This blog post is part of a detailed multi-part article series designed to help small businesses grow and succeed online.
For an overview of the article series, go here:
In this blog post, you will learn some impressive WordPress usage statistics that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world rely on WordPress to power their business websites and what kind of businesses use WordPress today.
Some Impressive Statistics About WordPress
In short:
- WordPress started in 2003.
- WordPress offers users two formats: a hosted application (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 site.
- There are over 60 million installations of WordPress worldwide. 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 using a content management system are driven by WordPress.
- Over 37 million searches made each month on Google are for WordPress related terms.
- WordPress is completely free to download, use and modify. WordPress is built using an open source content management system.
- WordPress code is continually built by volunteers. Thousands of people from all over the world work on developing and improving the WordPress application on an ongoing basis.
- WordPress is regularly updated 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 languages.
- The WordPress repository currently makes available thousands of free WordPress plugins, themes, and widgets to WordPress users.
- There is virtually no limit to what you can do using WordPress.
WordPress Market Dominance
In simple terms, a content management system (CMS), is a web tool for non-technical users. It is designed to make it easy for non-technical website users to add, modify and manage all content on their website.
WordPress began in 2003. It was originally written by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. Since then, WordPress has grown to become the most popular self-hosted blogging tool 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 WordPress) currently attracts more unique views per month than Facebook, Amazon, Yahoo.com, Twitter, and eBay …
(WordPress.com unique monthly visitors. Source: http://automattic.com/about)
Consider the following WP CMS usage stats:
WordPress is the world’s leading CMS platform and powers over 30% of the web …
(WP 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 and blogs today are being powered by the WordPress CMS platform.
WordPress is so popular, that trying to keep up with the latest statistics on WordPress is quite difficult because the information changes so often.
For example, at the time this post was written, here is the current number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: https://wordpress.org/download/counter)
Note: The above download figures represents only the latest version of WordPress. Around one third of all current users have not yet upgraded their WP installations to the latest release …
(WordPress versions currently in use. Source: https://wordpress.org/about/stats)
Even as this article 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 should expect to see a significantly 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 100 new software updates since 2003 …
(Over one hundred new versions of WordPress have been made available since 2003)
WordPress currently releases a new software update every 3-4 months or so …
(WordPress regularly releases new software versions named after famous Jazz musicians)
here is an interesting fact: all major WordPress version releases are named in honor of Jazz music artists, eg:
- v.1.5 = Billy Strayhorn (February 17, 2005),
- v.2.7 = John Coltrane (December 10, 2008),
- v.3.1 = Django Reinhardt (February 23, 2011),
- v.3.3 = Sonny Stitt (December 12, 2011),
- v.3.8 = Charlie Parker (December 12, 2013),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress?
Who doesn’t use WordPress nowadays? All different types of enterprises and people are using WordPress to publish content about everything under the sun.
Well-known corporations, business of all sizes, technology companies, celebrities, sports stars, famous musicians, educational institutions, government department sites, not-for-profits – even countries use WordPress blogs …
WordPress Blog Showcase
Here are just some of the sites, companies and people using WordPress:
- Businesses & Companies: Factory Jackson, Dole, GDF SUEZ, Group Bouygues, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
- Famous People, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: Garth Brooks, Ariana Grande, Pixies, Justin Bieber, The Sacramento Ballet, Riverdance, Dave Matthews Band, Howie Mandel, Russell Brand, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: University of Manitoba Today, Milwaukee School of Engineering’s Bridge, Washington University’s School of Law, Salve Regina University, etc.
- Magazines & Online Media: Fortune, Time.com, Facebook Newsroom, CBS New York, etc.
- Governments, Not For Profits & Community Organizations: Sweden’s Official Site, Canadian Olympic Committee, Slow Food Italia, UK Government Cabinet Office Digital Team, Amnesty International Korea, 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 the self-hosted version, which can be installed in their domain and freely 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 posts per day).
WordPress publishes a live map showing the latest activity across its hosted service …
WordPress.com – Activity
In other articles, we will present the main differences between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
General WordPress Statistics
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users can download and install over 37,000 free WordPress plugins from the WordPress free plugin directory …
(WordPress.org plugin repository)
We have written a great article about plugins here:
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also access over 1,700 free WordPress themes from the WordPress theme directory …
(WP free themes directory)
We have published a detailed article about themes here:
WordPress Language Translations
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 international languages and dialects in addition to English …
(WordPress.org language translations)
Searching Online For WordPress
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 online searches for WordPress terms to more than thirty-seven million …
(WordPress-related searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress is searched online 5 x more than Joomla and 9x more than Drupal.
WordPress Rates
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, 25% of all 33,000 WP 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 median hourly rate of WordPress projects is around US$50.
You can find WordPress designers and developers for hire by searching on freelancing sites like Upwork …
According to Upwork.com, the typical job cost ranges for WordPress are between $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 blog posts, we will explore the following areas of WordPress in detail:
- Why WordPress is the smartest option when it comes to choosing a platform to grow your small business online,
- Dozens of great reasons why you should choose WordPress for your website or blog, including a detailed look at the benefits, features, and advantages of using the WordPress platform,
- Ways to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to drive targeted traffic, increase conversions, and sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be publishing loads of tutorials and tips on how you can use WordPress to expand your business presence online, and save thousands of dollars on the costs of web development and website design.
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Sources:
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://wptrainme.com
- 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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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum