This blog post is part of a series of articles aimed at helping you understand how the WordPress CMS can help your small business grow online using the WordPress CMS.
For an overview of the article series, see this post:
In this blog post, you will learn a number of WordPress facts and figures that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world choose WordPress to power their business websites and blogs and what kind of businesses and people use WordPress today.
WordPress: Useful Facts And Statistics
A brief summary:
- WordPress began as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress offers users two formats: a hosted application (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.
- There are well over sixty million installations of WordPress. This number increases 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 using a CMS application are powered by 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 as an open source content management system.
- WordPress is built and improved upon by volunteers. Thousands of people from all around the world work on developing and improving WordPress on an ongoing basis.
- The WordPress software is updated on a regular basis to address bugs and improve both 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 and dialects.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is virtually no limit to what you can do with WordPress.
WordPress CMS Usage
A content management system (CMS), is a web tool for non-technical users. It is a web application designed to make it easier for non-technical users to add, edit and manage content on their site.
WordPress started in 2003. It was originally a simple program developed by co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. It is currently the largest self-hosted content management system (CMS) 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 Amazon, Facebook, Yahoo.com, Twitter, and eBay …
(WordPress.com unique visits. Source: Automattic.com)
Here are just some of the latest WordPress usage figures:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WordPress usage figures. Source: trends.builtwith.com/cms)
In terms of CMS dominance, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …
(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)
In fact, more and more websites today are being built on the WordPress CMS platform.
WordPress is so popular, that even trying to keep up with the latest statistics on WordPress is very difficult because the data changes so often.
For example, at the time this post was published, here is the number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above 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 version …
(WP versions currently in use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
Even as this post was being written, the number of downloads is already increasing. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter page, you will no doubt see a much higher number of downloads … perhaps even a newer 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 to users over one hundred new updates to date …
(Over 100 new versions of WordPress have been made available to date)
WordPress currently releases a new version every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new versions honoring famous Jazz musicians)
An interesting fact, is that all major WordPress releases are traditionally 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.3.0 = Thelonious Monk (June 17, 2010),
- v.3.6 = Oscar Peterson (August 1, 2013),
- v.3.9 = Jimmy Smith (April 16, 2014),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress?
In a nutshell, all kinds of organizations and people are using WordPress to publish content about everything and anything.
Popular brands, businesses, retail companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous musicians, educational institutions, government department sites, not-for-profits – even countries are using WordPress to publish web content and run their official sites …
WordPress.org Website Showcase
Here are just some of the many businesses, companies and people who have chosen to use WordPress:
- Global Brands & Corporations: Factory Jackson, Glad, Groupe Renault, Group Bouygues, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
- Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Artists & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Rush, Kylie Minogue, Justin Bieber, Dallas Mavericks, The Rolling Stones, Mötley Crüe, Gabriel Iglesias, Russell Brand, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, International Relations Online at American University, Bates College, Salve Regina University, etc.
- Magazines & News Media: Thrive Magazine, Time.com, Facebook Newsroom, Dusty Cartridge, etc.
- Government Sites, Not For Profits & Humanitarian Organizations: Open.NASA.gov, Canadian Olympic Committee, Maryland National Road Association, UK Government Cabinet Office Digital Team, 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 clearly prefer the self-hosted version, which can be installed on their domains and freely modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are set up for commercial uses.
- 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 new posts per second (around 1.5 million per day).
WordPress.com publishes a live map showing the latest user activity across its hosted service …
WordPress (Hosted Version) – Live Users WorldWide
In other posts, we discuss the difference between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
General Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over almost 40,000 free WP plugins from the WordPress free plugins directory …
(WP plugin repository)
For a detailed article about plugins see this post:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also access over 1,700 WordPress themes at no cost …
(WordPress.org free themes directory)
For more information about WordPress themes go here:
Translations Of WordPress
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WordPress.org languages)
WordPress Searches Online
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Including 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 million …
(WordPress-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched 5 x as much as Joomla and 9x more often than Drupal.
WordPress Rates
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of all users who answered the survey stated 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 developers and designers for hire by searching on freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork, the typical job cost ranges for WordPress are between $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork.com)
As you can clearly see from the statistics presented above, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to grow and dominate in the CMS landscape.
In other blog posts, we will address the following:
- Why WordPress is the smartest option in most situations when it comes to choosing a vehicle for growing your business online,
- Over 50 compelling reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a detailed look at the benefits, features, and advantages of using WordPress,
- Ways to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to drive targeted visitors, increase conversions, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be providing new step-by-step tutorials and practical examples and tips of how you can use WordPress and expand your business presence online, while also saving thousands of dollars on web development and website design costs.
Subscribe below & receive 101+ useful WordPress tips that will help grow your business online faster ...
References:
The information for this post 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
***
"Learning WordPress has been a huge stumbling block for me. I've been looking for something that covers absolutely everything but doesn't cost an arm and a leg. Thank you so much ... you have just provided me with what I have been looking for! Truly appreciated!" - Tanya