In today’s digital landscape, every small business needs a website to stay competitive (even if you aren’t selling anything online!). Whether you run a brick-and-mortar store, restaurant, or local service, getting your brand online is an important way to attract new business.
But even if you understand why you need a business website, choosing which platform you’ll use to build it can be overwhelming.
In this post, we’ll explain why WordPress, the world’s largest open-source website software, is the best option for small businesses that want to establish a sustainable digital presence that can grow with their brand.
WordPress is an open-source publishing platform that powers over 43% of the internet. There’s a reason that WordPress has endured as the most popular website-building software:
1. No Coding Required
Creating a professional WordPress website requires zero coding skills. With block-based themes, anyone can build a website using intuitive drag-and-drop tools and a visual interface showing how your website will appear to visitors.
WordPress’s large library of drag-and-drop elements offers a ton of flexibility without compromising on web best practices: blocks are responsive, automatically adjusting to look good on any screen, and follow the WordPress Accessibility Coding Standards.
Need help getting started? You can find tons of tutorials and guides online—including guides and tutorials created by WordPress.com.
Prefer to work with an expert? You can hire a WordPress.com professional to build you a site for as little as $499 + hosting or work with a qualified WordPress partner agency to build you a one-of-a-kind website.
2. Thousands of Customizable Themes Make Design Easy
WordPress themes are ready-made website designs that instantly give your site a professional look. Each theme contains a comprehensive design package—including color schemes, typography, and pre-designed page layouts—to give your website a cohesive look and feel. There are thousands of WordPress themes, ranging from free to premium, so it’s easy to find a design that suits your brand’s visual identity.
With 97% of people researching local businesses online before visiting, a well-designed and professional website significantly increases the chances that potential customers will walk through your door
WordPress.com offers users even more options, with additional themes created by our in-house developers, including many themes designed specifically for online businesses.
If you still can’t find what you’re looking for, anyone on a Business plan or above can buy and install third-party themes, offering endless options for customization and design.
3. Plugins Make It Simple to Extend Your Site’s Functionality
If you need a feature or tool that isn’t available out of the box with other visual website builders, your only choice is to hire a developer to build you a custom solution.
WordPress offers a better option: plugins. Since WordPress is an open-source platform, any developer can build plugins you can download to extend your site’s functionality—think of them as apps for your website. With thousands of free and paid plugins available, endless opportunities exist to customize your website’s functionality to meet your personalized needs.
Popular plugins give small business websites additional functionality like:
- Contact forms: Enable customers to complete and submit digital forms on your site.
- SEO: Increase your search rankings by optimizing your content.
- Ecommerce: Sell products directly on your website.
- Booking and scheduling: Allow clients to book appointments or consultations online.
- CRMs: Manage customer data directly through WordPress.
- Email, social, and marketing: Streamline your communications across every platform.
- Payment processing: Accept online payments or donations.
The Jetpack plugin automatically includes a suite of added functionality—such as spam filtering, analytics, and marketing—for all WordPress.com users. Additional plugins are available on the Business plan and above.
4. It’s SEO-Friendly
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a set of strategies and best practices designed to help your website and content rank higher in search results, making it easier for potential customers to find you. While SEO can be complex, WordPress is built to support strong SEO, supporting optimization necessities like sitemaps and meta tags.
Businesses can also utilize powerful free and paid SEO plugins to help their site rise above the competition. WordPress.com customers on the Business plan and above can rely on Jetpack’s built-in SEO features for optimizing meta descriptions and title structure (or can download an SEO plugin of your choice).
5. You Fully Own Your Site and Content
One of the biggest advantages of WordPress is that it is completely open-source, meaning you have complete ownership of your website and everything on it. Unlike proprietary platforms that may claim rights to content and designs you create on their platforms, WordPress sites can be easily backed up, exported, and ported from one host to another without limitations. With WordPress, your content is yours—period.
For small businesses building their digital footprint, this ownership provides long-term security. You’re investing in building a digital brand that is entirely under your control rather than renting an online space on someone else’s platform.
6. It’s Secure and Keeps Your Information Safe
Depending on where you host your business’ WordPress site, robust security features should protect your site. For example, every WordPress.com site has built-in security features like SSL, DDoS protection and mitigation, and barriers against brute force attacks.
WordPress.com users get even more security features out-of-the-box with Jetpack for WordPress.com. Even businesses with Free plans get great benefits with Jetpack, including built-in spam protection and site activity logs, with additional security features included at higher tiers.
7. It’s Simple to Set Up Access for Multiple Users
Running a business means delegating responsibilities, and WordPress makes creating multiple logins easy for managing different aspects of your site. The platform’s robust user management system allows you to create multiple users with varying permission levels, from Administrators who can make site-wide changes and handle site billing, to Contributors who can only draft content.
This means your marketing team can update your blog, your sales team can manage product pages, and your customer support team can respond to inquiries—all without compromising the security of your site. As your business grows, this flexibility becomes increasingly valuable, ensuring that everyone on your team has everything they need and nothing they shouldn’t.
8. You Can Move Your WordPress Site Between Hosts
Unlike websites built on proprietary software like Wix and Squarespace, WordPress websites can be easily moved between hosts without having to be rebuilt. This flexibility means you can always move your website to a new hosting provider.
Already have a WordPress site? Consider switching to WordPress.com for top-of-the-line performance and support. Our site migration service makes the transition smooth and hassle-free, ensuring your business website stays online throughout the entire process.
9. There’s a Massive Community to Support You
When you choose WordPress, you’re joining the largest website community in the world. That means there are endless opportunities to learn, troubleshoot, grow your skills, and build community with like-minded users.
WordPress offers public forums where developers and users alike come together to answer questions, and WordPress.com also provides its own dedicated forums where our active community is always on-hand to help. These communities can be invaluable resources for small businesses without dedicated IT staff to answer urgent questions about their websites.
Want to take things offline? WordPress also hosts in-person events and gatherings all around the world.
10. Why WordPress is a Smart Investment
Building and maintaining a professional business website doesn’t have to break the bank. WordPress is maintained by a huge community of dedicated designers, developers, and community builders, so the software itself is free, meaning you get a ton of value for just the price of hosting and your domain name.
Many small businesses choose a managed hosting provider like WordPress.com that will maintain your website for you. WordPress.com offers high-value plans for every budget, starting with Free plans and scaling up to support businesses of every size.
While WordPress itself is a powerful platform, WordPress.com offers specific advantages that make it an exceptional hosting choice for small businesses:
WordPress.com is Lightning Fast
When choosing a hosting provider, you need to consider how fast your website loads for users. Slow-loading sites create a poor experience for visitors and can hurt your search engine rankings. WordPress.com consistently ranks among the fastest providers in third-party speed benchmarks, outperforming many competitors in load time.
This means your customers will always enjoy a fast experience on your site, reducing bounce rates and improving conversions. Our infrastructure is optimized specifically for WordPress, ensuring your website will experience peak performance without requiring any technical knowledge on your part.
Maintenance Done For You
One of the biggest challenges for small business owners is finding time to maintain their website. Because WordPress.com is managed hosting, you don’t need to perform routine maintenance yourself.
We automatically run all the necessary updates, including security patches, WordPress core updates, and plugin updates. WordPress.com also has 99.999% uptime, so you don’t have to worry about your site going down.
This hands-off approach means you can focus on what you do best—running your business—while we ensure your website stays current, secure, and professional.
Unlimited Bandwidth
Growing businesses shouldn’t be penalized for success. While some hosts charge you more money when your web traffic grows, WordPress.com will keep you online for one price, no matter how much traffic you receive.
This predictable pricing is crucial for businesses that may suddenly experience a surge in visitors, whether because you’re running a promotion, experiencing seasonal traffic spikes, or receiving an unexpected shout-out from a publication or influencer. You can rest easy knowing that you’ll never face surprise charges or experience declining site performance at the moments when your website matters most.
Customer Support
Even with the most user-friendly platforms, questions will inevitably arise. Our comprehensive support platform is there for you, offering tons of step-by-step guides, AI-powered answers, and for paid plans, live customer support. We’re here to ensure you can successfully build, launch, and grow your new website.
From technical issues to guidance on best practices, our experienced support staff can help you overcome obstacles and make the most of your WordPress.com website.
In today’s digital world, having a strong online presence isn’t just an option for small businesses—it’s necessary. WordPress offers the perfect balance of power, flexibility, and ease of use, making it the ideal platform for businesses of all sizes.
With WordPress.com, you get the benefits of managed hosting, top-tier performance, and expert support. And because WordPress is so flexible, you can start small and add features as your business grows, ensuring you’re never paying for more than you need.
Ready to take your business online? Build your site with WordPress.com today and join the millions of successful businesses that trust WordPress for their online presence.
