Last updated on:
People will say anything to keep their buzz going, and WordPress – just like any other human-made project – has received its fair share of bad-mouthing. People (who don’t know so much about WordPress or its potential) say all manner of things against the platform. For instance, it’s not that hard to come across comments such as:
- WordPress is FREE, so how can it be any good for a commercial project?
- WordPress isn’t scalable
- WordPress isn’t secure and stuff like that
Well, I ask permission to call bullcrap on all these unfounded allegations. I mean, if WordPress wasn’t the darling we all know, why would big brands choose to run not one, not two but several of their websites (and applications) on the platform?
To put these and other WordPress myths to rest, I will mention a few (about ten) reasons why popular brands love and use WordPress. Throughout the article, I will point you to no less than 55 big brands that use WordPress just to augment my argument. See what I just did there? Augment my argument?
Reasons Why Big Brands Love and Use WordPress
So let’s get into it – here are ten reasons these big name brands love and2 use WordPress to power their websites.
1. WordPress is Easy to Use
Need I explain this? Right from the installation to the time you launch your blog/website, WordPress is coupled with ease of use. You neither need to read manuals to use WordPress nor attend special classes to become a WordPress developer or contributor. Ease, ease, and more ease is the way of WordPress.
WordPress comes with a massive collection of themes that are incredibly easy to customize. As such, you can pick a pre-made template, customize it, and have a ready website before the end of the day. If you need to add any functionality imaginable, you have a ton of easy-to-install plugins at your disposal.
Big-name brands run multiple websites, which can be an arduous task if you were to code each site from scratch. If that isn’t scary enough, managing a huge catalog of websites would drive anyone crazy without the right platform. A big brand such as WordPress.com would struggle with its massive network of blogs were it not for WordPress.
That’s right, these guys drink their own Kool-Aid. The massive WordPress.com network runs on – you guessed it – WordPress!
And if WordPress wasn’t easy to use, a big network such as WPMU DEV, which has over 900k users at the time of writing would be hell to run. Come to think of it, it wouldn’t exist, to begin with.
Do you need more proof? Wait, you do? Don’t you use WordPress? Haha.
2. WordPress is Beautiful
Is that not right? Some of the most beautiful (and intuitive) websites out there at the moment run on WordPress. Let me show you a few examples:
Don’t we all love Agent 007? James Bond has been a favorite series of mine since my childhood years, and I can’t wait for the latest installment. The big brand uses WordPress for its beautiful website. The site keeps fans around the globe up to date on the history of one of the world’s more notorious agents, behind-the-scenes features, current/upcoming promotions, and more.
Hello, music aficionados all over the world. Here’s one for all of you music lovers out there. The Rolling Stones brand uses a WordPress site to promote their music, festivals, merch, tours, events, current news and you have to admit – the layout and bold colors are simply stunning.
Here’s another for music lovers. Not to be subjective or anything, but if you’ve never heard of Jay-Z, you must live under a rock. Well, Jay Z runs his alluring website Life+Times on WordPress, where he shares what interests him including style, art, tech, sports, and – of course – music.
World record holder and the greatest sprinter of all time Usain Bolt (he’s retired now) and his brand use WordPress to run his delightful website. He uses a custom “HSThree” theme to share news, appearances, and other media. To put his retirement days to good use, the legend started a foundation for kids in Jamaica. Chip in if you can 🙂
3. WordPress is Scalable
I run a couple of fairly small websites using WordPress and that’s a fact. The same cannot be said of CNN. Oh yeah, Cable News Network runs their mammoth blogs network on WordPress, and without hiccups.
I mean, can you imagine the number of page views CNN pulls in a single day? If WordPress wasn’t scalable, CNN would be in trouble. They would experience terribly slow page load speeds and nasty downtimes.
CNN is not an isolated case here, we have other big, big brands using WordPress, such as CBS New York…
…the University of Hawaii (which also happens to be powered by the Total WordPress theme)…
…and Boise State University just to mention a few. All these big-name brands use WordPress to run high-traffic websites with millions of users. How’s that for scalability baby 🙂 That’s ‘nother myth debunked right there.
4. WordPress is Absolutely Free
This should have come first but wouldn’t that be rather obvious? WordPress is absolutely free to use or in their own words:
WordPress is an Open Source project, which means there are hundreds of people all over the world working on it. (More than most commercial platforms.) It also means you are free to use it for anything from your cat’s home page to a Fortune 500 web site without paying anyone a license fee and a number of other important freedoms.
– WordPress.org
That, plus the official WordPress repository has thousands of free WordPress themes and over 59k free WordPress plugins at this sitting. You can literally bootstrap your website, and invest in premium themes when you pick momentum.
Confession: I’m not a big brand but still use free WordPress themes even though I have bought some pretty nice premium WordPress themes over time. A good example of a premium theme I bought is the Total WordPress theme.
5. WordPress Allows You To Own Your Data
Big brands such as SONY Playstation collect/generate tons of data, some of which might be sensitive. You also generate your own data, and you don’t need anybody else messing around with your bytes. But that aside, data integrity is an important thing to big brands, and the only way to ensure the integrity of data is to own everything.
WordPress is not just a run-of-the-mill blogging platform as many first assume; it’s a secure content management system that makes building amazing websites a breeze. You own your data – every single byte, and no one, even WordPress.com employees will dip a hand in your content – which is why brands like Microsoft use WordPress.
A quick tip about WordPress data security in general:
The WordPress core (the base code) gets regular updates that fix bugs and security holes, which is why we always recommend updating your WordPress site to the latest version. WordPress themes and plugins receive updates regularly as well.
There is a whole WordPress security team comprised of about 50 experts working day-in and day-out to push out security updates. Woe unto you if you don’t update your WordPress site – you’re only exposing your site to malicious attackers who are intent on stealing and destroying whatever you’ve worked so hard to build.
6. WordPress Allows You to Launch Quickly
WordPress takes care of the underlying (or structural) codebase, such that you don’t need to write code from scratch when you want to launch new applications. With your website running on WordPress, you just need a theme and plugins (or a few extra lines of code) to get any app up and running. You don’t need to spend hours on end coding new features from scratch because chances are high that there are plugins just for that.
Imagine the amount of time it would take you to create and test a new application for an HTML + CSS static website? The ability to launch quickly is the reason why big brands such as Time magazine use WordPress to create most of their web content.
“Almost all of our new web content is now created on WordPress,” according to Time Magazine. But it doesn’t end there – other great examples of big brands that create new web content (and applications) using WordPress include:
TechCrunch – one of the top resources for tech, media, and nerd-culture on the web. And much more 🙂
Following along the same line, The Next Web is an advanced technology blog covering the latest and greatest developments in science, computing, engineering, and more. They know their stuff – and they choose WordPress.
Do you want to launch your website quickly? Then play like the big dogs – the big brands that use WordPress to deploy sites and apps in record time.
7. WordPress is Easy to Integrate With Social Media and Other Services
WordPress may be a blogging (CMS) platform, but its ability to integrate and play well with other services places it well above the fold. With the help of a few social networking plugins, you can spread your message across social media easily and quickly.
Need a fun example? The famous Angry Birds game runs its own social promotions and they’re using (you guessed it) WordPress. You will be surprised at the extent WordPress can go as far as integrating with other services go!
8. WordPress is 100% Responsive and Mobile Friendly
Once you place your website on WordPress, you don’t have to break your back backward trying to make it fit mobile screens. The platform is built on the latest web standards, which means you can build fully responsive websites in a matter of minutes.
Nowadays, WordPress developers create mobile-friendly and responsive themes. If your theme is not responsive, please switch to a mobile-friendly responsive theme already. Come on, we’re in the 21st century and even Google recommends responsive and mobile-friendly websites.
However, if that’s not an option (no matter how hard it’s to believe with countless responsive themes), you can always rely on a plugin to render your website on smaller (read mobile device) screens.
Let’s put WordPress responsive design to test. Fire up a new tab right now and navigate to any of the following sites from big brands that use WordPress:
Quartz is a digital news outlet with a focus on providing mobile news (styled for your handheld electronics) about business and the global economy.
Metro UK is a celebrity and entertainment news magazine that also happens to have a mobile-ready WordPress site.
Harvard Gazette shares all the official news from Harvard and its various schools. Besides cutting-edge content, Harvard Gazette knows that WordPress is simply the best when it comes to creating a mobile-friendly and responsive blog.
Have you opened any of the above sites in a new tab? Good. Now, open the same website on your mobile device and experience WordPress responsive design at its best. WordPress = responsiveness. Alternatively, you can use the many online responsive test tools available.
9. WordPress is Dynamic, WordPress is Alive
WordPress is quite flexible and there is absolutely no limit to what you can achieve with the platform. What’s even better is the fact that WordPress is constantly being improved by a worldwide team of contributors.
With each new update, we are treated to new features and the dynamism of the platform just never stops. Looking for some inspiration? Check out the following sites:
If you are a total beginner, Etsy is a platform that helps you to sell handmade and vintage items. The brand uses WordPress to run its blog section, which shares tips, patterns, kits, and everything else you need to make your craft business successful.
Variety is a popular magazine sharing the latest in entertainment, celebrity news, and gossip, which is made even easier via their supercharged WordPress site.
Yelp is a popular website that publishes crowd-sourced reviews about businesses. The company uses WordPress to run its hugely popular Yelp blog.
10. WordPress is More Than Software, it’s a Community
I will start off by quoting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau”>Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (big brand BTW!):
“Embrace the WordPress community…they’re the source for solving your problems and giving you the inspiration to solve theirs.”
The WordPress project attracts hundreds of thousands of contributors from every corner of the globe, which creates a great community where new ideas are born and solutions are provided.
“It’s the power of the open-source community which makes WordPress as good as it is.” – Interactive One
“It feels great when we’re able to offer fixes that can help the entire community.” – BBC America
“Having all this code available and shared by the rest of the WordPress community makes it easier for us to work on the site.” – NASA
Related: Becoming a WordPress Contributor: What You Must Know
Need I say more?
Even More Big Name Brands That Use WordPress
Now that we’ve covered why big brands love WordPress and shared 23 awesome companies who choose WordPress for their websites we thought we’d keep going. Why stop now? So here are even MORE big brands that use WordPress.
32. Lollapalooza
I figured if I just provided a summary of 55 big brands that use WordPress, there wouldn’t be enough material to chew on. Now that you know why these popular brands love and use WordPress, perhaps you will be inclined to run your next web project on WordPress. If you choose this path, I promise you will never be disappointed. See you around 🙂
