This article is part of a series of articles designed to help you understand how the WordPress content publishing application can help your small business achieve its business goals online.
For an overview of the article series, go here:
In this blog post, we present a number of WordPress usage statistics that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world rely on WordPress and what kind of businesses use WordPress today.
WordPress: Some Facts And Figures
Here is a summary of what you will learn in this post:
- WordPress started as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress is available in two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- 22 out of every hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for installing a new WordPress site.
- There are well over sixty million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number increases everyday.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites around the world are driven 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 30 million searches made each month on Google are for WordPress related terms.
- The WordPress application is completely free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is distributed as an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is continually built by volunteers. People from all over the world work on developing and improving WordPress functionality every day.
- The WordPress application is continually being updated to fix bugs and improve its features and security.
- WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages and dialects.
- The WordPress repository currently makes available thousands of free WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is almost no limit to what you can build with WordPress.
WordPress Popularity
A content management system (CMS), is a web tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easier for non-technical website owners 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. WordPress is now the widely-used self-hosted blogging tool 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 its distributed model and so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, eBay, and Yahoo.com …
(WordPress.com unique monthly visits. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Consider the following WordPress CMS usage figures:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WP 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 and more sites today are being built with WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that even trying to keep up with the latest statistics on WordPress is quite difficult because the numbers change so frequently.
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 figure represents only the latest version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet upgraded their WP installations to the latest version …
(WordPress versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
Even as this post was being written, the number of downloads is already increasing. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter page, you will no doubt see a significantly 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 released over 100 new update versions in its first 11 years of existence …
(Over one hundred new WordPress versions have been made available to date)
WordPress currently releases a new version every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new version updates honoring famous Jazz musicians)
Interestingly enough, all major WordPress updates are typically named after famous Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.1.0 = Miles Davis (January 3, 2004),
- v.2.5 = Michael Brecker (March 29, 2008),
- v.3.0 = Thelonious Monk (June 17, 2010),
- v.3.4 = Grant Green (June 13, 2012),
- v.3.9 = Jimmy Smith (April 16, 2014),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress?
In a nutshell, all different types of enterprises and people from all walks of life use WordPress to blog about every kind of topic imaginable.
Well-known corporations, business of all sizes, technology companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous actors, universities, government department sites, community organizations – even countries are using WordPress …
WP Blog Showcase
Here are just some of the businesses, companies and people who have built their online presence with WordPress:
- Businesses & Companies: Sony Music, YRC Freight, Groupe Renault, McDonald’s Singapore, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
- Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: Alanis Morissette, Rush, Kylie Minogue, Beyoncé, Dallas Mavericks, Steve Blake, LA Lakers, Blondie, Channing Tatum, Sylvester Stallone, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, Bates College, Salve Regina University, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Time Inc., The New Yorker, InStyle News, Dusty Cartridge, etc.
- Government Sites, Not For Profits & Humanitarian Organizations: Open.NASA.gov, Canadian Museum of History, The National Art Gallery of Maldives, UK Government Cabinet Office Digital Team, Amnesty International Korea, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress is available as a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- Businesses prefer to download the self-hosted version, which can be installed in their own domains and freely 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 blog 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) – Live Users WorldWide
In later articles, we cover the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Additional WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over 37,000 plugins at no cost …
(WP plugin directory)
We have written a great article about WP plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 free WP themes …
(WordPress.org theme repository)
For more information about WordPress themes see this post:
WordPress Language Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 international languages in addition to English …
(WP languages)
WordPress Searches
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Including WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WP plugins”, ”learn WordPress”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to more than 37 million …
(WP searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched five times as much as Joomla and 9x more than Drupal.
WordPress Rates
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of 33,000 users who participated in the survey said that they make a full-time living off the WordPress CMS. An earlier survey conducted by WordPress (2012) also found that the average hourly rate of WordPress projects is US$50.
You can find WordPress developers and designers for hire by searching on freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork, the typical job cost ranges for WordPress are around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can clearly see from the above information, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to dominate the CMS market.
In other articles, we will explore the following areas in detail:
- Why WordPress is an ideal vehicle for growing your business online,
- Over fifty reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a detailed review 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 visitors, get more leads and subscribers, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be regularly posting ongoing step-by-step tutorials and practical tips and examples of how you can use WordPress and grow your business online, and save thousands of dollars on web development and web design costs.
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Sources:
The above figures were 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