WordPress is one of (if not the most) popular content management systems (CMS) in the world and is used for an estimated 25% of all websites. WordPress (WP) is malleable to the need of the user and it works great for sites large and small.
But the question remains, is WordPress good enough for your enterprise or business website?
In short, the answer is yes — but there’s a lot to be unpacked. In the following, we’ll dig into WordPress’s track record, highlight some of its features, and assuage any doubts you may have about its application for business.
WordPress’s track record
WordPress is used by roughly a fourth of all websites but if you drill down further into the data you’ll see that WP is used by nearly 60% of all sites that employ a CMS. So in these relative terms, WP is even more widely used.
The list of companies that have trusted WP for business purposes is illustrious: Ebay, Facebook, The New York Times, Sony, CNN, and NASA — just to name a few.
WP is open-source and by virtue of this, it is constantly being edited, updated, and improved. Better still, the WP ecosystem is built on a cornerstone of transparency and efficiency and because of this, you won’t be paying big licensing fees or bills to a large IT company.
Features that make WordPress great for enterprise
When you survey the WP platform there is a lot to like. Here are some of the key specifics that set WP apart.
- Multiple authors & user types – easy for teams to work collaboratively
- Multi-site publishing
- Automatic system updates and fixes
- Multilingual website publishing
- Innovative and useful content publishing tools
- WordPress VIP — specialized service and support for businesses
- Carefully crafted SEO tools and a suite of useful plugins
- Creating a good UX is easy and intuitive
- Features centralized media management
- WordPress has stood the test of time and over the last 10 years it has been refined and improved
- The WordPress community is a great resource
WordPress is easy to integrate with 3rd party applications
To successfully run an enterprise level website you’ll likely need to utilize a variety of tools and applications. When you use WP the odds of running into a compatibility problem are quite low.
Maybe you need your website to record user accounts, membership numbers or forum activity. Perhaps you need to connect Salesforce or a similar application. All of these things are easily achieved on the WP platform.
Built for publishing
Not every CMS was built with publishing in mind, so if your business website is going to have a lot of content published on it this is another perk of going with WP. In terms of functionality it’s tough to beat WP in this sense. When it comes to publishing they have great tools and extensions for SEO, RSS, editing, managing, curating and moderating.
Multilingual capacities
Building a site that has multilingual capacities on WP is a breeze, they have great plugins for this and currently offer upwards of 70 languages. Developers can implement versions of the site in languages other than English, which is critically important for companies with a global reach.
Is WordPress secure?
Foremost on many business managers mind’s is the security of their website the protection of their customer’s data. So, it of course begs the question, is WP secure?
WordPress sites can be built to be airtight or designed with gaping holes in them, so a good part of this question is answered in how you construct your site. With that said, being open source (as WP is) has some advantages in terms of security. Namely, that the source code is peer-reviewed and if breaches or bugs exist they tend to get discovered quickly.
Most security issues that occur on a WordPress are due to poorly designed plugins or not following good security practices. Businesses can’t afford to have their site compromised, and the good news is WP is one of the most trustworthy CMS’s out there.
Related: for more WP security discussion click here.
Does WordPress scale effectively?
Some of the most visited websites on the internet are supported by WP. This is a list of some of the best-known ones:
- BBC America
- Variety
- MTV News
- Best Buy
- Xerox
- Bata
- Ford Social
- Quartz
(source: wp beginner)
WP also works well on mobile top to bottom, because let’s face it, if it didn’t it simply wouldn’t work for most personal or business uses.
It’s a little bit challenging but you can even manage a WP site from your phone if you want to. Developers have the freedom to build the frontend experience of the website, they are not locked into one specific RWD framework. There are a lot of room to play around, customize, and ultimately create a great experience for mobile customers.
Summary
Above we’ve laid out the reasons why WP qualifies as an enterprise quality CMS, but we should note that the term “enterprise” can mean a lot of different things. Obviously, the needs of every business are going to be different so WP won’t be perfect in every situation. But with some of the big names using it you can know without a doubt that it is capable of performing at a high level.
Another thing to consider is how often your business will need to refresh or rebuild its website. Sometimes businesses invest a lot in an expensive CMS, and hire developers to build a fancy website. But in doing so they exhaust their resources which could perhaps be better-used updating and adding things to the site.
Brands need to stay fresh. So, it’s best to think of sites as transitory and find ways to capitalize on that, instead of becoming entrenched with an expensive CMS. WordPress is relatively cheap, fluid and able to accommodate agile businesses.
Once you ditch the false notions that WordPress is amateurish and accept that a website isn’t permanent, then you can start maximizing your technology and business decisions.
