This article is part of a comprehensive multi-part series of articles designed to help you understand why the WordPress CMS can help your small business grow and succeed online.
For an overview of the article series, go here:
In this blog post, we present a number of impressive WordPress statistics that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world use WordPress to power their business websites and blogs and what kind of businesses use WordPress today.
WordPress: Facts And Statistics
A brief summary:
- WordPress began in 2003.
- WordPress offers users two formats: a hosted platform (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 installing a new WordPress site.
- There are well over sixty million installations of WordPress. This number grows everyday.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites around the world 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 that use a content management system are built with WordPress.
- Over 37,000,000 searches are made on Google each month for terms related to WordPress.
- WordPress is completely free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is distributed as an open source content management system.
- WordPress is built by volunteers. Thousands of people from all over the world are at work developing and improving WordPress every day.
- WordPress is regularly updated to fix 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 and dialects.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is virtually no limit to what someone can do using WordPress.
WordPress Market Dominance
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, 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 blogging tool in the world, used on millions of websites 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 work from home. Despite being a distributed company with so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of WordPress) currently attracts more unique views per month than Facebook, Amazon, eBay, Twitter, and Yahoo …
(WordPress [hosted version] unique views. Source: Automattic.com)
Consider the following WP usage figures:
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 market share, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …
(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)
In fact, more and more sites are using WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that even trying to keep up with statistics on WordPress is difficult because the numbers change so often.
For example, at the time this article was published, here is the number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above number represents only the most recent 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 article was being written, the number of downloads has already shot up. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter page, you will no doubt see a significantly higher number of downloads … perhaps even an updated version, as the WordPress developer team continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Speaking of updates, WordPress has made available over 100 new update versions since 2003 …
(Over 100 new WordPress versions have been released since 2003)
WordPress currently releases a new updated version every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new version updates named after famous Jazz musicians)
Interestingly enough, all major WordPress version updates are named in honor of well-known Jazz musicians, 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.3.9 = Jimmy Smith (April 16, 2014),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress?
In a nutshell, all different types of enterprises and people use WordPress to blog about every kind of topic imaginable.
Giant brands, business of all sizes, retail companies, celebrities, politicians, famous musicians, colleges, government department sites, not-for-profits – even countries use WordPress blogs …
WP Showcase
Here are just some of the growing number of sites, organizations and people who have chosen to use WordPress:
- Global Brands & Companies: Factory Jackson, Glad, GDF SUEZ, Group Bouygues, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
- Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: Garth Brooks, Rush, Pixies, Beyoncé, Dallas Mavericks, Snoop Dogg, Blondie, Channing Tatum, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, Washington University’s School of Law, Salve Regina University, etc.
- Magazines & Online Media: Time Inc., The New Yorker, Facebook Newsroom, CBS New York, etc.
- Governments, Not For Profits & Humanitarian Organizations: Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, Canadian Olympic Committee, São Paulo Carnival, AIDS Project Rhode Island, Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, 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 domain and modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are business marketing activities.
- 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 posts every second (around 1.5 million per day).
You can see a live map that lets you see blog post updates around the world in real-time …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Activity
In other posts, we will address 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 from the WordPress plugin repository …
(WordPress.org free plugins directory)
For a detailed article about plugins see this post:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users also have access to over 1,700 free WordPress themes …
(WordPress.org free themes directory)
For more information about themes go here:
Translations Of WordPress
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WP languages)
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. “WP themes”, “WP plugins”, “WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to more than thirty million …
(WordPress searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress is searched five times more than Joomla and 9x more often than Drupal.
WordPress Developers
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of all 33,000 users who answered the survey said that they make a full-time living off WordPress. An earlier survey conducted by WordPress (2012) also found that the average hourly rate of WordPress projects is around US$50.
You can find WordPress designers and developers for hire at freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork.com, the typical cost for WordPress jobs is around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can clearly see from the information presented above, 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 reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a detailed review of the benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- Ways to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to generate targeted visitors to your website, increase conversions, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll provide lots of step-by-step tutorials and great tips 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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References:
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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