We have been talking for a while now about getting the most out of your website and how to leverage different website functionality to market your business. Many of you that do not have a quality CMS are often left wondering (and asking via live chat) how they can get the same functionality and marketing benefits of a fully featured CMS on their website.

At the risk of sounding like a marketing robot, when it comes to having this functionality on your current website, the answer is you are probably out of luck! (unless you have an amazing CMS – such as WordPress, DNN or Drupal, a large budget or a passion for starting long and painful projects).

The best option (for those of you that don’t have an easily updatable CMS) is to look to start afresh with a fully functional CMS that allows you to complete just about any marketing initiative you can think of without having to develop from scratch. There is one CMS that allows this functionality and many other great benefits… WordPress. Let’s take a look into some of the great benefits of WordPress:

1. Amazing functionality and flexibility

We all want a website that allows us to do whatever we put our mind too, and with WordPress you can. With over 14,950 plugins and the standard functionality and features of WordPress your simple website can be extended to be a sales machine.

Basic functionality like integration with your email marketing solution, customisable contact forms, a blogging platform as standard, amazing gallery options, social media integration (in any way shape or form) and simple pages and side menus are just the beginning.

More advanced plugins allow you to add a shopping cart/ eCommerce, mobile compatibility (so iPhone and iPad users can see your website in a clear and easy to use manner), social network like functionality for your business or group, forums, accommodation listings and even events listings and bookings.

2. SEO, SEO and more SEO

If there is one thing that we absolutely adore WordPress for, it is its SEO functionality and capabilities. Of the 14,950+ plugins available there are hundreds, if not thousands dedicated to SEO and website optimisation. While the core SEO functionality of wordpress is great the additional plugins such as Yoast SEO allow you to edit and update your Meta Titles on the page you’re working on and see a preview of what it will look like in Google are amazing.

There are so many SEO plugins, other noteworthy ones are

• ClickBump SEO – this plugin allows you to assign a keyword to your page and check just how optimised your page content is for that term, it provides you a score, other ways to optimise for that word and even other suggested keywords you should optimise for. It even allows you to see an “all pages” view so you can see which pages may be letting down your SEO.
• Analytics 360 – a plugin provided by the guys from MailChimp this plugin allows you to view a Google Analytics like dashboard from your website, integrating to your MailChimp account also lets you track the performance of your email marketing and the effect it has on your website performance.
• SEO-Rank – this plugin allows you to see where you currently stand in relation to a number of key SEO factors. Your Google PageRank, number of inbound links recorded in Google, Feedburner Subscribers, Twitter followers, Youtube subscribers and other statistics are all available from your dashboard.

3. Easy Installation

Installing WordPress is simple, easy and quick – Once you are signed up with a great hosting provider it’s often a one click install. Most WordPress supported hosts make the process very simple. A host such as Crucial Paradigm (who we host with) is cheap, easy to use and makes the installation easy.

4. Design options

The website design in WordPress is called a theme. Theme’s are generally very easy to install (often one touch + your customisation options) and provide your website with the look and feel you are after. In the WordPress.org directory there are over 1,400 FREE WordPress themes and on other providers such as ThemeForrest you can often find 1,000’s of options for a low price (often around $30 – $35).

If the theme’s available don’t take your fancy and you do have the budget to have a custom design created just for your business, never fear, with the extensive number of web developers using WordPress there will be a designer that can create your dream within your budget (expect up to $1,500 for a professional custom design + coded and developed theme)

5. Updates & Editing

Unlike other website CMS’s you don’t need to have any knowledge of coding, HTML or scripts to edit and update your website. The WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) editor allows you to edit your website with a Microsoft Word like text editor without touching the HTML. Image and video uploads are simple and most options very clearly spelt out for you.

WordPress is built for the end user (you), not for the developer like many other CMS’s are, this means that each time WordPress releases an update they are working to make it easier and easier for you to use.

6. Support

I touched on this a little above but didn’t go into much detail. The WordPress community has an abundance of members and followers, over 25 million people to be precise. Being one of the largest CMS’s available and one of the most adopted CMS’s means that in almost every city there is a community of WordPress developers and every day there is new functionality and new support available to people using the platform.

Unlike a proprietary website the WordPress CMS allows you to swap from one provider to another if you aren’t happy with the service you are receiving.

7. Completely Open Source

Being completely Open Source means that the WordPress framework is currently evolving as the community’s needs develop and evolve. There are hundreds of people all over the world working on evolving your website platform, this means frequent updates (with the amazing one touch upgrade functionality – think iPhone), a very large wealth of information and training on how to use the system, why to use the system, which plugins you can use to achieve specific outcomes etc.  and the flexibility to use WordPress for any type of website!

8. It’s FREE

The WordPress framework is completely FREE and requires no licence fees to operate. The only thing you need to pay for is your hosting and any additional functionality that you would like added (if you require paid modules or theme’s). No on going fees for the platform, no need to pay a web developer to make updates for you and no lock in to any one… anything!