Matthew Widdop
Matty is a Digital SEO Executive at Intelligency, helping our clients to improve their digital performance. Matty is currently studying for his Level 3 Multi-Channel Marketer apprenticeship and has completed a Sport Journalism Degree at the University of Huddersfield.
WordPress has traditionally been the largest content management system on the web, with over 43% of the internet’s sites being WordPress sites at the height of its market share. Today, WordPress remains the dominant content management system; however, its market dominance is waning. We will look at some alternatives.
Why is WordPress so popular?
WordPress began as a simple blogging platform before evolving into the world’s most widely used content management system. Its open-source nature makes it highly attractive to developers, who can extend its functionality and build custom solutions, while remaining accessible enough for non-technical users to easily create and manage content. This balance of flexibility and usability makes WordPress an ideal platform for businesses of all sizes.
The introduction of a plug-in library which allows users to attach additional functionality to their site, without having to spend time and resources on coding, has made the site extremely popular, with WordPress now having one of the largest plug-in ecosystems in the world, massively speeding up web design and compatibility.
WordPress, in recent years, has leaned even more into accessibility for users of all abilities, with the Gutenberg editor and full site editing, a built-in page builder that allows users to build drag-and-drop sites without having to rely on developers.
One of the drawbacks of WordPress, however, is that page builders, plug-ins and all the features that come with them often lead to bloated and slow sites, and SEOs end up battling against the platform to improve site speed.
What are some alternatives to WordPress?
Alternatives to WordPress include other popular CMS systems such as Shopify, Wix and Joomla. Shopify is an e-commerce-based CMS that has features that make building online stores easier for users, but it is more limited than WordPress sites from a design aspect. Wix, similarly to WordPress, has embraced the drag and drop features of a CMS; however is more limited in terms of back-end development and scaling for medium to larger size organisations.
Many developers are also moving towards using static page builders for their sites, such as Astro, which is a static site generator and web framework. It basically allows users to build basic HTML sites (a lot faster than a WordPress site) while maintaining a framework to build out further pages and expand the site.
While WordPress remains the main content management system on the internet, more businesses are now choosing to look at alternatives for their website development, depending on what suits their business needs rather than focusing on the most popular platform.
The increased diversity in content management systems can only be a good thing for the industry as businesses innovate and find new ways to make interesting sites.
