Since the launch of WordPress in 2003, it has really come a long way. Of late, WordPress is rated as one of the most popular as well as widely used CMS (content management system) in the world. It is even the most widely used blogging platform around the globe. Before unveiling the fast facts about WordPress Web Development and citing reasons for its growing popularity, let’s take a sneak peek at its origin.

A Brief Story of WordPress

It was initially created and developed by Mike Little and Matt Mullenweg in 2003. The sudden discontinuation of the existing blog software b2/cafelog by its developers surprised them and they realized the need for a more elegant and powerful personal publishing system. Though, Little and Mullenweg developed WordPress on the lines of b2/cafelog software but made significant developments overtime to make it unique and interactive.  It is built on MySQL and PHP and thus free to use and easy to modify by anyone. WordPress is the collaborative effort of 151-people, which took years to build it with an estimated cost of over $8 million over time.

WordPress Shocking Statistics 2020

WordPress is one of the most popular CMS in the world powering 34% of all websites on the internet. Some other astonishing facts are:

• In the Content Management System’s Market, WordPress enjoys a 60.8% market share.
• The Plugin Directory of WordPress features over 50, 000 plugins
• It powers 14.7% of the top websites of the world. These websites include Spotify, The New York Times, BBC America, The White House website to name a few.
• It posts 24 posts every second. This makes 1481 posts every minute and 2.14 million posts daily.
• Every day, over 500 websites built using WordPress. Other CMS platforms like Squarespace and Shopify used for developing 60-80 websites daily.
• Over 37 million global searches made with “WordPress” monthly.

Do not feel surprised by the attention as well as popularity received by WordPress Web Development as its story does not end here. It started as a blogging platform but presently used for creating eCommerce websites, start-up websites and newspapers’ websites extensively. Other equally surprising facts are:

Billions of Visits: Billions of page visits on a monthly basis is one of the main reasons for making WordPress the king of CMS. It receives over 20 billion page visits monthly. Over 400 million people view 20 billion + pages on WordPress. The main reason for such a vast number of page visits is an immense activity for generating mass traffic. The platform receives 70 million + new posts each month and new comments crossing 77 million marks monthly.

Massive Downloads: The latest version of WordPress i.e. 5.5 has been downloaded over 26,533, 811 times. Even the version 5.2 was downloaded over 16 million times.  At any time, you can verify these statistics in the real-time at WordPress download counter.

Availability in 72 Languages: Availability in 72 languages is a testament to the global popularity of WordPress as an open-source platform. It supports multilingual languages and with a translation feature, you can get the information in different languages ranging from Japanese, Spanish, German, Indonesia, Dutch, Norwegian, Italian, Romanian, Russian, English to name a few. The language translation program has increased its reach far and wide and now users can configure their websites in their preferred language. Amongst all languages, English is the most sought-after as over 70% of the WordPress websites used English as the primary language. Surprisingly, it is the only platform possessing the record of maximum numbers of non-English downloads.

WordPress Plugins: The plugins help in extending the functionality so that users can customize it as per their needs. Users can use either free or paid plugins as per their budget to increase the appearance and functionality of a website. Any feature that they want to incorporate in their websites is achievable with WordPress Plugins. Presently, over 50,000 plugins are available at the WordPress Plugin Directory. Some of the most popular free plugins of all time are Yoast SEO, Jetpack, Akismet, Wordfence Security, etc. The best-paid plugins are Slider Revolution and Visual Composer. These plugins make this web development platform flexible and adaptable, and even ideal to use for website hosting.

The most popular and the largest CMS-WordPress has its share of disadvantages too.  It is more prone to hacking and security breaches. The statistics show that:

• 41% of WordPress attacks caused due to vulnerability on the hosting platform.
• 52% attacks due to WordPress Plugins vulnerabilities
• 39% vulnerabilities due to cross-site scripting
• 44% hacking due to outdated WordPress sites

In 2011, the biggest data breach hit WordPress hard when 18 million users are compelled to compromise their security. Panama Papers Leak is another one of the largest data breaches attack hit the WordPress Web Development in 2016. It affects 11.5 million documents, 4.8 million emails and 2.6 TB of data. This is one of the main reasons users need to keep updating the WordPress plugins, core and themes overtime to keep their data safe and secure.

Now, let’s figure out the reasons for WordPress Web Development labelled as the King of CMS despite so many competitors.

1. Scope of Constant Improvisation: It is not wrong to compare WordPress with Artificial Intelligence (AI). Like AI, it is continuously developing its features and coming up with updates that provide a great degree of flexibility to end-users. Moreover, with over 50,000 plugins that are constantly updating, a user can add innumerable features to his website and improve it.
2. Free to Download: It is an open-source platform and therefore supports licensing-free download. If you are using any other platform for creating a website, you might need support from a professional developer. But when it comes to WordPress, you can easily download and use it. It is because it is the simplest form of the content management system. If you have a fair knowledge of using Word, you can easily handle WordPress. Using its rich feature, publishing any blog or post and editing it without putting much effort and time are few activities easily possible.
3. Economical: The basic version of the WordPress system is completely free to use. Moreover, many of its plugins are also free that give the power to customize the website. To add further, if you want to give a professional look to your website, you need not spend fortunes of money for purchasing important plugins. For instance, you can easily purchase themes and plugins at a cost of $100. In this manner, even if you are investing money in WordPress, it will not dig a big hole in your pockets.
4. In-built SEO: To reach your potential customers online, it is necessary to have a Search Engine Friendly website. The SEO-friendly website easily reaches the targeted audience and even gains good rankings in any major search engines. The in-built SEO is the propelling factor to make WordPress the best SEO platform. A person with an average knowledge of SEO can create user-friendly and Search Engine compatible websites on WordPress. All thanks to its advanced tools and plugins that result in website optimization.
5. Use WordPress without Coding Knowledge: No coding knowledge makes WordPress web development popular amongst non-technical people. Even a person with no coding knowledge can use it easily.
6. Global Presence: The global presence is the most attractive feature of WordPress. People around the globe can use this CMS platform.  Advanced plugins and translation tools help to create websites in multiple languages.
7. Active Community Platform: Though it does have an active toll-free number, it has an active support community. This WordPress community is diverse and represents people of all ages, backgrounds, skills, and races. This community is extremely helpful and keep sharing information about software updates. The community responds to users’ email queries in a very short duration and even help them to understand different plugins and their usage.

Earning Potential with WordPress Web Development

If you want to earn through WordPress, this CMS platform will not disappoint you. Statistics clearly show that one-quarter of WordPress users make their full-time earnings by using this platform to the hilt. Some of the ways to make your earning via WordPress are:

• If you are a WordPress developer, you can charge anything in between $ 20-$100 per hour.
• You can start offering WordPress maintenance services. You can even earn by becoming a WordPress plugin maker or start a hosting or SEO professional company.

To conclude, WordPress started in 2003 has underwent sea changes in the time span of 17 years, making it one of the most popular, adaptive and user-friendly content management systems in the world. Though a lot of changes occurred, the core functionality remains the same i.e. to offer flexibility to users to start their websites or blogs without any prior knowledge of coding. Used by start-ups as well as Fortune 500 companies, WordPress Web Development is the King of CMS and can help you earn good money. It is easy to download, install and customize. However, to keep your data safe, keep its core themes and plugins updated regularly.