Why NOT WordPress?
“Can that be done with WordPress?” – We are still asked from time to time, why I align my (nearly) entire service profile with WordPress. Here are some reasons and application scenarios:
WordPress is Open Source
Blog, shop or intranet – WordPress is used everywhere in the world. International companies and agencies rely on this Open Source CMS every single day and successfully operate high-performance websites. WordPress is Open Source and it is used more often than any other CMS: the market share of all websites worldwide is currently 26%. If WordPress were a country, it would be larger than France. The websites with the highest traffic numbers in the world are all based on WordPress: This system is used worldwide on high-traffic websites because of the reliability, stability and usability of WordPress – and it doesn’t matter if we are talking about a news portal, car manufacturer or software provider. Globally popular websites rely on WordPress. Here are just some examples:
WordPress is stable and secure
The open source code of WordPress means that it is under constant scrutiny by hundreds of volunteers looking for weaknesses and working on improvements. A security team carries out multi-layered beta testing.
- The interfaces for plugins and themes contain many functions for safeguarding user input and in many cases function as a safety net for badly programmed code.
- Security is an absolute top priority for the core developers.
WordPress is reliable
- In all development, the continued correct functioning of existing applications is ensured. A layout (theme) dating back to 2005 will still function perfectly today.
- The great number of users means that WordPress is continuously put through its paces, even under unusual technical framework conditions.
- Automattic, the company behind wordpress.com, pays several developers that exclusively work on the code. Ongoing development and improvement is therefore guaranteed.
- The broad financial interest in WordPress is such that its maintenance would continue seamlessly, even if all current core developers were to drop out. That is why it is as good as guaranteed that the project will continue from strength to strength over the coming years.
WordPress is flexible
WordPress was built on an architecture that can be 100% adapted to an individual user story – that applies for both backend and frontend.
- Numerous interfaces ensure that virtually any application can be implemented with WordPress: a travel portal, a forum, a community or a shop. Or everything at the same time..
- The layout is handled by themes, which can be activated or replaced with the click of a button.
- Plugins expand, deactivate or replace basic functions.
- WordPress is compatible with all current web servers like Apache, Microsoft IIS or Nginx.
- User tables can be run in a separate database, which makes integration with other systems very easy.
WordPress is efficient
- One installation can operate any number of domains. This feature is called “Multi-Site”. It allows the administration of multiple websites via one single user interface, while the output for visitors is completely separate.
- A theme can be used as a template by any number of child themes. That means that code and images can be reused and a logo or font can be changed with one single line of code in the parent theme.
- A theme or plugin directory can be used by several installations concurrently. Updates can therefore be implemented quickly and economically.
- User tables can also be used jointly by multiple installations.
WordPress is international and multilingual
- The core system has been translated into over 70 languages. There is more than one translation available for some languages: German, for example, is available as a formal (“Sie”) and informal (“Du”) version.
- The user can choose the admin language he speaks most fluently for each individual plugin, no matter what language is selected for the output.
- Several pages of a Multi-Site installation can be linked via our plugin MultilingualPress in such a way that each page represents a language and alternative language outputs can be found for each individual page with the click of a button.
- Each plugin and each theme is easy to translate; existing translations can be quickly adapted or replaced.
WordPress is fast
We have been able to achieve PageSpeed values of 99 out of a possible 100 points in some projects. These high values were achieved using various adjustments.
- The system will automatically recognize the existence of a large user database – and will adapt database requests accordingly.
- A flexible caching interface allows an adaptation of the caching of repeated call-ups to the exact conditions of the relevant technical environment: options here are Opcache, Objektcache, Filecache or the integration of a CDN in any combination.
- WordPress doesn’t use sessions because they make any caching a lot harder.
- Another special feature: Unlike many other systems, the template system uses PHP only and no other template language at all. This makes the scripts run extremely fast.
WordPress is search engine-friendly: Google loves WordPress
- For beautiful URLs (i.e. those without question marks), WordPress offers its own UI and an internal interface: Rewrite API. You can use the latter to define your own URL patterns for any possible special scenarios.
- Special meta data in the html header can be inserted and adjusted any way you want.
- The same applies for XML sitemaps: Regular sitemaps or video sitemaps can be created via plugins or custom requests to the database interface.
- A robots.txt generates WordPress automatically without plugins. You can also insert your own file or adjust the one generated by WordPress.
- The huge developer community ensures that latest trends are implemented in WordPress very quickly.
You don’t have to pay any license fees for WordPress
- WordPress itself is free of charge and so are many plugins and themes.
- Experts in programming, design and for training are available virtually everywhere, because WordPress has the world’s largest developer scene of any CMS.
- The minimal technical requirements – you only have to have at least PHP 5.2.4 and MySQL 5.0 – mean that it can be installed anywhere. There are no license fees for PHP or MySQL and both also run on open systems like Linux.
WordPress is easy to operate
- The UI is very user-friendly and is constantly being improved. The user interface for new text creation looks like a simplified version of Word and the activation of new users, themes or plugins is completed with just a few mouse clicks.
- You can also use external software to upload content: via Windows Livewriter, email or a mobile app./ A thousand application scenarios for WordP
The ideas and requirements of our clients are varied. We have collected a number of applications that we have already implemented to answer the initial question “Can that be done with WordPress?”: