too similar, offering the same features with few standing out from the crowd. Although these three plugins are free initially, each can be upgraded to premium versions (for a price course). Therefore the price and value of these upgrades may be important if you really want to climb the search ladder.

What is the Best WordPress SEO Plugin?

Yoast SEO

With a 5 star average based on nearly 22,000 reviews, Yoast is considered the most popular SEO plugin out there. The main reason for this is its user friendly interface making it ideal for beginners and an easy ‘Setup Configuration Wizard’. However it can at times be too tailored to beginners as it hides some of its best (but more complicated) features under the ‘Advanced’ tab in settings.

It has a wide range of features such as the ability to edit URL titles, meta descriptions and an analysis on improving readability and ‘SEO score’.

Although many people find these recommendations helpful, they are general suggestions and should not be followed by the book otherwise your posts may come across as robotic. They pick up on unnecessary changes such as a ‘stop word’ in a URL or the misuse of a ‘passive voice’.

Pros:

• A wide variety of features
• Very beginner friendly with an easy to use interface
• Easy setup thanks to the ‘Setup Configuration Wizard’

Cons:

• Analysis can be too generic
• Expensive premium upgrade. WordPress SEO by Yoast Premium is $80
• Very tailored to beginners, hiding advanced features

All in One SEO Pack

This is the ‘original WordPress SEO plugin’ and was first created in 2007. Despite its age it is still the most actively used WordPress SEO plugin with around 3 million active installations and a 4.5 star average rating from 400 reviews.

It remains fairly user friendly but still includes advanced features. Some of these include a bot blocker, easy Google Analytics integration (used to view website stats) and free WooCommerce integration. This makes it ideal for online merchants. It is difficult to find many negatives with this plugin, it manages to please both advanced and beginner users.

Pros:

• Free WooCommerce integration (usually a premium feature), ideal for online merchants
• Bad Bot Blocker, which blocks any harmful bots from slowing down your site
• Easy Google Analytics integration
• Can be used by just about anyone, not too difficult for beginners but not too simple for experts

Cons:

• Could be more user friendly. The interface requires a lot of scrolling.
• Very slimmed down interface which may not suit all beginners.

The SEO Framework

This can be considered the underdog of the 3 plugins. Despite significantly lower active installations, it has great reviews. From under 200 reviews, 96% rated it 5 stars out of 5.

The setup has both pros and cons. It is one long list of settings but once they are finished, you are done. No notifications, no pressuring into upgrading, just a big list of potential features. However, there is little guidance throughout the setup which makes it unwelcoming to beginners. Instead it is tailored perfectly to experts who will no doubt appreciate its lack of unnecessary interference.

It also provides free support for WooCommerce which makes it ideal to online merchants.

Pros:

• Free WooCommerce integration, great for online merchants
• Simple, efficient setup if you are experienced
• Little interaction after setup, everything can be managed from the settings if required

Cons:

• Not suited to beginners due to a lack of guidance. Although this is the only negative we picked up on, it is likely the reason for its lack of users. However without this it would be less tailored to experienced users.

Conclusion:

There is no generic best WordPress SEO plugin, but we believe one of these plugins will suit everyone. Here are some guidelines to help you decide which one suits you best:

• If you are an experienced SEO user who wants an efficient plugin with no unnecessary annoyances, or you are bored of the same old 2 plugins, give The SEO Framework a try.
• If you are a total beginner who is looking for an easy, user-friendly interface to add some basic SEO to your site, Yoast will not disappoint. It is the most popular plugin for that reason.
• And finally, if you are neither a beginner or an expert in SEO, you can’t go wrong with The All in One SEO Pack which we believe will suit just about anyone.

We hope this comparison helped you find the SEO plugin that best suits your site. If we left any out please to let us know in the comments.