You may be wondering what’s so great about WordPress and why you should learn how to use it. WordPress is the most used content management system, followed by WIX and Squarespace. However, because WordPress doesn’t advertise you might not know much about it. If you are designing websites with a website builder like WIX, Squarespace, or Weebly, you may be asking yourself, should I learn how to use WordPress?
In general, WordPress is the best content management system to learn. There are tons of reasons to learn WordPress including more options when customizing a website, better SEO, the portability of its websites, and WordPress an in-demand skill.
10 Reasons to learn WordPress
- Learning WordPress will help you design a better website
- Once you learn the WordPress Dashboard it’s easy
- WordPress comes with thousands of plugins
- WordPress has several easy-to-use page builders
- A wordPress website will rank better in Google
- Migrating a WordPress website is easier
- Learning WordPress will make updating your website a piece of cake
- WordPress has so many features
- WordPress is made for large websites
- WordPress is an in-demand skill
WordPress is the most popular content management system (or CMS) for a reason. If you run a large website, WordPress is the best platform because of its flexibility and design options. There are so many reasons you should learn how to use WordPress.
1. Learning WordPress will help you design a better website
When it comes to design capabilities, WordPress is the best website builder out there. The design features can’t be beat. WordPress is the most popular platform for building websites. Big brands like Reader’s Digest, NASA, and the Rolling Stones use WordPress. You can design a beautiful website with WordPress that can’t be matched by other website builders.
2. Once you learn the WordPress Dashboard, it’s easy!
If you are a beginner at web design, you might be intimidated by WordPress. The learning curve on WordPress is what keeps some people from trying it. But, it’s actually quite easy to use, once you learn the dashboard. You don’t have to know code at all to use WordPress. Everything can be done with a page builder or plugin.
3. WordPress comes with thousands of plugins
No need to hire a web developer. Do you want to add a form and customize it? You can do it without knowing any code! Would you like a pretty calendar for your events? What about a shop? Even their eCommerce plugins can be installed with a click of a button. Do you want a separate landing page for your lead magnet? No problem. WordPress has thousands of plugins to choose from.
4. WordPress has several easy-to-use page builders
Unlike other platforms that have just one editor to work with, WordPress has several. My personal favorite is Elementor. If you like using a drop and drag editor, you’ll love Elementor. Once it’s installed, you can create amazing pages just by adding elements and dragging them where you want them on your page. You can add fun styles too. There are tons of design options built into many WordPress page builders.
5. A WordPress website will perform better in Google
When it comes to SEO, nothing beats WordPress. Other website builders use javascript to create their websites. This means your pages will contain a lot of extra code. WordPress creates pages and blog posts with clean code. On top of this, your blog posts and pages can be designed with SEO-friendly URLs. And, if you use any of their amazing SEO plugins like Yoast or Rank Math, you can easily optimize your pages for Google without being an SEO expert.
6. Migrating a WordPress website is easier
This is the drawback of most website builders. If you decide you want to move your website to another hosting company, it can’t be done. You have to completely redesign your website. This is not a big deal if you have a 3-5 page website, but if you have hundreds of blog posts, moving your website can be a nightmare. With WordPress, all you have to do is create a backup and save it to your computer. When you switch hosting companies, you just upload the backup and click restore.
7. Learning WordPress will Make Updating Your Website a piece of cake
WordPress websites are easy to update. Hate the theme you chose? Switching it is easy. Just pick another theme and install it. You may have to update some of the elements when you switch themes, but all of your content is there. You just have to make minor updates. You don’t have to completely rebuild your website.
8. WordPress comes with so many features
WordPress has tons of features, from blogs to eCommerce, portfolios, online memberships, forums, and more. This is one of the biggest reasons big brands love WordPress. You can do so much more with a WordPress website than you can with other platforms.
9. WordPress is made for large websites
If you plan to have a small website, another platform might work for you. But, you want to have a large website, that can support thousands of visitors, you really need to learn how to use WordPress. WordPress is a scalable CMS that can support thousands of pages of content and performs best for large websites. Unlike other platforms, it’s completely scalable. If you want to create a website for a large brand or if you want your own website to grow, your best option is WordPress. WIX, Weebly, and Squarespace are not capable of supporting large websites.
10. WordPress is an in-demand skill
If you are interested in web design, knowing how to design a website with WordPress will improve your web design skills and allow you to take on more clients. While there are certainly people looking for websites built using other platforms, WordPress is the most used CMS. If you want to be a successful web designer, taking the time to learn how to use WordPress will pay off. Not only will your websites look better, but you’ll also be able to take on bigger clients who want a website built with WordPress.
What is the difference between WordPress and WordPress.com?
Before we dive into WordPress, let me explain the difference between WordPress and WordPress.com. A lot of people confuse the two. WordPress is an independent CMS you can install on your own server (or with a hosting company). Think of hosting as your server, and WordPress as the program you use on your server. WordPress.com is a hosting platform for WordPress blogs and websites that uses the WordPress content management system.
Essentially, the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress is in how your website is hosted. A WordPress website is hosted on its own server that you own or purchase hosting from. A WordPress.org website is hosted on WordPress.org. You don’t own or control the website.
If you learn how to use the WordPress CMS, you can use it on WordPress.com or your own website. The CMS works the same on either hosting option, but the real benefits come from learning how to install and use WordPress on your own hosted website. This way you can easily design, manage, and control everything on your website.
If you decide you want to move your website to another hosting company, all you have to do is backup your WordPress website and move it to another hosting company. It’s like a mobile home for websites. You can’t do that with other website builders.
FAQ About Learning WordPress
Is WordPress better than WIX?
When people first start creating websites, they often start with an easy website builder like WIX. WIX is the second most popular website builder. While it’s much easier to set up and use than WordPress, it has many disadvantages. Anyone that uses WIX quickly finds that they just can’t do everything they want to do with WIX.
In general, WIX is the worst website builder for businesses. Because of its user-friendly interface, WIX websites end up loaded with extra code. WordPress outperforms WIX in every area from design capability, to site speed, to SEO.
These are just a few of the drawbacks of WIX. Start researching and you will see that WIX is impossible to transfer and move. Unlike WordPress, if you create a website with WIX, in order to redesign it, or transfer it to another hosting company, you have to completely redesign it. On top of that, you can’t design a custom website with WIX. Every website created with WIX is done with pre-made templates that all look fairly similar.
Is WordPress the best Website builder?
If you are trying to decide which website builder is the best, there are a lot to choose from. WIX, Squarespace, and Weebly are the leading website builders, but when it comes to options and flexibility, they can’t match WordPress.
Overall, WordPress is the best website builder available. Not only is it free, but it comes with thousands of themes and plugins. Plus, it has several options for page builders. When it comes to design, flexibility, and SEO, WordPress is absolutely the best website builder out there.
With Weebly, Wix, and Squarespace you are limited to using premade templates. Unless you are a web designer, if you want a website that’s out of the box, you will have to hire a web designer. A designer can build a website template from scratch with any of these platforms. But, the design options are still very limited. It’s not like creating an HTML website or a WordPress website. You can only work with their website editor to create the template (or theme) and the options are limited.
WordPress Themes
The selection of WordPress themes is one of the biggest benefits of learning WordPress. There are literally thousands of themes you can use with WordPress, and many of them are free! You can customize a theme or design your own theme. The most difficult part of learning WordPress is figuring out how to customize a theme. Some themes are much easier to work with than others. When you first start working with WordPress, select an easy-to-use lightweight theme like Hello or Astra. Both are perfect for a beginner. It might take you a few weeks to learn how to use WordPress, but once you get that hang of it, you can build amazing websites.
WordPress Page Builders
WordPress also comes with several options for page builders. A page builder for WordPress is similar to the drop and drag editor you get with WIX or Squarespace, but better. Divi, Visual Composer, Oxygen, and Elementor are the most popular. Some WordPress page builders are as easy to use as WIX or Squarespace but do so much more. I actually find WordPress page builders easier to use than Squarespace and more intuitive.
WordPress Plugins
No platform matches WordPress on Plugins. If you need to add options to your WordPress website, chances are there is a plugin to do it. They have plugins for just about everything. Want to embed a pdf into your page ? There’s a plugin. Want to add forms, newsletters, a shop, SEO tools, image optimization, calendars? You can add them in just a few minutes by installing a plugin.
Is Learning WordPress Easy?
The answer to this question will depend on who you ask. Yes, WordPress is easy to use, but in the beginning, it might feel overwhelming. This is why so many people are afraid to learn WordPress. If you chose a good theme, and an easy-to-use page builder, like Elementor, WordPress is very easy to learn.
Overall, WordPress is easy to use even if you don’t know anything about coding or web design. Because of its click of a button theme installation, and visual page builder, anyone can learn how to use WordPress.
If you are interested in learning WordPress, start by purchasing a hosting plan. The easiest way to start learning how to use WordPress is to purchase a managed WordPress hosting plan. You don’t have to install anything. It’s already set up. All you have to do is log in to your dashboard and select a theme. If you don’t like the theme, just pick another one.
Once you pick a theme, you will notice that most come with several starter pages. You can edit these or create a new page. Go ahead and try, once you add a new page, play around with the editor. I think you will find it’s much easier to use than you might think. WordPress has been around for almost 20 years. Any question you have about WordPress has probably already been answered. There are hundreds of tutorials and YouTube videos to show you how to use WordPress.
Is WordPress Good for SEO?
SEO is the number one reason I prefer WordPress. WordPress is the best CMS for search engine optimization. With WordPress, you can create SEO-friendly URLs (in other words your URLs are formatted like this: seo-friendly-urls) instead of URLs like this p?=123.
You can add meta descriptions, headers, and alt text to your images easily. Their default editor and page builders create websites with much cleaner code than other website builders. With a lightweight theme, WordPress websites load fast, which is very important for search engine optimization. There are also several great SEO plugins available for WordPress that make it easy to optimize.
There is more to SEO than what you do on-page, but many of the advanced SEO features are not available on WIX, Squarespace, or Weebly. If you want to improve your search engine placement, switching your website over to WordPress will make a huge difference. You just can’t do advanced SEO with most other platforms.
Is WordPress Free?
With all the advantages of using WordPress, the biggest one is that it’s totally free! In order to use WordPress, you do have to pay for website hosting. But, unlike other website builders, hosting for WordPress websites is very affordable. You can find hosting for as little as $2-3 a month. There are also hundreds of free WordPress themes and plugins to choose from. If you want the most affordable option for building a website, WordPress is the way to go.
Is Learning WordPress Worth It?
If you have read through this entire post, you may still be asking yourself if learning WordPress is worth it? Absolutely. It might take you a month or two to get comfortable using WordPress, but once you make the switch, you will see all the benefits. Once most people learn how to use WordPress, they don’t want to use another website builder.