This article is part of a detailed article series aimed at helping you grow a successful business online.
For more information about of the article series, see this post:
In this blog post, you will learn a number of WordPress usage statistics that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world use WordPress and what kind of businesses and people are using WordPress today.
Some Impressive Facts And Figures About WordPress Usage
A brief summary:
- WordPress started as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress offers two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- 22 out of every hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for a new WordPress website.
- There are over 60 million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number grows significantly everyday.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites worldwide 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 that use a content management system are driven by WordPress.
- Over 37 million searches made each month on Google are for WordPress related terms.
- The WordPress application is completely free to download, use and modify. WordPress is distributed as an open source content management system.
- WordPress is continually worked on by volunteers. Thousands of people from all over the world are at work developing and improving WordPress each day.
- The WordPress core functionality is updated on a regular basis to eliminate bugs and improve its usage and security.
- WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages and dialects.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is almost no limit to what type of site you can build with WordPress.
WordPress CMS Popularity
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a web tool for non-technical users. It is 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 content management system (CMS) 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 having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the software) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Amazon, Facebook, eBay, Yahoo.com, and Twitter …
(WordPress.com unique visitors. Source: Automattic.com)
Here are just some of the latest WP CMS usage stats:
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 usage, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …
(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)
In fact, more websites and blogs today are being built on the WordPress CMS application.
WordPress is so popular, that keeping up with statistics on WordPress is difficult because the numbers change so often.
For example, at the time this post was written, here is the 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 …
(WP versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
As this post 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 download number … perhaps even an updated version, as WordPress continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Speaking of updates, WordPress has released over one hundred new software updates in its first 11 years of existence …
(Over one hundred new versions of WordPress have been made available in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new software version every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new versions named after famous Jazz musicians)
Curiously enough, all major WordPress version releases have a tradition of being named in honor of famous Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.1.0 = Miles Davis (January 3, 2004),
- v.2.5 = Michael Brecker (March 29, 2008),
- v.3.2 = George Gershwin (July 4, 2011),
- v.3.3 = Sonny Stitt (December 12, 2011),
- v.4.1 = Dinah Washington (December 18, 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 everything and anything.
Global brands, business of all sizes, retail companies, celebrities, politicians, famous artists, colleges, government department sites, not-for-profits – even countries use WordPress blogs …
WordPress.org Showcase
Here are just some of the growing number of sites, institutions and people who have built their online presence with WordPress:
- Businesses & Companies: Google Ventures, DC Diaper Bank, Panic, Groupe Vivendi, Vogue, etc …
- Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: Garth Brooks, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, Kylie Minogue, Beyoncé, Usain Bolt, Riverdance, Dave Matthews Band, Gabriel Iglesias, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, UCF College of Medicine, The University of Mary Washington, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Tribune Media, Time.com, Facebook Newsroom, LinkedIn, etc.
- Governments, Not For Profits & Humanitarian Organizations: Sweden’s Official Site, Chicago Weather Center, The National Art Gallery of Maldives, Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines, Rotary Means Business – Rotary Club, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers users the choice of two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- Businesses prefer to download the self-hosted version, which can be installed in their own domain names 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 new blog posts every second (around 1.5 million posts per day).
WordPress.com provides a live map that shows user activity across its hosted platform …
WordPress.com – Live Activity
In later articles, we present the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Other WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over almost 40,000 free WP plugins from the WordPress free plugins repository …
(WP plugin directory)
For more information about WordPress plugins go here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also download and install over 1,700 free WP themes from the WordPress themes directory …
(WP themes repository)
For more information about WP themes go here:
WordPress Language Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages in addition to English …
(WordPress.org languages)
WordPress Searches Online
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Including WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WP plugins”, ”WordPress SEO”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to around thirty-seven million …
(WordPress-related 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 Developers
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of all 33,000 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 median 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.com)
As you can clearly see from the above facts and figures, WordPress is poised for continued growth for a long time to come.
In other blog posts, we will explore the following areas in more detail:
- Why WordPress is the best option when it comes to choosing a vehicle to grow your business online,
- Dozens of reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a detailed breakdown of the benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- Ways to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to generate more visitors to your site, increase conversions, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be regularly posting loads of ”how to” tutorials and examples on how you can use WordPress to expand your business presence online, while also saving thousands of dollars on website development and website design costs.
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Information 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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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)