This blog post is part of a detailed multi-part article series aimed at helping you understand how the WordPress content publishing platform can help your small business achieve its business goals online using the WordPress content publishing application.
For more information about of the article series, see this post: The Small Business Owner’s Guide To WordPress
In this blog post, we present a number of statistics about WordPress that will help you understand why millions of businesses around the world use WordPress and what kind of businesses and people are using WordPress today.
Statistics And Market Share Of WordPress
The short version:
- 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 100 new domains registered in the U.S. are for installing a new WordPress site.
- There are well over 60 million installations of WordPress worldwide. This number increases everyday.
- Over one-sixth of all websites worldwide are driven by WordPress.
- More than 60% of all sites that use a content management system are built with WordPress.
- Over 30,000,000 searches are made on Google each month for WordPress related terms.
- WordPress is completely free to download, use and modify. The WordPress application is built using an open source content management system.
- WordPress is built by volunteers. Thousands of people from all around the world work on developing and improving the WordPress application each day.
- The WordPress application is regularly updated to fix bugs and improve both its features and security.
- WordPress delivers 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 can be built using WordPress.
WordPress Popularity
In simple terms, 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 website owners 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 widely-used 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 work from home. Despite being a distributed company with so few employees, WordPress.com (the hosted version of WordPress) currently attracts more unique monthly views than Facebook, Amazon, eBay, Twitter and Yahoo …
(WordPress.com unique monthly visits. Source: http://ift.tt/m0pJp8)
Here are just some of the latest figures on WordPress usage:
Over 60% of websites worldwide are not CMS-based. Of those that are, WordPress is the clear leader, with more than 60% of the market share.
WordPress usage stats
In terms of CMS dominance, no other platform even comes close to WordPress …
In fact, more and more websites are now using WordPress.
WordPress is so popular, that even keeping up with statistics on WordPress is quite difficult, because the information changes so frequently.
For example, at the time this post was written, here is the current number of downloads of the latest WordPress version …
(Source: http://ift.tt/2k0cWXQ)
Note: The above numbers represents only the most recently released version of WordPress. Less than half of all current users have upgraded their installations to the latest release …
(WordPress versions in current use. Source: http://ift.tt/2k0dnS5)
As this article was being written, the number of downloads had already increased. If you click on the link above and visit the WordPress download counter site, you should expect to see a much 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 improved or new features.
Speaking of updates, WordPress has released over 100 new software updates since 2003 …
(Over one hundred new WordPress versions have been released in its first 11 years)
WordPress currently releases a new update every 3-4 months …
(WordPress regularly releases new software versions honoring famous Jazz musicians)
Interestingly enough, all major WordPress releases have a tradition of being named after Jazz musicians, eg:
- v.2.0 = Duke Ellington (December 31, 2005),
- v.2.7 = John Coltrane (December 10, 2008),
- v.2.8 = Chet Baker (June 11, 2009),
- v.3.4 = Grant Green (June 13, 2012),
- v.3.8 = Charlie Parker (December 12, 2013),
- etc …
Who Is Using WordPress
In a nutshell, all different types of organizations and people are using WordPress to publish content about everything under the sun.
Giant brands, businesses, technology companies, celebrities, politicians, famous artists, universities, government sectors, not-for-profits – even countries are using WordPress to run their official websites …
WordPress.org Showcase
Here are just some of the sites, organizations and people who have built their online presence with WordPress:
- Global Brands & Companies: Factory Jackson, Dole, Dassault Aviation, McDonald’s Singapore, Mercedes-Benz, etc …
- Celebrities, Politicians, Sports Stars, Actors & Musicians: US Air Force General Chuck Yeager, Rush, Nancy Pelosi, Justin Bieber, Dallas Mavericks, The Rolling Stones, Katie Couric, Gabriel Iglesias, Jason Mraz, etc …
- Colleges & Educational Institutions: Nicholls State University, International Relations Online at American University, Bates College, The University of Mary Washington, etc.
- Magazines & Media: Thrive Magazine, New York Post, InStyle News, CBS New York, etc.
- Government Sites, Public Services & Humanitarian Organizations: Sweden’s Official Site, Canadian Museum of History, Slow Food Italia, CURE International, Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, etc.
Earlier, we mentioned that WordPress is available as 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 freely modified to suit their needs. In fact, most WordPress self-hosted installations are used for running some form of enterprise.
- 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 externally-hosted WordPress sites) published on average 17 posts every second (around 1.5 million per day).
You can see a live map showing user activity across its hosted service …
WordPress.com – Activity Around The World
In other tutorials we address the main differences between WordPress.com (hosted) and WordPress.org (self-hosted) versions.
Additional Statistics About WordPress
WordPress Plugins
WordPress users have access to over 37,000 WP plugins at no cost …
(WP free plugins repository)
We have written a detailed article about plugins here: Using WP Plugins To Enhance Your Website’s Functionality
WordPress Themes
WordPress users can also access over 1,700 free WP themes from the WordPress themes directory …
(WordPress.org theme repository)
For a detailed article about themes go here: About WP Themes – A Newbies’ Guide
Translations Of WordPress
WordPress has been translated and localized into over 70 languages in addition to English …
(WordPress language translations)
WordPress Searches Online
The search term “WordPress” alone receives around 2.7 million monthly searches on Google. Adding WordPress-related terms (e.g. “WP themes”, “WP plugins”, “learn WordPress”, etc. brings the total number of online searches for WordPress terms to more than thirty-seven million …
(WP searches online)
If you compare searches for WordPress to other CMS platforms, WordPress gets searched 5 x more than Joomla and 9x more than Drupal.
WordPress Rates
According to WordPress’ own “State of the Word” 2014 survey, one quarter of all WordPress users who answered the survey stated 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 at freelancing sites like ODesk.com …
According to ODesk.com, typical job cost ranges for WordPress are between $10 – $500 …
(Source: ODesk)
As you can clearly see from the information presented above, WordPress is set for continued growth for many years to come.
In other blog posts, we will explore the following areas:
- Why WordPress is the best platform to grow your small business online,
- Dozens of reasons why you should choose WordPress for your business website or blog, including a detailed review of the unique benefits, features and advantages of using the WordPress CMS platform,
- Ways to automate your business marketing with WordPress,
- How to drive targeted traffic, increase conversions, and how to sell more products and services with WordPress.
- Plus, we’ll be regularly posting ongoing tutorials and examples of how you can use WordPress to expand your business online, while also saving thousands of dollars on the costs of web development and web design.
Information 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://ift.tt/YTaPSR
- http://ift.tt/PZ0ZNY
- http://ift.tt/ihJ1uh
- http://wptrainme.com
- http://ift.tt/1oSyX9A
- http://ift.tt/LWCNMx
- http://ift.tt/1AzEnLJ
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