7 Big Reasons To Create Your New Small Business Website With WordPress

When it comes to your small business' website, which would you choose?

One that involves custom programming costing $3000 or more, requires a knowledge of complex programming languages in order to make even simple changes to the content, and requires a complete redesign (again costing thousands of dollars) if you decide the look is outdated?

Or one that is created using software that costs you nothing, has content in a structure that lets you easily update it yourself and has hundreds of professional templates available so if you think the look is outdated you can replace it with a new one in less than 5 minutes?

No brainer, right?

If you aren't familiar with it, an introduction to WordPress is in order.

Originally a software package used primarily for blogging, WordPress has become an amazingly robust Content Management System small business owners can use to easily create professional looking websites for their businesses.

Here are 7 benefits to using WordPress for your small business' website:

1. It's FREE. Simply go to WordPress.org and you can download the software - for free! The only thing you'll have to pay for is hosting (which you'll have to do for pretty much any business website). The good news is there are a number of quality hosting companies where you can host your WordPress site for just $5 - $10 per month. And many of them offer an option called Fantastico (at no additional charge) that lets you install WordPress in just a few clicks without having to download the software. Which leads us to reason 2 for using WordPress . . .

2. Easy to Use. Not only is WordPress easy to install, but it's extremely easy to use. I'm not saying there won't be a learning curve, especially for those who are technically challenged, but there are plenty of how-to tutorials around the web to teach you everything you need to know about using WordPress and then some. After that initial learning curve, adding new blog posts or pages to your site is about as easy as using a word processing program. And there is absolutely no requirement to know how to write code or do any other technically-involved activities to update and maintain your WordPress site.

3. Themes. Think of a theme as a template. It will change the look and feel of your WordPress site. It can also change the behind-the-scenes workings of your site to provide additional functionality. You can choose from thousands of different themes - some are free, some you have to pay for. And if you can't find one that quite suits your requirements, you can hire a designer to create a custom theme for your WordPress site.

Using themes you can pretty much get whatever look and feel you want for your WordPress site. And if you get tired of one theme, simply install another and you can instantly and completely change the look of your site - without having to touch the core content already on the site.

4. Plugins. Plugins are software the extend the capabilities of WordPress to do pretty much anything you want. Using plugins, you can track site visits, add social bookmarking to your site, automate backups of your site, fight spam, create contact forms, improve site security and a lot more. And, with few exceptions, the plugins are absolutely free.

5. Search Engine Optimization (SEO). If you want to get some major SEO-love from Google and the other search engines, WordPress is for you. The search engines simply love WordPress. If you add on a few of the available WordPress SEO plugins, then you'll really be cooking!

6. Tech Support. While WordPress itself doesn't have a tech support crew you can call or email, don't worry. There's no shortage of places to turn to for help with your questions. WordPress.org has a very active forum where you can search for answers to your questions or post questions to the community. There are also plenty of other sites, blogs, message boards where you can go for advice. Or, you can hire a WordPress expert to help. Bottom line, whatevery issue you have, an answer is not far away.

7. Freedom. If you self-host a WordPress site, you are in control. You can easily make changes to your content, add new blog posts or pages to your website, update it's appearance, etc. And if you decide to hire somebody to help you do these things, there's no shortage of qualified, low-cost help available.

There you have seven reasons to strongly consider WordPress to power your small business' website. To be certain, there are definitely situations where having a custom programmed website created by a reputable, qualified professional is the way to go.

For most small business owners, however, WordPress will provide all that you need to get a professionally looking website that you, and the search engines will love. It's a highly functional, flexible and cost-effective option that is hard to top.