The past few years have seen a huge expansion in the utilization of WordPress as a CMS (Content Management System). WordPress’ days as simple blogging platform are long behind it, and it’s now the most popular CMS around. It powers a number of major websites, including the U.S. Navy’s Military Sealift Command Website, the Official Website of the British Prime Minister, and the Official Magazine of the U.S. Marine Corps. With major government websites like these taking WordPress seriously, government contractors should also be thinking about WordPress as a viable solution.
Here are just a few of the different types of DC government contractors who should consider using WordPress to power their websites:
- Acquisitions
- Advanced Analytics
- Aerospace
- Civilian
- Defense
- Dual Sub & Prime Contractors
- Homeland Security
- Information Technology
- Infrastructure
- Internet
- Intelligence
- Logistics
- Military
- Prime Contractors
- Professional Services
- Subcontractors
- Technology
There are loads of reasons why WordPress is the best option for government contractors. Here are just three of the biggest ones.
Manage Content In-House
If you’ve had a standard HTML site built by a web design company, or even in-house by someone cutting their teeth on Dreamweaver, then you know the pain of being tethered to that site. Every minor change has to be added to the to-do list of a busy design agency, or carried out by the one person in the company who knows how to do it. It is so easy to manage content with WordPress that just about anyone in your organization can be taught how to do it. Unlike a basic HTML site where you have to go into the code to make changes, WordPress has a back-end user interface that is easy to use.
Website elements that are easy to edit from the back-end include:
- Text on pages
- Events
- News
- Links
- Images
- Menus
- Social media widgets
- Settings
Learning how to add and edit content in WordPress is so simple – if you’re familiar with using a program like Microsoft Word then chances are you’ll pick up WordPress in no time. And better yet, there are loads of people writing about WordPress all over the internet so you can find training manuals and tutorials to teach you about WordPress – for free!
Editing content in-house saves you time and money. And best of all, you don’t need to wait a week to get that spelling mistake corrected that you missed when you were proofreading your copy!
Be Loved by Google
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the art of improving your rankings on search engines such as Google. The great thing about WordPress is that once it is set up correctly & keyword research is performed by your web development agency most of the SEO work is taken care of for you.
This doesn’t mean that you’ll automatically be ahead in the rankings of people who don’t run sites on WordPress, but it certainly gives you a head-start. WordPress uses search engine friendly URLS, unique titles, semantic mark-up and has a good navigational structure. Combine that with the ability to expand your site’s SEO capabilities and speed, along with good quality content written by you, and you’ve got the recipe for a website that Google and other search engines will love.
Proven, Stable, Secure Platform
WordPress has now been around for more than eight years. As of August 2011 it powers 14.7% of the top million websites in the world, and it is used for 22 of every 100 new websites built in the USA. This means that there are millions of people who have tried and tested WordPress before you, and they’re still using it. All of those people can’t be wrong, right?
All of these users means that it is actively being developed. Every year sees new improvements as WordPress keeps up-to-date with changes to the way people are using the internet. Recent years, for example, have seen the rise of mobile technology. And WordPress has adapted to meet user demands with the release of WordPress for Android, WordPress for iOS, WordPress for Blackberry, WordPress for Nokia, and so on. You can use all of these on your own devices, making WordPress mobile for you.
With so many people actively developing WordPress who knows what we’ll see over the next five years? Now’s the time to get on board so you can be part of it!
