This article is part of a detailed multi-part series of articles aimed at helping you understand how the WordPress CMS platform can help your small business achieve its business goals online using WordPress.
For more information about of the article series, go here:
In this blog post, you will learn some 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 people and businesses use WordPress today.
Impressive Statistics About WordPress
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).
- 23 out of every 100 new domains registered in the U.S. are for a new WordPress website.
- There are well over sixty million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number grows significantly every day.
- 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 worldwide using a content management system are built with WordPress.
- Over 35,000,000 searches are made on Google each month for terms related to WordPress.
- The WordPress application is completely free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is distributed under an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is built by volunteers. People from all over the world are at work developing and improving WordPress functionality on an ongoing basis.
- The WordPress software is updated on a regular basis to fix bugs and improve both its ease of use and security.
- WordPress delivers content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is almost no limit to what you can build with WordPress.
WordPress Usage
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a website maintenance 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 all 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 most downloaded self-hosted CMS application in the world, used on millions of websites 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 work from home. Despite being a distributed company and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of WordPress) currently attracts more unique visitors than Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Yahoo, and eBay …
(WordPress [hosted version] unique monthly visitors. Source: Automattic.com)
Consider the following WordPress 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 usage, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …
(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)
In fact, more websites are powered by WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that even trying to keep up with statistics on WordPress is quite difficult because the information changes so frequently.
For example, at the time this article was written, this is the 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 updated their WP installations to the latest version …
(WP versions currently in use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
Even as this article was being written, the number of downloads has already shot up. 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 different version, as the WordPress development team continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Speaking of updates, WordPress has made available to users over 100 new update versions to date …
(Over 100 new WordPress versions have been made available to date)
WordPress currently releases a new software update every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new version updates named after famous Jazz musicians)
Interestingly enough, all major WordPress releases are named in honor of Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.1.2 = Charles Mingus (May 22, 2004),
- v.2.2 = Stan Getz (May 16, 2007),
- v.2.9 = Carmen McRae (December 18, 2009),
- v.3.3 = Sonny Stitt (December 12, 2011),
- v.4.0 = Benny Goodman (September 4, 2014),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress?
A better question is who doesn’t use WordPress nowadays? All different kinds of companies and people from all walks of life are using WordPress to blog about every kind of topic imaginable.
Large corporations, business of all sizes, technology companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous artists, colleges, government department sites, not-for-profits – even countries are using WordPress sites …
WP Showcase
Here are just some of the growing number of sites, organizations and people who use WordPress:
- Businesses & Companies: Google Ventures, Glad, Dassault Aviation, McDonald’s Singapore, Vogue, etc …
- Famous People, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: Garth Brooks, Rush, Nancy Pelosi, Justin Bieber, The Sacramento Ballet, The Rolling Stones, Mötley Crüe, Channing Tatum, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: University of Manitoba Today, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, Bates College, Lafayette College, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Time Inc., Time.com, IMC TV, Dusty Cartridge, etc.
- Government Sites, Not For Profits & Humanitarian Organizations: San Pellegrino Terme, Canadian Olympic Committee, The National Art Gallery of Maldives, AIDS Project Rhode Island, Rotary Means Business – Rotary Club, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- Businesses often choose the self-hosted version, which can be installed on their own domains and freely modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are set up for business purposes.
- 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 externally-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 blog posts every second (around 1.5 million posts per day).
WordPress publishes a live map that shows the latest user activity across its hosted platform …
WordPress.com – Activity Around The World
In other tutorials, we present the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Other Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over 37,000 free plugins from the WordPress free plugins directory …
(WordPress plugin directory)
For more information about plugins go here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users also have access to over 1,700 themes for free from the WordPress free theme directory …
(WordPress free themes repository)
We have written a detailed article about WordPress themes here:
WordPress Language Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WP language translations)
WordPress Searches
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Additional WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WordPress plugins”, “WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to around thirty-five million …
(WordPress-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched 5 x more than Joomla and nine times more than Drupal.
WordPress Services
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of WordPress 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 US$50.
You can find WordPress designers and developers for hire at freelancing sites like Upwork.com …
According to Upwork.com, the typical cost for WordPress jobs is around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can see, WordPress is set for continued growth for a long time to come.
In other blog posts, you will learn:
- Why WordPress is the best platform to grow your small business online,
- Dozens of compelling reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a detailed breakdown of the benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform,
- How to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to drive more visitors, increase conversions, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll provide ongoing step-by-step tutorials and practical tips and examples on how to use WordPress to grow your business presence online, while also saving thousands of dollars on the costs of web development and website design.
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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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"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