We recently looked at a study highlighting how big WordPress is in the job market. WP Engine provided a glimpse into the “WordPress economy,” looking at jobs that call for WordPress skills throughout the U.S.
It’s the most dominant content management system on the web by far, and is heavily used by businesses of all sizes.
We had the opportunity to engage WP Engine CEO Heather Brunner in a Q&A.
On the main reasons enterprises are adopting WordPress to host their content, she told us, “Companies of all sizes, including enterprises, are adopting WordPress as their content management platform because it is flexible, intuitive, customizable, and easy-to-use. WordPress empowers major brands to become content producers and publishers, and it gives them the tools they need to create terrific websites to showcase who they are. WordPress has proven itself to be secure, and it has become the gold standard for online publishing—WordPress now powers nearly a quarter of sites on the web, and it shows no sign of slowing.”
WordPress has long been a major platform for bloggers, yet it only continues to dominate the landscape more and more.
On what the other platforms aren’t getting right that WordPress does so well, Brunner said, “What sets WordPress apart is its flexibility, customizability, and ease of use. WordPress makes it easy for businesses of any size to become publishers—it’s a familiar intuitive system and makes broadcasting content via the web simple.”
We asked her what she thinks are the biggest improvements to the WordPress ecosystem over the years.
“At its core, WordPress is all about the democratization of publishing,” she said. “It gives everyone a voice on the web. At the same time, it’s an open source platform powered by the wisdom of a vibrant community. These two things have combined to make WordPress the amazing publishing platform it is today. It’s challenging to pinpoint specific improvements that have made the largest impact. WordPress’ progress has been exciting to watch.”
WordPress recently bought WooCommerce to ramp up its ecommerce efforts. On what this means for WordPress users who want to sell things, Brunner told us, “WordPress has grown into an incredible platform for ecommerce. Many WP Engine customers are high-volume ecommerce stores that rely on WordPress and WP Engine to safely and securely conduct business on the web. Ultimately, these moves will shine a light on ecommerce on WordPress and will create even more opportunities for WordPress and for WP Engine to attract online stores. It will also encourage businesses that are already using WordPress for some of their sites to bring their ecommerce store to WordPress as well. Eventually, this will lead to the creation of more businesses being powered by WordPress.”
Asked for her opinion on what the best plugins are, she had this to say: “The beauty of WordPress is the ability to make websites stunning digital properties and customize them through the vast plugin ecosystem. Of the tens of thousands of plugins, each has its own distinct use case and is specific to the desired outcome a site is trying to achieve. Given this huge variety of use cases, it is impossible to choose a favorite.”
A while back, WP Engine put out a fascinating widget showing live WordPress stats. The numbers are pretty crazy as they show things like pages read, new readers, new posts, etc. in real time. Check it out here.
Image via WP Engine