Tag: WordPress Usage

This blog post is part of a comprehensive article series designed to help small business owners succeed online.

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

• An Online Guide To Growing Your Successful Business Using WordPress

In this article, we present some surprising WordPress facts and figures that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world choose WordPress and what kind of businesses and people are using WordPress today.

Facts And Figures About WordPress Usage

The short version:

• WordPress began as a blogging tool in 2003.
• WordPress offers users two formats: a hosted application (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).
• 22 out of every hundred new domains registered in the U.S. are for installing a new WordPress website.
• There are well over 60 million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number grows significantly every day.
• 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 that use a CMS application 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 distributed as an open source content management system.
• WordPress is built and improved upon by volunteers. Thousands of people from all over the world work on developing and improving the WordPress software on an ongoing basis.
• WordPress is regularly updated to eliminate 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.
• The WordPress repository currently makes available thousands of free WP plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
• There is practically no limit to what type of site you can build with WordPress.

WordPress Usage

A content management system (CMS), is a web tool for non-technical users. It is a web application designed to make it easy 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 most popular self-hosted CMS application in the world, used on millions of sites 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 being a distributed company and having so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of the software) currently attracts more unique visitors than Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, and eBay …

(WordPress [hosted] monthly uniques. Source: http://automattic.com/about)

Consider the following figures on WordPress CMS 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 usage, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …

(WordPress Market Share. Source: w3techs.com)

In fact, more and more websites today are being powered by WordPress.

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

For example, at the time this article was written, this 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 latest 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 article 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 an updated 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 over one hundred new update versions since 2003 …

(Over 100 new versions of WordPress have been made available to date)

WordPress currently releases a new software version every 3-4 months …

(WordPress regularly releases new version updates honoring famous Jazz musicians)

Interestingly enough, all major WordPress upgrades are named after famous Jazz musicians, eg:

• v.1.2 = Charles Mingus (May 22, 2004),
• v.2.3 = Dexter Gordon (September 24, 2007),
• v.2.8 = Chet Baker (June 11, 2009),
• v.3.6 = Oscar Peterson (August 1, 2013),
• v.4.1 = Dinah Washington (December 18, 2014),
• etc …

Who Is Using WordPress

In a nutshell, all different types of companies and people from all walks of life use WordPress to publish content about every kind of topic imaginable.

Leading corporations, business of all sizes, technology companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous actors, educational institutions, government department sites, not-for-profits – even countries are using WordPress to run their official websites …

WP Showcase

Here are just some of the sites, organizations and people who have chosen to build their online presence with WordPress:

• Global Brands & Companies: Factory Jackson, YRC Freight, Panic, Group Bouygues, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
• Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, Lily Allen, Justin Bieber, Usain Bolt, The Rolling Stones, William Shatner, Channing Tatum, Sylvester Stallone, etc …
• Universities & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, International Relations Online at American University, Washington University’s School of Law, MIT Sloan Management Review, etc.
• Magazines & Media: Tribune Media, The Australian, InStyle News, LinkedIn, etc.
• Governments, Not For Profits & Community Organizations: Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, Chicago Weather Center, Maryland National Road Association, Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines, Amnesty International Korea, etc.

Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress offers users two formats: a hosted platform (WordPress.com) and as a self-hosted, downloadable application (WordPress.org).

• Businesses prefer to download the self-hosted version, which can be installed on their own 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 externally-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 blog posts per second (around 1.5 million per day).

You can see a live map that shows user activity across its hosted service …

WordPress.com – Live Activity

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

General WordPress Statistics

WordPress Plugins

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

(WordPress free plugins repository)

We have written a great article about plugins here:

• Adding New Functionality To Your Website With Plugins

WordPress Themes

WordPress users can also access over 1,700 free WordPress themes from the WordPress theme repository …

(WordPress.org free themes directory)

We have written a comprehensive article about WP themes here:

• Understanding WordPress Themes – A Beginner’s Guide

Translations Of WordPress

WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages and dialects in addition to English …

(WP language translations)

Searching Online For WordPress

The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Including WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WordPress themes”, “WordPress plugins”, ”learn WordPress”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to more than 35 million …

(WP searches online)

If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress is searched online five times more than Joomla and nine times more often than Drupal.

WordPress Developers

According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, one quarter of users who answered the survey stated that they make a full-time living off the WordPress CMS. An earlier survey conducted by WordPress (2012) also found that the median 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.com …

According to Upwork, the typical job cost ranges for WordPress are around $10 – $500 …

(Source: Upwork)

As you can see from the above statistics, the dominance of WordPress is expected to continue for a long time to come.

In other articles, we will cover the following areas in detail:

• Why WordPress is the smartest option in most situations when it comes to choosing a vehicle to grow your small business online,
• Dozens of reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a comprehensive review of the unique benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform,
• Ways to automate your business with WordPress,
• How to generate targeted traffic, increase conversions, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
• Plus, we’ll be regularly posting ongoing ”how to” tutorials and actual examples and tips on how you can use WordPress to expand your business online, and save thousands of dollars on web development and web design costs.

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References:

The information for this article 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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