WordPress Market Share: Usage Stats, Facts, & Research (2022)

Recently one of our readers asked us to share some WordPress market share data, usage stats, and research to help convince their boss on why they should use WordPress.

Even though WordPress is the most popular website builder in the world, sometimes popularity alone is not enough for users to make up their mind.

In this article, we have compiled an ultimate list of WordPress usage stats, market share research, and other data that will help you convince others to start using WordPress.

The Basics: What is WordPress?

WordPress is an open source software that allows users to make a website. It is available for download as a free software and can be installed on any WordPress hosting company.

It’s important not to confuse WordPress (the software) with WordPress.com which is a hosted solution. To learn more, see the difference between WordPress.com vs WordPress.org in our side-by-side comparison.

It all started when two users of a blogging software called b2/cafelog decided to take the software in a new direction. The idea was coined by Matt Mullenweg who was then joined by Mark Little and together they released the first version of WordPress on May 27, 2003.

Since then, WordPress has evolved from a simple blogging software to a CMS, website builder, eCommerce platform, and more.

To learn more, see our article about the history of WordPress.

WordPress is a community software and thousands of users from all over the world have contributed to it by submitting code, fixing bugs, translating, testing, and helping others use it.

Let’s take a look at some WordPress stats and facts to see how WordPress is helping people do great things on the internet.

How Popular is WordPress?

WordPress is immensely popular and is used by millions of people all over the world. Here are some numbers to put things in perspective.

1. WordPress powers more than 43% of all websites on the internet.
2. It also holds nearly 65% of CMS market share. No other website builder software comes close.
3. WordPress powers websites for big name brands including Disney, Sony, Facebook, and more.
4. 38% of top 10,000 Websites are powered by WordPress.
5. More than 22% of all new domain names in the United States are running WordPress.
6. Each day more than 1000 new WordPress sites join the top 10 million websites tracked by W3Techs.com.

While these are impressive stats, the only way to truly understand the popularity of WordPress is to look at it relative to other popular content management systems.

For example Shopify is the second popular, but it’s only 1/10th the size of WordPress since it powers about 4.4% of all sites vs WordPress 43.2%.

Wix spends tens of millions in marketing, but it only powers 1.9% of all websites. Meaning WordPress is 22x more popular than Wix.

Other popular CMS all have under 2% market share each such as Squarespace (1.8%), Joomla (1.7%), Drupal (1.3%), Blogger (1%), and Magento at just 0.6%.

When it comes to popularity, there’s no comparison to WordPress. According to the usage statistics, WordPress market share is 3x larger than the usage of other 9 popular website builders and blogging platforms combined.

WordPress Plugins

The biggest reason behind WordPress’ popularity is its large plugin & extensions ecosystem.

Plugins are like apps for your WordPress website. You can install them to add new features to your site and extend its functionality. To learn more, see our guide on what are WordPress plugins and how do they work?.

Here are some mind-blowing facts about WordPress plugins, which show just how massive the WordPress ecosystem is.

1. There are more than 59,000 free WordPress plugins on WordPress.org plugin directory alone.
2. 9 of those plugins are installed on 5 million+ websites.
3. 61 top WordPress plugins are installed on more than 1 million websites.
4. The most popular eCommerce plugin, WooCommerce is installed on more than 5 million websites as per the WordPress plugin directory since it shows all count above that as 5 million +. According to W3Techs, WooCommerce market share is 8.8% of all websites making it more popular than Shopify for online stores and eCommerce sites.
5. The popular WordPress form plugin, WPForms, is also installed on more than 5 million websites. According to Builtwith, it’s used by over 1.6% of the top 1 million websites. It’s the fastest growing form builder on the entire internet.

Our plugins stats are from the official WordPress.org plugin directory alone. Many plugin developers sell premium versions of their plugins from their own websites.

With a healthy plugins ecosystem, it means that you can add custom functionality to your website at a fraction of the cost of custom development.

There are free WordPress plugins available for just about every type of website functionality including contact forms, selling memberships, landing page builder, SEO optimization, and more.

WordPress Themes

Themes control the appearance of a WordPress website. These are WordPress specific website design templates that you can install on your website to change its look.

There are thousands of free and paid WordPress themes available offering WordPress users an endless combination of design, layout, color schemes, and features.

1. Themes were first introduced with WordPress 1.5 back in 2005, with the first new default WordPress theme called Kubrick
2. Just like plugins, there are both free and paid WordPress themes that you can install.
3. WordPress.org’s free theme directory has more than 9,100 free WordPress themes.
4. According to Builtwith, Divi by Elegant Themes is the most popular theme used by 6% of websites analyzed by their service.
5. Thousands of themes are sold by commercial WordPress theme shops with an average price of $40 per theme.

WordPress Hosting

WordPress is a self-hosted website building software. In other words, you need to have a web hosting provider to create a website with WordPress.

Due to it’s popularity, many hosting companies have added specialized WordPress hosting services to make it easier for small business owners to get started with WordPress.

Here are some popular WordPress hosting companies based on market share:

1. Newfold Digital Group (4.9%) – this is a hosting conglomerate that includes brands like Bluehost, HostGator, Domain.com, and more.
2. GoDaddy Group (4.2%) – this includes brands like GoDaddy, Media Temple, Pagely, and many more.
3. WP Engine (2.3%) – one of the leading managed WordPress hosting companies on the planet.
4. SiteGround (2.0%) – a premium WordPress hosting company that users love because of their top notch support. We use SiteGround to host WPBeginner site.
5. Hostinger (1.2%) – an affordable WordPress hosting company that’s growing in international markets due to it’s cheap web hosting prices.

The data above is from W3Techs report and excludes other platforms like Amazon (AWS), Google Cloud, NameCheap, Automattic, and others. Our list above is representative of the reader polls on WPBeginner for popular web hosting.

WordPress Security

WordPress is the most commonly used CMS software in the world, which also makes it a common target of hacking attempts, DDOS attacks, malware, and trojans.

1. According to Sucuri, a leading website security company, 83% of all CMS based websites that were hacked in 2017 were running WordPress. This number isn’t surprising considering that WordPress holds 65% of CMS market share.
2. Sucuri also reported that 39% of hacked WordPress websites were using an outdated version of the software. That’s why you should always use the latest version of WordPress on your website.
3. Nearly 50% WordPress sites are affected by a security vulnerability caused by an outdated or poorly coded WordPress plugin or theme
4. Around 8% of WordPress sites were hacked due to a weak password.

You can make your WordPress site as secure as possible by following some basic security best practices. To learn more, see our complete WordPress security guide for step by step instructions.

Often the stats above cause WordPress to get a bad reputation, but the reality is that WordPress itself is not insecure. WordPress core goes through rigorous security audits, and it’s more secure than many other platforms out there.

The only fault WordPress has is that it’s popular which leads to stats like above.

WordPress Community

WordPress has a massive user base spread across all over the world. It is used by not just businesses, but also governments, schools and colleges, non-profits, and more.

As an open source project, WordPress is driven by a global community of users. This means that anyone can contribute to the project in many different ways.

1. WordPress translation community has it fully translated into 56 languages, partially translated in dozens more.
2. In 2017, WordPress communities around the world organized 128 WordCamp events, in 48 countries, and sold 39,625 tickets.
3. In 2017, Local WordPress communities organized 4,379 meetups in 73 countries
4. There are dozens of WordPress groups on Facebook, with WPBeginner Engage being the largest WordPress Facebook group with over 81,500 members.

If you want to contribute to WordPress, then see our guide on how to get involved with WordPress project.

The WordPress Economy

WordPress has a thriving multi-billion dollar ecosystem that creates thousands of jobs all over the world. This also includes freelancers, developers, and companies that sell WordPress related products and services.

1. At the time of writing this article, freelancer.com website alone had 680,743 WordPress jobs posted out of these 700 were open.
2. Thousands of WordPress jobs are currently open on many popular freelancing websites. You can always visit our Careers page to find WordPress jobs.
3. Average hourly rate for WordPress developers can be anywhere between $20-$100 per hour depending on their expertise and job at hand.
4. A custom WordPress theme with its own unique design and plugins can cost $10,000 and it may increase depending on project’s requirements.
5. There are hundreds of small and large businesses, agencies, and developers selling WordPress related products. See our list of the most influential WordPress businesses and companies and what they do.

We hope this article helped you discover some new WordPress stats, facts, and interesting research. You may also want to see our article on the best domain registrar and best business phone services for small business.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post WordPress Market Share: Usage Stats, Facts, & Research (2022) first appeared on WPBeginner.

January 09, 2022 at 07:33PM

17 Best WordPress Plugins for Photographers

Are you a photographer using WordPress and wondering what are some of the best WordPress plugins for photographers?

WordPress plugins help you improve your workflow, automate different tasks, optimize your website for search engines, and provide a better user experience to your visitors.

In this article, we will show you the best WordPress plugins for photographers.

Why Use a WordPress Photography Plugin?

Thousands of photographers use WordPress to share their work with the world. That’s because WordPress is the easiest way to build a photography website.

With the right photography theme, you can create a completely unique look for your website. However, the real power of WordPress comes from plugins that allow you to add new features and automate multiple tasks to improve your workflows.

For instance, you can use an SEO plugin to optimize your images and website for search engines and improve your keyword rankings. Similarly, there are plugins for displaying your photographs in galleries and image sliders, making them elegant and prominent on your site.

Aside from that, you’d also want to promote your work and get traffic more traffic to your website. This is where you can use social media WordPress plugins to grow your followers.

That said, let’s look at some of the best WordPress plugins for photographers.

1. Smash Balloon

Smash Balloon is the best social media WordPress plugin. It’s an extremely useful plugin for photographers because it helps you display photos, videos, and other content from social media platforms on your WordPress website.

You can create a custom Twitter feed, Facebook feed, YouTube feed, and Instagram feed using Smash Balloon. It also helps create a social wall, where you can combine content from multiple social channels and show them in a single feed.

This can save you a lot of time, since any photos you post on your social media accounts will automatically be added to your professional website, too.

The plugin is very easy to use and offers lots of design options, so you can customize your social feeds to match your brand. Smash Balloon is SEO-friendly and helps leverage social proof to boost engagement, increase followers, and grow your business.

2. Envira Gallery

Envira is the best responsive WordPress gallery plugin on the market. It allows you to effortlessly create mobile-friendly and fully responsive image galleries in WordPress that look equally awesome on all devices and screen sizes.

Image galleries created with Envira Gallery load much faster, which makes it super fun and easy for your users to browse the galleries. You can also enable watermarks to prevent image theft.

Envira Gallery is also the most search engine-friendly gallery plugin. It allows you to add metadata for your images and galleries easily. It works great with other SEO plugins as well.

3. Soliloquy

Soliloquy is the best WordPress slider plugin. It allows you to quickly and easily create fully responsive slideshows within minutes. You can add those sliders to any page, post, or even your homepage.

It’s a great plugin to showcase your photographs on your WordPress website. Users can easily browse through different pictures using the slider.

Soliloquy is highly optimized for speed, which means your pages will load faster. Visual effects, customizations, and SEO-friendly slides are just some of the features of this easy-to-use tool.

4. Uncanny Automator

Uncanny Automator is the best automation plugin for WordPress. You can use it on your website to create automated workflows without editing code.

As a photographer, you can save time by automating repetitive tasks like processing data from contact forms, offering support, sharing your pictures on social media, and more.

With Uncanny Automator, you can use existing plugins and software to talk to each other. It supports over 70 of the most popular WordPress plugins and offers over 700 triggers and actions.

For example, Uncanny Automator lets you automatically Tweet new posts, connect any WordPress form with Google Sheets to save data, send SMS notifications for WooCommerce purchases, and much more.

5. WPForms

WPForms is the most beginner-friendly contact form plugin for WordPress. It helps your clients to stay in touch with you by using a contact form. You can also accept quotations and proposals for new projects using WPForms.

Its drag and drop online form builder allows you to easily create contact forms, email subscription forms, order forms, payment forms, and other types of online forms with just a few clicks.

WPForms comes with pre-built templates, spam protection, and each form is responsive for any device. It also lets you collect files and documents through form submissions and accept online payments.

The plugin is compatible with other popular WordPress plugins, email marketing services, and payment providers.

6. All in One SEO

All in One SEO (AIOSEO) is the best SEO plugin for WordPress and is a complete website optimization solution. It helps you to get more traffic from search engines.

Using AIOSEO, you can optimize your site for featured snippets, create sitemaps, perform a competitor analysis to beat your competition, and more.

For photographers, WordPress SEO allows you to optimize your pages and use open graph metadata. Open Graph is used by Facebook and many other social websites to display your pages properly when shared.

It also includes image SEO options so you can optimize your photographs to appear more often in search results and get more traffic to your website.

We have a complete tutorial on how to install and set up the AIOSEO plugin for more details.

7. BirchPress

BirchPress is a complete online appointment and booking system for WordPress sites.

It allows users to place their booking on your website and even pay for it using PayPal. For professional photographers, this enables you to get more paid work.

The plugin easily syncs with your calendar and you can set email notifications and reminders when an appointment is booked, rescheduled, or canceled. Other than that, you can also create your own booking form using BirchPress.

Basically, any good appointment and booking plugin would work. You may also want to take a look at our list of the 5 best WordPress appointment and booking plugins.

8. WP Portfolio

WP Portfolio is the best portfolio plugin for WordPress that helps you showcase your work to your visitors. You can use it to easily create a gallery to display your photographs.

The plugin offers ready-to-use website templates for your photography portfolio. Simply add the pictures to the portfolio and display them anywhere on your website using a shortcode.

WP Portfolio also offers different options to customize your image portfolio without the need to write code or add custom CSS. You can also use the plugin to showcase a website portfolio and a video portfolio in WordPress.

9. Regenerate Thumbnails

Regenerate Thumbnails is a free WordPress plugin for photographers and is super easy to use. It helps you regenerate all thumbnails sizes for any image you’ve uploaded in the Media Library.

When you upload an image in WordPress, it automatically saves your images into multiple sizes. Your WordPress theme can also add additional image sizes. However, when new sizes are added to WordPress, the old photos are not available in those new sizes.

Regenerate Thumbnails solves this issue, and it is a must-have tool for all WordPress photography sites. You can quickly turn any image into a thumbnail and in any size using the plugin.

10. Image Widget

Image Widget is a handy plugin that lets you display images in the widgets area like the sidebar on your website.

WordPress comes with an image widget that you can add to your sidebar, but the options are limited. The Image Widget plugin solves this problem by adding a more customizable image widget to your WordPress site. It’s also responsive so it will look good on any size screen.

Simply drag and drop the widget to any sidebar or add a widget block. Next, select an image or upload one from your computer. You can also add multiple image widgets in a sidebar.

11. EWWW Image Optimizer

EWWW Image Optimizer is another popular WordPress plugin that you can use on your photography website to optimize your images. It helps improve your website speed by compressing oversized images.

As a photographer, you will have many images in high resolution which will be large in size. These images can slow down your website and increase your site’s bounce rate.

With EWWW Image Optimizer, you can automatically compress these images to reduce their size and scale them to fit different device sizes. This way your users won’t have to wait for your photographs to load.

There is also an option to lazy load images and improve page load time. Lazy load allows your website to only load images when a user scrolls down to the specific picture.

12. Easy Watermark

Easy Watermark plugin allows you to add watermarks to image uploads in WordPress automatically. As a photographer, you may want to add watermarks to your photographs to protect them from theft or misuse.

You can choose an image, set transparency, and watermark position. The plugin offers different formats for your image watermark, including JPG, PNG, or GIF formats.

The plugin can also add a watermark to all previously uploaded images. For detailed instructions, see our guide on how to automatically add watermark to images in WordPress.

13. WP Rocket

WP Rocket is a must-have plugin for any website, especially for photographers. It helps speed up your site which is important for your WordPress SEO.

Speed is an important factor for all websites. For photography websites, it is even more critical because images are usually the most time-consuming elements on the page.

Using WP Rocket, you can improve your page load speed significantly. For the proper configurations, see our guide on how to install and setup WP Rocket.

Note: If you’re using SiteGround as your WordPress hosting, then you don’t need WP Rocket because their performance plugin is very powerful.

14. Imsanity

Imsanity is one of the best WordPress photography plugins that help to resize and save storage space.

When you transfer images from your camera and mobile devices, they are usually high-resolution images with image sizes reaching 3MB to 24MB+ per image.

Imsanity allows you to define more reasonable image sizes for the images you upload to WordPress. This not only saves you bandwidth but also makes your website faster with a better user experience.

The plugin will automatically scale down the images to the configured size and offer a bulk image resize option.

15. OptinMonster

OptinMonster is the best lead generation and conversion optimization toolkit for WordPress. It helps you capture leads, optimize your site for conversions, and get people to subscribe to your newsletter.

With OptinMonster, you can build an email list for your photography website. That’s because most people who find your website through search engines and other sources will probably never find your website again.

This is where getting people to subscribe to your newsletter can be beneficial. As a photographer, you can stay in touch with your audience, share your latest work via email, and get people to visit your website again.

Besides that, an email list can also help you get more clients. You can build your brand, increase awareness with your subscribers, and convert subscribers into paying customers.

OptinMonster is the perfect solution for converting visitors into subscribers and customers. Please take a look at our case study where we increased our email subscribers by more than 600% using OptinMonster.

16. MemberPress

MemberPress is the best WordPress membership plugin and it helps you make money from your photography website. You can offer digital downloads of your pictures to members.

For instance, you can create different membership levels and offer exclusive content about photography like downloadable pictures, blog posts, podcasts, eBooks, and more to only logged-in users with a paid subscription.

Besides that, MemberPress is great for selling online courses. You can create a professional photography course for your audience and use the plugin to monetize your website.

Other features offered by the plugin include creating a registration form, restricting permission, and managing your transactions.

17. Easy Digital Downloads

Easy Digital Downloads is one of the best eCommerce plugins for WordPress that lets you sell eBooks, PDFs, music files, images, and more.

Using the plugin, you can sell your photographs to your visitors and make more money. It is very easy to use and offers seamless integration with payment services like PayPal and Stripe.

You get a full shopping cart with Easy Digital Downloads along with different customer management features. For instance, you can view, edit, or delete customer records, track customer activity, and more.

Besides that, the plugin lets you track your earnings and shows a report inside the WordPress dashboard. You can also create discount codes using the plugin to boost sales.

We hope this article helped you find the best WordPress plugins for photographers. You may also want to check out our guide on how to choose the best blogging platform and the list of 40 useful tools to manage and grow your WordPress blog.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post 17 Best WordPress Plugins for Photographers first appeared on WPBeginner.

January 07, 2022 at 05:00PM

WordPress vs Ghost – Which Is the Better Blogging Platform?

Are you comparing WordPress vs Ghost and wondering which is best for you?

WordPress and Ghost are both popular blogging and website building platforms. However, both have pros and cons that you’ll want to compare before starting your new blog.  

In this article, we’ll compare WordPress and Ghost with their strengths and weaknesses, so you can decide which is the better platform for you. 

What to Look for in a Blogging Platform?

Before we compare WordPress vs Ghost, let’s highlight the main things you should be looking for when choosing a blogging platform for your next project. 

We’ll use these factors for our WordPress and Ghost comparison. You can click on any of the quick links below to jump straight to the relevant section.

• Overview – An introduction to WordPress and Ghost
• Costs – How much does it cost to start a blog?
• Ease of Use – How easy are they to learn and use for an absolute beginner?
• Design & Templates – What are your blog design and customization options?
• Ecommerce – Can you use it to sell things from your blog?
• SEO – Can you easily optimize your website for search engines and get traffic?
• Addons & Integrations – Can you extend the platform’s functionality with addons and third-party tools? 
• Support – Can you get help quickly and easily when you need it?

Note: This is a comparison between Ghost and self-hosted WordPress.org. For more details, see the differences between self-hosted WordPress.org and WordPress.com.

Overview: WordPress vs. Ghost

Before we go into our in-depth comparison of the two popular blogging platforms, it’s important we cover the basics of what each platform is.

What is WordPress?

WordPress is the most popular website builder and content management system (CMS) in the world. It powers over 43% of sites on the internet and has been around for over 18 years. 

It can be used to create nearly any kind of website or blog, and it’s used by some of the most successful WordPress blogs in the world. 

To start a new WordPress blog, you need both a domain name and web hosting. There are plenty of great WordPress hosting companies that offer a 1-click WordPress installation and easy blog setup. 

What is Ghost?

Ghost launched in 2013 with the goal of creating a streamlined publishing platform for writers, publishers, and journalists.

It has over 3 million installs with an active monthly user base of over 10,000.

It’s a very clean and minimalist platform with fast loading speeds. Those looking to get started blogging as fast as possible can begin in a couple of minutes. 

Ghost is available as a hosted platform, or as software that you can install and host yourself. For our comparison, we’ll focus on the more popular hosted version of Ghost, since the self-hosted version is very complex to set up.

Costs: Ghost vs WordPress

For most users, the cost of building a blog will be the main factor in which platform you choose. 

If you’re just starting online, then you’ll probably want to keep your costs as low as possible, then invest more as you begin to make money blogging.

Let’s look at the costs of building a blog with Ghost and WordPress and the steps you can take to keep costs as low as possible. 

WordPress — Costs

The WordPress CMS software is free and open source. But, you need to purchase a domain name and hosting to have a website live on the internet. 

Usually, a domain name costs $14.99 per year, and website hosting starts at $7.99 per month when paid annually. This can be a pretty big investment when you’re just starting out.

Luckily, Bluehost has agreed to offer our readers a 69% discount on hosting, plus a free domain name, and SSL certificate. Basically, you can get started for as low as $2.75 per month.

→ Click Here to Claim This Exclusive Bluehost Offer ←

Bluehost is one of the best WordPress hosting providers and is an officially recommended host by WordPress.org.

WordPress also has a massive ecosystem of free plugins and themes you can get started with to help you keep your costs down.

There are over 59,000 free plugins available in the WordPress.org plugin repository alone and over 9,000 free themes to choose from.

If you purchase any premium WordPress themes, plugins, or third-party services and software, then this can increase the price of using WordPress.

You can build your blog with free plugins and themes to keep costs as low as possible. Most premium plugins and themes also have free versions with slightly less functionality. Then, as your website grows, you can begin to invest in premium themes or plugins as needed.

Another great thing about WordPress costs is that you have complete control over your site. You can modify the code or add as many users or members to your site as you want, for no additional fees.

For more details, see our guide on the cost of building a WordPress site. It gives you a detailed breakdown of different scenarios and the steps you can take to spend as little as possible. 

Ghost — Costs

With Ghost, you pay a monthly fee based on your audience size and the plan you choose. Currently, the cheapest plan you can get is the Starter plan for $11 per month when paid annually.

This plan supports one user, up to 500 members, and gives you access to the official Ghost themes for building your blog. A free domain name and hosting are included in your account when you sign up.

If you want to add another user to your team and get access to custom themes and integrations, then you’ll need the Creator plan for $33 per month when paid annually. There are also higher priced plans for larger teams who need support for 5+ users.

Ghost defines “members” as people who can sign up for your newsletter or buy paid subscriptions. If you have more than 500 members, it will multiply the cost of any plan. For example, the Creator plan becomes $65/month when you have 5,000 members.

You can take advantage of the 14-day free trial to fully test the platform to see if it’s right for you.

Winner — WordPress

WordPress gives you the same features as Ghost at lower costs. Plus, you can add even more features using free plugins. With WordPress, you can even create an email newsletter and online store without additional costs.

As your site grows, you can choose to invest more money into your blog, but when you’re just starting, it’s easy to keep costs as low as possible. 

Ease of Use: WordPress and Ghost

Most users starting a blog aren’t programmers or coders. They need an easy to use platform to quickly build a blog and publish content without having to learn how to code. 

Let’s see how WordPress and Ghost stack up.

WordPress – Ease of Use

Overall, WordPress is pretty easy to use, but there is a slight learning curve. Since it’s open source software, you need to install it yourself and manage updates and backups. 

If you’re just getting started, you’ll also want to spend time learning about WordPress terms, themes, plugins, and more. 

To quickly grow your skills, see our guide on how to learn WordPress for free in a week or less.

Once you’ve learned the core concepts, it’s pretty easy to customize your blog and start creating content. 

WordPress comes with an intuitive visual editor called the block editor. This is what you’ll use to create your posts and pages. It lets you easily create beautiful layouts without writing any code.

You can also build custom pages using a drag and drop page builder.

These page builders are available as plugins that you install on your site, and they allow you to drag and drop different elements onto your page and easily customize them.

WordPress also has a massive plugin library to help you do anything you want to do with your blog, without having to know any code.

Ghost – Ease of Use

Ghost lets users write and publish content easily. Since the entire goal of the platform is publishing and monetizing content, it’s very beginner friendly.

As soon as you log in to your account, you’ll be taken directly to your account dashboard. Here you can create posts and pages, customize your website, and manage your members.

The post dashboard is quite similar to the WordPress block editor.

You can add images, HTML, galleries, buttons, videos, and more. 

Ghost is made for writers and bloggers looking to publish and monetize quickly.

Winner — Tie

Both WordPress and Ghost have a point and click editor, customizable templates and layouts, and a similar page and post editor.

The Ghost platform is easier to use, but fewer customization options are available. It’s mostly a pure content publishing platform. 

Once you learn the core concepts of WordPress, customizing your site, publishing posts, and creating pages become easy. 

Design and Templates: Ghost and WordPress

As a beginner, you want an easy way to create a blog with a professional design.

Let’s look at how WordPress and Ghost handle design, customizations, and the whole website building process. 

WordPress — Design and Templates

As you saw above, WordPress gives you access to thousands of free themes you can use to create and customize your WordPress blog. Many of these are very feature-rich and mobile-friendly right out of the box.

You can get started with any theme you want to give your blog a professional design. You’re free to switch your WordPress theme at any time and are never stuck with your current design. 

Every theme can be customized with the built-in WordPress theme customizer. Some themes also handle customizations with their own theme options panel.

WordPress keeps the design of your site separate from the content. This not only helps to keep a consistent design, but it makes it easy to change WordPress themes in the future without losing your content.

Another option is to use a WordPress theme along with a page builder plugin like SeedProd to create custom pages and landing pages. 

Page builders also come with their own professionally designed templates you can completely customize with a beginner-friendly drag and drop builder. 

You can easily create coming soon pages, sales pages, landing pages, and more without writing any code. 

Ghost — Design and Templates

Compared to WordPress, the amount of design and customization options is limited. The platform comes with a theme repository similar to WordPress, but there are just over 20 free themes available.

If you have a larger budget, then you can purchase a premium theme, but there are still only around 100 of these to choose from. 

Customizing your theme is done within the settings panel. You can control the color scheme, fonts, icons, site logo, and more. 

Your settings menu is where you’ll also set up your website navigation menus, email opt in templates, and more. 

There’s also a built-in option within the platform to hire theme developers to create a completely custom design. 

Winner — WordPress

WordPress offers a greater theme selection and a nearly endless selection of plugins. No matter your niche, you’ll be able to find the perfect WordPress theme for your needs.

Plus, you have much more flexibility by separating content and functionality from the design. 

Users can completely customize every aspect of their theme and even use WordPress page builders to create custom pages without writing any code. 

Ecommerce: WordPress vs Ghost

Adding eCommerce functionality to your site lets you sell things online. You can sell subscriptions, products, courses, and more.

Let’s look at how Ghost and WordPress handle eCommerce. 

WordPress — Ecommerce

To add eCommerce functionality to WordPress, you’ll be using the free WooCommerce plugin. It’s the most popular eCommerce platform in the world used by millions of online stores, both big and small.

It lets you easily sell any kind of products you’d like, digital or physical.

WooCommerce comes with its own addons and plugins you can use to add new features to your online store. 

There are also hundreds of WooCommerce themes you can choose from to create a professional online store.

You can truly create any kind of eCommerce site you want, whether that’s selling online courses, paid newsletters, digital and physical products, adding content paywalls, and more. 

Plus, you can choose from a wide range of different payment gateways like PayPal, Authorize.net, Stripe, and more. 

Ghost — Ecommerce

Ghost does eCommerce a little bit differently. With Ghost, you won’t be creating an online store. Instead, you can sell memberships to access your content, similar to other platforms like Substack. 

When you’re writing a post, you can choose who will get access to your content. It can be publicly available, or gated for all members or paid members only.

Essentially, with Ghost, you’re putting content behind a paywall for your premium subscribers. 

This functionality is integrated into the platform, so managing members and creating paid newsletters is easy.

Winner — WordPress

WordPress offers a flexible platform to help you sell anything you want. You can use WooCommerce or another eCommerce plugin to get started. It supports more addons, payment options, and various types of products. 

You can sell premium content, digital and physical products, membership subscriptions, and much more. 

Ghost has built-in eCommerce functionality, and you can start selling as soon as you create an account. However, you’re limited to selling premium content and paid newsletters. 

SEO: WordPress and Ghost

If you want to rank high in the search engines and get more website traffic, then you’ll need to use a search engine friendly platform. 

Some platforms are better than others and make it easier to rank, while some actively make it more difficult.

Let’s see which platform is better for SEO, WordPress or Ghost. 

WordPress — SEO

Right of the box, WordPress is very search engine friendly. The core platform is built with SEO best practices in mind, so it’s easy to boost your website traffic and rankings.

There are all kinds of built-in settings for you to configure to help optimize your website.

For example, you can change your permalink settings and create SEO-friendly URLs, create categories to organize your content, add tags, edit your image alt text, and more. 

Beyond the default settings, you can maximize your WordPress SEO with the help of WordPress SEO plugins and tools. 

For example, you can use a plugin like All in One SEO (AIOSEO) to fully optimize your site without having to learn complex SEO terms or hire an expert.

With this plugin, you can add title tags and meta descriptions, choose a focus keyword, and get detailed page analytics with recommendations to optimize your blog posts. 

It will even automatically generate XML sitemaps, manage and create redirects, automatically apply the right schema, and more.

You can also control how your site appears on social media, connect to Google Search Console, and even add breadcrumbs to help your visitors more easily navigate your website. 

Ghost — SEO

Ghost has a handful of built-in features to help optimize your posts and pages for the search engines. You have complete control over your URLs and permalinks, page title, and meta description. 

There are also built-in settings to automatically create a website sitemap, assign canonical tags for your posts, and integrate your website with Google Search Console.

It also has a built-in feature to add multiple authors to post bylines. This is useful if you have a multi-author blog and want to highlight each author. 

However, since a lot of your website content will be protected and for members-only, this content won’t rank in the search engines. You’ll need to publish additional content for free to rank in the search results. 

Winner — WordPress

When it comes to optimizing your website for the search engines to increase your blog traffic, WordPress offers more options and flexibility. You can use WordPress SEO plugins to boost your rankings further and access more features.

Ghost has solid built-in SEO settings, but doesn’t quite get to the level of depth that WordPress offers.

Addons and Integrations: Ghost vs WordPress

No blogging platform will have everything you need right out of the box. Using addons and integrations helps you add more features and sync your site with third-party services. 

Let’s take a look at how Ghost and WordPress handle addons and integrations. 

WordPress — Addons and Integrations

You can truly unlock the power of WordPress by using WordPress plugins. Think of them like apps for your WordPress site.

To add new features and functionality, all you need to do is install and activate a plugin.

There are over 59,000 free WordPress plugins available from the WordPress plugin repository. Plus, thousands more premium plugins are available.

You can add nearly any feature you like to your blog, including contact forms, Google Analytics tracking, social media feeds, and more.

Plus, WordPress easily integrates with many other popular tools or services you need to grow your blog. 

This includes popular email marketing services, market research tools, live chat software, CRM software, business phone services, and much more.

Ghost — Addons and Integrations

Ghost doesn’t offer any additional addons to add more features to your site. All of the functionality is built right into the platform. 

However, they do have a variety of built-in integrations to link your website with third-party services, like Google Analytics, Stripe, Zapier, ConvertKit, and more. 

There are detailed instructions that show you how to add the integration to your blog.

Winner — WordPress

WordPress wins this category with thousands of different plugins and third-party services you can use to add whatever functionality you require to your blog. 

Support: WordPress or Ghost

Everyone needs help with their blog occasionally, whether it’s a question about building your site, adding a new feature, or troubleshooting an error. 

Let’s take a look at the different support options for Ghost and WordPress. 

WordPress — Support

WordPress has a large and helpful online community with all kinds of valuable free resources available. For example, you have the official WordPress support forums, tutorial and resource sites like WPBeginner, Facebook groups like WPBeginner Engage, and much more. 

Plus, most WordPress themes and plugins have their own dedicated support forums, either on WordPress.org or through their own websites.

To learn more, see our guide on how to properly ask for WordPress support and get it. 

Usually, you’ll be able to find answers to all of your WordPress related questions with a simple Google search.

You can also follow our WordPress tutorials for step by step instructions on how to extend the functionality of WordPress.

For more details, see our guide on how to make the most out of WPBeginner’s free resources.

If you need more help, then you can always hire a WordPress developer. Since WordPress is so popular, there are thousands of high-quality and affordable developers to help with your blog.

Ghost — Support

Ghost has an online help center with dozens of in-depth guides to help you get started with the platform.

It includes tutorials on editing your website, publishing content, setting up membership levels, connecting to social media, and more. 

Beyond that, you can reach out to their support team via email. Ghost also maintains an active resource section with useful articles on building, growing, and making more money from your website.

Winner — WordPress

WordPress is the largest website building platform in the world and has much more support options for its users.

WordPress support is available from plugin and theme developers, available in multiple languages, and there’s a lot of free support options too.

Ghost only offers a single support channel and a small library of how-to articles.

WordPress or Ghost – Which is Better?

Judging by the comparison criteria we set above, WordPress is a much better option for starting a new blog.

It offers more flexibility, design options and themes, eCommerce options, and more. Plus, it does all of this at a lower monthly price. You’re in complete control over how much you spend when building your new blog.

Ghost offers users a fast and simple blogging and monetization platform. However, it’s limited by its customization options, ways you can make money, and overall flexibility.

If you’re ready to get started with WordPress, see our complete step-by-step guide on how to create a WordPress website.

We hope this article helped you compare WordPress vs Ghost with their pros and cons. You may also want to see our guide on how to get an email domain, and our expert picks on the best HR payroll software for small businesses.

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The post WordPress vs Ghost – Which Is the Better Blogging Platform? first appeared on WPBeginner.

January 06, 2022 at 05:00PM