This blog post is part of a comprehensive multi-part article series aimed at helping small business owners succeed online using the WordPress content publishing application.
For an overview of the article series, go here:
- WordPress In Small Business – A Complete Guide To Growing A Successful Small Business With WordPress
In this article, you will learn some surprising facts and figures about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world rely on WordPress to power their business websites and what kind of people and businesses use WordPress today.
WordPress: Statistics And Market Share
Below is a summary of what this article will cover:
- WordPress began as a blogging tool in 2003.
- WordPress offers users two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
- 23 out of every hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for a new WordPress website.
- There are over sixty million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number increases every day.
- 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 sites that use a content management system are powered by WordPress.
- Over 37,000,000 searches are made on Google each month for terms related to WordPress.
- WordPress is 100% free to download, use and modify. WordPress is distributed under an open source content management system.
- WordPress is built and improved upon by volunteers. Thousands of people from all around the world are at work developing and improving WordPress functionality on an ongoing basis.
- The WordPress core software is continually being updated to eliminate 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 seventy international languages.
- WordPress currently makes available thousands of free plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is virtually no limit to what type of site you can build using WordPress.
WordPress Popularity
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a website tool for non-technical users. It is a web application designed to make it easier for non-technical website owners to add, modify and manage content on their site.
WordPress started in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. It is currently the most downloaded 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 are home-based. Despite being a distributed company and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the WordPress software) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Facebook, Amazon, Yahoo, Twitter, and eBay …
(WordPress [hosted version] monthly uniques. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Consider the following statistics on WordPress usage:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WordPress 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 and blogs are being powered by WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that even trying to keep up with the latest statistics on WordPress is difficult because the information changes so often.
For example, at the time this post was written, here is the number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above figures represents only the most recently released version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their WP installations to the latest version …
(WordPress versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
As this post was being written, the number of downloads has already increased. If you were to 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 community continually updates the software to fix security issues and bugs, and add new or improved features.
Regarding updates, WordPress has released over one hundred new software versions to date …
(Over 100 new versions of WordPress have been released in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new version every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new software updates honoring famous Jazz musicians)
Curiously enough, all major WordPress releases are typically named after famous Jazz musicians, 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.3.5 = Elvin Jones (December 11, 2012),
- v.3.8 = Charlie Parker (December 12, 2013),
- etc …
Who Uses WordPress
Who doesn’t use WordPress? All different kinds of businesses and people from all walks of life are using WordPress to blog about every kind of topic imaginable.
Giant corporations, businesses, retail companies, celebrities, politicians, famous artists, universities, government sectors, not-for-profits – even nations are using WordPress …
WordPress.org Website Showcase
Here are just some of the businesses, companies and people who are using WordPress:
- Businesses & Corporations: Google Ventures, DC Diaper Bank, Panic, Groupe Vivendi, Hyatt Blog, etc …
- Celebs, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, Kylie Minogue, Brian Smith, The Sacramento Ballet, Snoop Dogg, Kobe Bryant, Gabriel Iglesias, Russell Brand, etc …
- Universities & Educational Institutions: Georgia State University, Stony Brook University School of Journalism, UCF College of Medicine, Salve Regina University, etc.
- Magazines & News Media: Time Inc., The Australian, Facebook Newsroom, CBS New York, etc.
- Government Sites, Not For Profits & Community Organizations: San Pellegrino Terme, Canadian Museum of History, Maryland National Road Association, UK Government Cabinet Office Digital Team, Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress is available as a hosted platform (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 domain names and freely modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are used for marketing or promoting businesses.
- 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 posts every second (around 1.5 million posts 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 Around The World
In later posts, we address 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 WordPress plugins at no cost …
(WordPress free plugins directory)
We have written a great article about plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users also have access to over 1,700 free themes from the WordPress free themes repository …
(WordPress.org theme repository)
We have published a comprehensive article about themes here:
Translations Of WordPress
WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WordPress language translations)
WordPress Searches Online
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million searches per month on Google. Adding WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WordPress plugins”, ”learn WordPress”, etc. brings the total number of searches online for WordPress terms to around thirty million …
(WordPress searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched online five times as much as Joomla and nine times more often than Drupal.
WordPress Rates
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of users who participated in 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 developers and designers for hire by searching on freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork, the typical cost for WordPress jobs is around $10 – $500 …
(Source: Upwork)
As you can see, there is no end in sight for how much further WordPress can continue to grow.
In other articles, we will address the following areas of WordPress in detail:
- Why WordPress is an ideal vehicle to grow your small business online,
- Dozens of great reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a comprehensive review of the benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform,
- Ways to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to drive more traffic to your website, get more leads, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be publishing loads of ”how to” tutorials and tips of how to use WordPress and expand your business online, while also saving thousands of dollars on the costs of web development and web design.
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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
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now