This blog post is part of a detailed article series designed to help you understand why the WordPress CMS can help your small business succeed online using the WordPress CMS.
For more information about of the article series, see this post:
In this article, you will learn some WordPress usage statistics that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world rely on WordPress to power their websites and blogs and what kind of people and businesses use WordPress today.
Facts And Figures About WordPress
A brief summary:
- WordPress started as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress offers users two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- 23 out of every 100 new domains registered in the U.S. are for installing a new WordPress website.
- There are well over 60 million installations of WordPress. This number is growing everyday.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites around the world are powered by WordPress.
- WordPress sites around the world publish an average of 24 posts per second.
- WordPress sites receive over 22 billion monthly pageviews.
- WordPress blogs receive around 50 million comments per month.
- WordPress has been translated into over 70 languages.
- More than 60% of all websites worldwide that use a content management system are powered by WordPress.
- Over 37 million searches are made on Google each month for WordPress related terms.
- WordPress is completely free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is built using an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is continually built by volunteers. People from all around the world work on developing and improving the WordPress application each day.
- WordPress is regularly updated to eliminate bugs and improve both its usage and security.
- WordPress can deliver your content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 international languages and dialects.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is almost no limit to what someone can do using WordPress.
WordPress CMS Usage
A content management system (CMS), is a web tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easy for non-technical users to add, modify and manage all content on their website.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally a simple program developed by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. Since then, WordPress has grown to become the largest self-hosted content management system (CMS) in the world, used on millions of websites and seen by tens of millions of people every day.
WordPress is owned by Automattic.com, which currently employs around 300 people, all of whom are home-based. Despite its distributed model and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of WordPress) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Facebook, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, and Twitter …
(WordPress [hosted version] unique views. Source: Automattic.com)
Here are just some of the latest stats on WordPress:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WP CMS usage statistics. Source: trends.builtwith.com/cms)
In terms of CMS dominance, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …
(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)
In fact, more websites and blogs are now being powered by the WordPress CMS platform.
WordPress is so popular, that trying to keep up with the latest statistics on WordPress is difficult because the numbers change so often.
For example, at the time this post was written, here is the current number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above numbers represents only the latest version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their sites to the latest release …
(WP versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
As this post was being written, the number of downloads has already increased. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, expect to see a significantly higher figure … perhaps even an updated version, as the WordPress development community continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Speaking of updates, WordPress has made available to users over 100 new software updates in its first 11 years of existence …
(Over one hundred new WordPress versions have been made available in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new software update every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new software versions honoring famous Jazz musicians)
Curiously enough, all major WordPress updates have a tradition of being named after well-known Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.2.1 = Ella Fitzgerald (January 22, 2007),
- v.2.2 = Stan Getz (May 16, 2007),
- v.2.9 = Carmen McRae (December 18, 2009),
- v.3.6 = Oscar Peterson (August 1, 2013),
- v.4.1 = Dinah Washington (December 18, 2014),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress
In a nutshell, all different kinds of companies and people from all walks of life are using WordPress to blog about everything under the sun.
Giant brands, businesses, technology companies, celebrities, politicians, famous artists, educational institutions, government sectors, not-for-profits – even countries are using WordPress …
WordPress.org Blog Showcase
Here are just some of the sites, companies and people who have chosen to use WordPress:
- Businesses & Companies: Aqua Hotels and Resorts, Boardshorts.com, Groupe Renault, Group Bouygues, Vogue, etc …
- Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Rush, Lily Allen, Justin Bieber, The Sacramento Ballet, Snoop Dogg, Blondie, Channing Tatum, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: University of Manitoba Today, Milwaukee School of Engineering’s Bridge, UCF College of Medicine, Lafayette College, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Thrive Magazine, The Australian, InStyle News, Enterprise Magazine, etc.
- Governments, Not For Profits & Community Organizations: San Pellegrino Terme, Chicago Weather Center, Slow Food Italia, CURE International, Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress is available in two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- Businesses prefer to download the self-hosted version, which can be installed on their own domains and modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are business marketing or sales purposes.
- More than half of all WordPress users use the hosted version on WordPress.com
- In 2014, blogs that are part of the WordPress network (blogs hosted either on WordPress.com or self-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 new blog posts per second (around 1.5 million per day).
WordPress publishes a live map that lets you see blog post updates around the world in real-time …
WordPress.com – Live Users WorldWide
In other articles, we will explain the main differences between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
General WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over 37,000 plugins for free …
(WP free plugins directory)
For a detailed article about WordPress plugins see this post:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users also have access to over 1,700 themes for free …
(WordPress.org theme repository)
For a detailed article about themes see this post:
WordPress Language Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages in addition to English …
(WordPress language translations)
Searching Online For WordPress
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Additional WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WP plugins”, ”learn WordPress”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to more than 30 million …
(WP searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched online 5 x as much as Joomla and 9x more than Drupal.
WordPress Services
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of all 33,000 WP users who responded to the survey stated that they make a full-time living off the WordPress CMS. An earlier survey conducted by WordPress (2012) also found that the median hourly rate of WordPress projects is around US$50.
You can find WordPress developers and designers for hire at freelancing sites like Upwork.com …
According to Upwork, the typical cost for WordPress jobs is around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can clearly see from the above statistics, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to grow.
In other articles, we will cover the following areas of WordPress in more detail:
- Why WordPress is the best platform for growing your small business online,
- Dozens of reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a comprehensive breakdown of the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform,
- How to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to drive more traffic to your site, get more leads and subscribers, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be providing lots of step-by-step tutorials and examples on how you can use WordPress to grow your business online, and save thousands of dollars on the costs of website development and website design.
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Sources:
The information for this article was sourced from various locations around the web, including the following sites:
- https://wordpress.org
- https://wordpress.com
- http://automattic.com
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordPress
- http://w3techs.com/technologies/details/cm-wordpress/all/all
- http://trends.builtwith.com/cms
- http://ma.tt/2014/10/sotw-2014
- https://managewp.com/14-surprising-statistics-about-wordpress-usage
- http://torquemag.io/13-surprising-wordpress-statistics
- https://websitebuilder.org/resources/amazing-facts-you-probably-dont-know-about-wordpress
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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum