This article is part of a detailed series of articles designed to help small businesses grow and succeed online.
For an overview of the article series, go here:
In this article, we present some surprising WordPress usage statistics that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world rely on WordPress to power their websites and blogs and what kind of people and businesses use WordPress today.
Some Really Useful Statistics About WordPress
In short:
- WordPress started as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress offers users the choice of two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
- 23 out of every one hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for installing a new WordPress website or blog.
- There are well over 60 million installations of WordPress. This number grows significantly everyday.
- WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites around the world 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 websites that use a CMS application are built with WordPress.
- Over 35,000,000 searches made each month on Google are for WordPress related terms.
- 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 continually built by volunteers. Thousands of people from all around the world are at work developing and improving the WordPress software each day.
- WordPress is regularly updated to eliminate bugs and improve its features and security.
- WordPress can deliver your content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 international languages and dialects.
- The WordPress repository currently makes available thousands of free plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is virtually no limit to what someone can do with WordPress.
WordPress Popularity
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a website maintenance tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easy for non-technical website 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. WordPress is now the most downloaded self-hosted CMS-based publishing platform 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 are home-based. Despite its distributed model and so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of WordPress) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Facebook, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo.com, and Twitter …
(WordPress [hosted] monthly uniques. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Consider the following stats on WordPress CMS usage:
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 dominance, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …
(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)
In fact, more and more websites are being built with WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that even keeping up with statistics on WordPress is difficult because the information 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 upgraded their sites to the latest release …
(WP versions currently in use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
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 will no doubt see a much higher number of downloads … 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.
Speaking of updates, WordPress has made available to users over one hundred new updates in its first 11 years of existence …
(Over 100 new WordPress versions have been released since 2003)
WordPress currently releases a new software update every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new version updates named after famous Jazz musicians)
Incidentally, all major WordPress updates are named in honor of Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.2.1 = Ella Fitzgerald (January 22, 2007),
- v.2.5 = Michael Brecker (March 29, 2008),
- v.3.2 = George Gershwin (July 4, 2011),
- v.3.5 = Elvin Jones (December 11, 2012),
- v.3.8 = Charlie Parker (December 12, 2013),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress
A better question is who isn’t using WordPress? All different kinds of companies and people are using WordPress to publish content about everything under the sun.
Giant brands, businesses, retail companies, celebrities, politicians, famous actors, educational institutions, government department sites, not-for-profits – even nations are using WordPress to publish web content and run their official sites …
WordPress.org Showcase
Here are just some of the many businesses, institutions and people who are using WordPress:
- Global Brands & Corporations: Google Ventures, Dole, Method Products, McDonald’s Singapore, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
- Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: Garth Brooks, Rush, Kylie Minogue, Beyoncé, The Sacramento Ballet, Snoop Dogg, Blondie, Channing Tatum, Russell Brand, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, International Relations Online at American University, Bates College, MIT Sloan Management Review, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Time Inc., The Australian, FiveThirtyEight, CBS New York, etc.
- Government Sites, Not For Profits & Community Organizations: Sweden’s Official Site, Chicago Weather Center, São Paulo Carnival, CURE International, Amnesty International Korea, 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 the self-hosted version, which can be installed in their domain and 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 self-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 posts every second (around 1.5 million posts per day).
WordPress publishes a live map showing the latest user activity across its hosted service …
WordPress.com – Activity Worldwide
In later posts, we will look at the main differences between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Other WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over 37,000 WP plugins for free …
(WordPress.org free plugins directory)
We have written a comprehensive article about plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users also have access to over 1,700 free themes from the WordPress theme directory …
(WordPress.org free themes repository)
For more information about WP themes go here:
WordPress Language Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international 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. Adding WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WordPress plugins”, “WordPress tutorials”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to more than thirty-seven million …
(WordPress searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched online five times more than Joomla and 9x more than Drupal.
WordPress Rates
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of 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 median hourly rate of WordPress projects is 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.com)
As you can see, WordPress is bound for continued growth for many years to come.
In other articles, we will explore the following areas in more detail:
- Why WordPress is the best choice when you need a platform for growing your small business online,
- Dozens of great 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,
- How to automate your business with WordPress,
- How to drive more visitors, get more leads, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be providing lots of step-by-step tutorials and practical examples and tips of how to use WordPress to grow your business online, and save thousands of dollars on web development and website design costs.
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Information Sources:
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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