Author: WP Compendium

This article is part of a detailed article series designed to help small business owners succeed online.

For more information about of the article series, go here:

• Using A WordPress Blog To Grow Your Business

In this blog post, we present some impressive WordPress usage statistics that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world rely on WordPress and what kind of businesses are using WordPress today.

WordPress: Facts And Statistics

A brief summary:

• WordPress began in 2003.
• WordPress offers users the choice of two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
• 22 out of every 100 new domains registered in the U.S. are for a new WordPress site.
• There are well over sixty million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number grows every day.
• WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites worldwide are built with 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 sites using a CMS application are built with WordPress.
• Over 37 million searches are made on Google each month for terms related to WordPress.
• WordPress is 100% free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is built using an open source content management system.
• WordPress code is built and improved upon by volunteers. Thousands of people from all over the world are at work developing and improving WordPress on an ongoing basis.
• WordPress is updated on a regular basis to address bugs and improve its ease of use and security.
• WordPress can deliver your content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages.
• WordPress currently makes available thousands of free plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
• There is practically no limit to what type of site you can build using WordPress.

WordPress CMS Usage

In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a web tool for non-technical users. It is a web application designed to make it easy for non-technical website owners to add, modify and manage content on their website.

WordPress started 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 most downloaded self-hosted CMS-based publishing platform in the world, used on millions of sites and accessed 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 being a distributed company and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the software) currently attracts more unique views per month than Facebook, Amazon, eBay, Twitter, and Yahoo …

(WordPress [hosted] monthly uniques. Source: http://automattic.com/about)

Consider the following WP usage stats:

WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …

(WP usage figures. Source: trends.builtwith.com/cms)

In terms of CMS usage, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …

(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)

In fact, more sites today are being built with WordPress.

WordPress is so popular, that even trying to keep up with statistics on WordPress is very difficult because the data changes so often.

For example, at the time this article was published, this is the number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …

(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)

Note: The above figure represents only the most recently released version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their installations to the latest version …

(WP versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)

Even as this post was being written, the number of downloads has already grown. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter page, you will no doubt see a much higher figure … perhaps even a newer version, as the WordPress development community continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.

Regarding updates, WordPress has made available to users over one hundred new updates in its first 11 years of existence …

(Over one hundred new WordPress versions have been released to date)

WordPress currently releases a new software version every 3-4 months or so …

(WordPress regularly releases new versions honoring famous Jazz musicians)

Interestingly enough, all major WordPress upgrades have a tradition of being named after famous Jazz music artists, eg:

• v.1.2 = Charles Mingus (May 22, 2004),
• v.2.3 = Dexter Gordon (September 24, 2007),
• v.2.8 = Chet Baker (June 11, 2009),
• v.3.3 = Sonny Stitt (December 12, 2011),
• v.4.1 = Dinah Washington (December 18, 2014),
• etc …

Who Uses WordPress?

Who doesn’t use WordPress? All kinds of businesses and people from all walks of life use WordPress to publish content about everything and anything.

Large brands, business of all sizes, retail companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous artists, educational institutions, government department sites, community organizations – even nations are using WordPress sites …

WordPress.org Showcase

Here are just some of the many businesses, organizations and people who use WordPress:

• Businesses & Companies: Factory Jackson, Dole, Method Products, Groupe Vivendi, Hyatt Blog, etc …
• Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Ariana Grande, Nancy Pelosi, Beyoncé, Usain Bolt, Riverdance, Dave Matthews Band, Gabriel Iglesias, Russell Brand, etc …
• Colleges & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, UCF College of Medicine, Salve Regina University, etc.
• Magazines & Online Media: Thrive Magazine, Time.com, Facebook Newsroom, LinkedIn, etc.
• Government Sites, Public Services & Humanitarian Organizations: San Pellegrino Terme, Canadian Olympic Committee, Slow Food Italia, Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines, Amnesty International Korea, etc.

Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers users two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).

• Businesses often choose the self-hosted version, which can be installed in their own domain names 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, WordPress blogs (blogs hosted either on WordPress.com or externally-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 posts per second (around 1.5 million per day).

WordPress.com provides a live map that lets you see blog post updates around the world in real-time …

WordPress (Hosted Version) – Activity

In other articles, we will compare the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.

Additional WordPress Statistics

WordPress Plugins

WordPress users have access to over 37,000 plugins at no cost from the WordPress free plugins directory …

(WordPress free plugins repository)

We have written a great article about plugins here:

• Adding New Features And Functionality To Your Blog With Plugins

WordPress Themes

WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 themes at no cost …

(WordPress free themes repository)

We have published a great article about WP themes here:

• A Basic Guide To Understanding WP Themes

WordPress Translations

WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages in addition to English …

(WordPress language translations)

WordPress Searches Online

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”, ”WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to around thirty million …

(WordPress-related searches online)

If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched online five times as much as Joomla and 9x more than Drupal.

WordPress Developers

According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of all 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 …

According to Upwork, the typical cost for WordPress jobs is between $10 – $500 …

(Source: Upwork)

As you can clearly see, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to grow.

In other blog posts, you will learn:

• Why WordPress is the smartest option when it comes to choosing a platform to grow your business online,
• Dozens of great reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a comprehensive review of the benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform,
• How to automate your business with WordPress,
• How to drive more visitors, increase conversions, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
• Plus, we’ll provide many tutorials and examples on how to use WordPress and grow your business online, while also saving thousands of dollars on the costs of web 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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