Tag: WordPress Usage

This article is part of a multi-part article series designed to help small businesses grow and succeed online.

For more information about of the article series, see this post:

• The Business Owner’s Guide To Using WordPress

In this article, you will learn some WordPress usage statistics that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world choose WordPress and what kind of businesses use WordPress today.

WordPress: Some Facts And Statistics

Here is a summary of what we will cover:

• WordPress began in 2003.
• WordPress offers two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable software (WordPress.org).
• 22 out of every hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for a new WordPress site.
• There are over sixty million installations of WordPress. This number grows significantly everyday.
• WordPress powers over 30% of the internet. Over one-third of all websites worldwide 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 websites worldwide using a content management system are driven by WordPress.
• Over 37 million searches made each month on Google are for terms related to WordPress.
• The WordPress application is 100% free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is built using an open source content management system.
• WordPress is continually built and improved upon by volunteers. People from all around the world work on 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 features and security.
• WordPress can deliver your content online to visitors worldwide. WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy languages and dialects.
• The WordPress repository currently makes available thousands of free WP plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
• There is virtually no limit to what type of site you can build using WordPress.

WordPress Popularity

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, modify and manage 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 largest 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 the software) currently attracts more unique visitors than Amazon, Facebook, eBay, Yahoo.com, and Twitter …

(WordPress [hosted version] unique visits. 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 usage stats. 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 today are being built on WordPress.

WordPress is so popular, that trying to keep up with statistics on WordPress is quite difficult because the numbers change so often.

For example, at the time this article was written, here is the current number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …

(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)

Note: The above download numbers represents only the most recent version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet updated their WP installations to the latest version …

(WP versions in current use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)

As this post was being written, the number of downloads is already increasing. If you were to click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, you will no doubt see a significantly 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.

Speaking of updates, WordPress has released over one hundred new update versions to date …

(Over one hundred new versions of WordPress have been made available to date)

WordPress currently releases a new update every 3-4 months or so …

(WordPress regularly releases new version updates named after famous Jazz musicians)

Incidentally, all major WordPress version releases are traditionally named after famous Jazz music artists, eg:

• v.2.0 = Duke Ellington (December 31, 2005),
• v.2.7 = John Coltrane (December 10, 2008),
• v.3.2 = George Gershwin (July 4, 2011),
• v.3.4 = Grant Green (June 13, 2012),
• v.4.1 = Dinah Washington (December 18, 2014),
• etc …

Who Uses WordPress?

In a nutshell, all types of businesses and people are using WordPress to blog about everything under the sun.

Global brands, businesses, retail companies, celebrities, politicians, famous artists, educational institutions, government sectors, local organizations – even countries are using WordPress …

WordPress.org Website Showcase

Here are just some of the growing number of businesses, institutions and people using WordPress:

• Global Brands & Corporations: Google Ventures, Glad, Method Products, Groupe Vivendi, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
• Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: Garth Brooks, Rush, Lily Allen, Brian Smith, Usain Bolt, The Rolling Stones, Dave Matthews Band, Gabriel Iglesias, Russell Brand, etc …
• Universities & Educational Institutions: University of Manitoba Today, International Relations Online at American University, Bates College, Salve Regina University, etc.
• Magazines & News Media: Thrive Magazine, Time.com, IMC TV, LinkedIn, etc.
• Government Sites, Public Services & Humanitarian Organizations: Sweden’s Official Site, Canadian Olympic Committee, Slow Food Italia, CURE International, 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 software (WordPress.org).

• Businesses often choose the self-hosted version, which can be installed on their own domains and modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are used for business sites.
• 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 self-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 blog 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) – Live Activity

In other articles, we will discuss the differences between WordPress.com (hosted) vs WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.

Other WordPress Statistics

WordPress Plugins

WordPress users have access to over 37,000 plugins for free from the WordPress plugin repository …

(WordPress.org plugin repository)

For more information about plugins go here:

• Using WordPress Plugins To Enhance Your Web Site’s Features And Functionality

WordPress Themes

WordPress users can also access over 1,700 themes for free …

(WP themes directory)

We have written a comprehensive article about WordPress themes here:

• A Beginner’s Guide To Understanding WordPress Themes

Using WordPress In Other Languages

WordPress has been translated and localized into over seventy international languages in addition to English …

(WordPress language translations)

Searching Online For WordPress

The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Additional 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 more than Joomla and nine times more than Drupal.

WordPress Rates

According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, a quarter of users who responded to 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 US$50.

You can find WordPress developers and designers for hire at freelancing sites like Upwork …

According to Upwork.com, the typical cost for WordPress jobs is between $10 – $500 …

(Source: Upwork)

As you can see from the statistics above, WordPress is set for continued growth for a long time to come.

In other articles, we will address the following:

• Why WordPress is the best option when it comes to choosing a vehicle to grow your business online,
• Over fifty great reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a comprehensive look at the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress platform,
• How to automate your business with WordPress,
• How to generate more traffic to your site, get more leads, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
• Plus, we’ll provide loads of tutorials and examples of how to use WordPress and grow your business online, and save thousands of dollars on web development and web design costs.

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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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