This article is part of a multi-part series of articles designed to help you understand how the WordPress content publishing application can help your small business succeed online.
For more information about of the article series, see this post:
In this article, we present a number of impressive WordPress facts and figures that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world use WordPress to power their websites and what kind of businesses use WordPress today.
WordPress: Facts And Figures
In short:
- WordPress started in 2003.
- WordPress offers two formats: a hosted platform (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 installing a new WordPress website or blog.
- There are over sixty 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 powered 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 worldwide that use a CMS application are built with WordPress.
- Over 35 million searches are made on Google each month for terms related to WordPress.
- WordPress is 100% free to download, use and modify. WordPress is built using an open source content management system.
- WordPress is continually built by volunteers. Thousands of people from all around the world are at work developing and improving the WordPress application each day.
- The WordPress core functionality is continually being updated to fix bugs and improve both its usage and security.
- WordPress delivers 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 plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is almost no limit to what you can build using WordPress.
WordPress CMS Popularity
A content management system (CMS), is a website tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easy for non-technical users to add, edit and manage all 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 become the most popular self-hosted CMS application 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 and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique views per month than Facebook, Amazon, Yahoo.com, eBay, and Twitter …
(WordPress.com unique monthly views. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Consider the following figures on WordPress:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WP CMS usage statistics. 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 and more websites and blogs 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 written, here is the number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above download figure represents only the most recent version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their sites to the latest version …
(WP versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
As this article was being written, the number of downloads is already increasing. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter page, expect to see a much higher download number … perhaps even a different version, as the WordPress developer 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 100 new software versions in its first 11 years of existence …
(Over one hundred new WordPress versions have been released to date)
WordPress currently releases a new version every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new version updates named after famous Jazz musicians)
Curiously enough, all major WordPress version releases are typically named after well-known Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.1.5 = Billy Strayhorn (February 17, 2005),
- v.2.5 = Michael Brecker (March 29, 2008),
- v.3.1 = Django Reinhardt (February 23, 2011),
- v.3.4 = Grant Green (June 13, 2012),
- v.3.8 = Charlie Parker (December 12, 2013),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress?
In a nutshell, all different types of businesses and people use WordPress to publish content about every kind of topic imaginable.
Well-known brands, business of all sizes, technology companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous musicians, educational institutions, government sectors, not-for-profits – even nations use WordPress …
WordPress Website Showcase
Here are just some of the many businesses, institutions and people who are using WordPress:
- Businesses & Companies: Factory Jackson, Public Storage Canada, GDF SUEZ, Groupe Vivendi, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
- Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Ariana Grande, Kylie Minogue, Beyoncé, The Sacramento Ballet, The Rolling Stones, William Shatner, Channing Tatum, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: University of Manitoba Today, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, UCF College of Medicine, Lafayette College, etc.
- Magazines & News Media: Thrive Magazine, Time.com, FiveThirtyEight, CBS New York, etc.
- Government Sites, Public Services & Community Organizations: Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, Chicago Weather Center, São Paulo Carnival, CURE International, Rotary Means Business – Rotary Club, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers 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 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, blogs belonging to the WordPress network (blogs hosted either on WordPress.com or externally-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 blog 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.com – Live Users WorldWide
In other posts, we will cover the differences between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Additional WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over 37,000 free WordPress plugins from the WordPress free plugin repository …
(WP plugin repository)
For a detailed article about plugins see this post:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users also have access to over 1,700 WP themes for free from the WordPress free theme repository …
(WP themes directory)
For more information about WP themes see this post:
Translations Of WordPress
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WordPress language translations)
Searching Online For WordPress
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Including WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WordPress plugins”, “WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to more than thirty-five million …
(WP-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched five times more than Joomla and 9x more than Drupal.
WordPress Rates
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of WordPress users who participated in 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 average hourly rate of WordPress projects is around 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 information above, WordPress is bound for continued growth for a long time to come.
In other blog posts, we will address the following areas of WordPress:
- Why WordPress is the best choice when you need a platform for growing your small business online,
- Over 50 great 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 targeted traffic to your website, increase conversions, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll provide new ”how to” tutorials and tips on how to use WordPress and expand your business online, and save thousands of dollars on the costs of website development and web design.
Subscribe below & receive 101+ useful WordPress tips that will help grow your business online faster ...
References:
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
***
"I was absolutely amazed at the scope and breadth of these tutorials! The most in-depth training I have ever received on any subject!" - Myke O'Neill, DailyGreenPost.com