This blog post is part of a series of articles aimed at helping you understand why the WordPress CMS can help your small business grow and succeed online.
For more information about of the article series, go here:
In this blog post, you will learn a number of impressive WordPress statistics that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world rely on WordPress to power their websites and what kind of businesses use WordPress today.
WordPress Statistics
A brief summary:
- WordPress began in 2003.
- WordPress is available in two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- 23 out of every one hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for installing a new WordPress website or blog.
- There are well over sixty million installations of WordPress. This number increases every day.
- 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 sites using a CMS application are powered by WordPress.
- Over 37,000,000 searches are made on Google each month for WordPress related terms.
- WordPress is 100% free to download, use and modify. WordPress is distributed under an open source content management system.
- WordPress is continually built by volunteers. Thousands of people from all around the world work on developing and improving WordPress functionality on an ongoing basis.
- The WordPress software is continually being updated to eliminate 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 international languages.
- The WordPress repository currently makes available thousands of free WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is almost no limit to what can be built using WordPress.
WordPress CMS Usage
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a website tool for non-technical users. It is a web application designed to make it easy for non-technical website owners to add, edit and manage content on their website.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally a simple program developed by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. It is currently the widely-used self-hosted CMS-based publishing platform in the world, used on millions of sites 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 being a distributed company and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of WordPress) currently attracts more unique visitors than Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo.com, and eBay …
(WordPress [hosted version] monthly uniques. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Consider the following figures on WordPress CMS usage:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WP CMS usage stats. Source: trends.builtwith.com/cms)
In terms of CMS market share, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …
(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)
In fact, more and more websites and blogs are now using the WordPress CMS platform.
WordPress is so popular, that even trying to keep up with statistics on WordPress is quite difficult because the information changes so often.
For example, at the time this article was published, here is the current number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above download numbers represents only the most recent version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their sites to the latest release …
(WordPress versions currently in use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
As this article was being written, the number of downloads is already increasing. If you were to click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, you should expect to see a significantly higher number of downloads … perhaps even a newer version, as the WordPress community continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Regarding updates, WordPress has released over one hundred new software updates since 2003 …
(Over one hundred new versions of WordPress have been released in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new version every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new software versions named after famous Jazz musicians)
Curiously enough, all major WordPress releases are typically named after well-known Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.1.5 = Billy Strayhorn (February 17, 2005),
- v.2.6 = McCoy Tyner (July 15, 2008),
- v.2.9 = Carmen McRae (December 18, 2009),
- v.3.7 = Count Basie (October 24, 2013),
- v.4.1 = Dinah Washington (December 18, 2014),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress?
In a nutshell, all different types of companies and people use WordPress to blog about everything and anything.
Global corporations, businesses, technology companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous artists, colleges, government sectors, non-profit organizations – even nations are using WordPress …
WordPress.org Site Showcase
Here are just some of the businesses, organizations and people using WordPress:
- Global Brands & Corporations: Google Ventures, Boardshorts.com, Panic, McDonald’s Singapore, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
- Famous People, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Ariana Grande, Pixies, Justin Bieber, Usain Bolt, Riverdance, Dave Matthews Band, Howie Mandel, Sylvester Stallone, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: University of Manitoba Today, Milwaukee School of Engineering’s Bridge, UCF College of Medicine, Lafayette College, etc.
- Magazines & News Media: Tribune Media, The Australian, FiveThirtyEight, Enterprise Magazine, etc.
- Governments, Not For Profits & Community Organizations: San Pellegrino Terme, Canadian Museum of History, The National Art Gallery of Maldives, CURE International, Amnesty International Korea, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress is available in two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- Businesses often choose the self-hosted version, which can be installed on their domain names and modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are used for running some kind of business.
- 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).
You can see a live map showing user activity across its hosted service …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Activity
In other tutorials, we will compare the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Other WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over 37,000 WP plugins at no cost from the WordPress free plugins directory …
(WordPress free plugins repository)
We have published a comprehensive article about plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 free themes from the WordPress free themes repository …
(WordPress.org theme directory)
We have written a detailed article about themes here:
Using WordPress In Different Languages
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 international languages in addition to English …
(WP language translations)
WordPress Searches
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month 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 30 million …
(WP 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 often than Drupal.
WordPress Developers
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of all WP users who responded to 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.com, the typical cost for WordPress jobs is around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can see, WordPress is poised for continued growth for many years to come.
In other articles, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the best platform to grow your business online,
- Dozens of great reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business 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 traffic to your website, get more leads, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be providing ongoing ”how to” tutorials and examples of how to use WordPress and grow your business presence online, while also saving thousands of dollars on website development and web design costs.
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Sources:
The above statistics 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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