WordPress – The Present And The Future Of The Ultra-Popular CMS
WordPress needs a little introduction to anyone familiar with the content management system (CMS).
The early 2000s saw the rise of three digital publishing platforms, namely, Drupal (January 2001), WordPress (May 2003), and Joomla (September 2005).
Fast-forward to 2022 and each of these pioneering CMS is still around, with WordPress even active in activities primarily unrelated to its basic purpose.
For one, as of this writing, WordMesh2022 is ongoing.
Described as “a live, virtual conference for WordPress professionals,” according to this event’s website, WordMesh is a WordPress project, which started in 2013.
COPYRIGHT_MARX: Published on https://marxcommunications.com/wordpress/ by Keith Peterson on 2022-05-21T05:46:35.150Z
WordPress invited 32 speakers from around the world for this year’s online conference sessions. They include software engineers, web developers, and founders of companies and stuff related to technology.
On May 27, WordPress will be marking its 19th year of operation since its initial release in 2003.
Find out how WordPress is faring and what the future holds for the famous CMS.
What is WordPress? And How Does It Work? | Explained for Beginners
Baptizing A New CMS
Another WordPress event is the WordCamp.
WordCamps, according to its website, “are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress.”
American web developer Matthew Charles “Matt” Mullenweg, who founded WordPress together with English web developer Mike Little, started WordCamp in 2006.
Speaking at the WordCamp Riverside 2018 in Riverside, California, Christine Tremoulet shared an interesting story about her and Mullenweg.
They first met in October 2002 in a blogging meetup in Houston.
By the way, blogging is basically online journal writing. A person who does it is called a blogger (someone who “blogs”). Bloggers upload their blog post (or article, write up, poems, etc.) in a blogging website/platform, such as WordPress.
Tremoulet was in her early 30s at that time and was in her second year of blogging and Mullenweg was 18.
A few months passed and they met again, and the teenage Mullenweg revealed something to her.
“„He told me about this software that’s gonna change the world.
When she was a web developer for a fragrance oil company, Tremoulet said that she used to name and describe all the oils. After saying she’s “good at naming things,” Tremoulet added that she’d help him name his upcoming software.
Again, a few months went by and it was already 2003.
The nameless software was about to be launched.
Then one day she left a voicemail message to Mullenweg:
“„WordPress! You have to name it WordPress!
And Mullenweg did.
WordPress Market Share
Matt Mullenweg, now 38, was right all along when he told Houston-based blogger Christine Tremoulet (now also a business coach and photographer) that WordPress will “change the world.”
Nearly two years after WordPress came to be, over ten percent of the U.S. population (or approximately 32 million) “read blogs,” according to WebdesignerDepot.
The claim was based on a study released in January 2005.
By October 2006, the number of blogs published worldwide reached an estimated 35.8 million, according to German business data site Statista. In October 2011, the number reached 173 million.
Statista mentioned WordPress as one of the platforms used by bloggers across the globe.
In its 2012 article, Dazeinfo Media & Research identified WordPress as belonging to the top three American blogging websites (the other two were Google’s Blogger and Tumblr).
Indicated below are the total market shares of WordPress (2011-2022), as gathered by web technology survey provider W3Techs:
- 13.1 percent (January 1, 2011)
- 15.8 percent (Jan. 1, 2012)
- 17.4 percent (Jan. 1, 2013)
- 21.0 percent (Jan. 1, 2014)
- 23.3 percent (Jan. 1, 2015)
- 25.6 percent (Jan. 1, 2016)
- 27.3 percent (Jan. 1, 2017)
- 29.2 percent (Jan. 1, 2018)
- 32.7 percent (Jan. 1, 2019)
- 35.4 percent (Jan. 1, 2020)
- 39.5 percent (Jan. 1, 2021)
- 43.2 percent (Jan. 1, 2022)
- 42.9 percent (May 20, 2022)
One could see the gradual but steady increase in every year.
For comparison, from 2011 through 2022, Drupal achieved its highest market share in 2013 and 2018, with both at 2.3 percent. Joomla’s highest was in 2017 at 3.4 percent.
As of May 2022, the market shares of these two contemporaries of WordPress are 1.2 percent (Drupal) and 1.6 percent (Joomla).
Given its year-on-year growth, WordPress hosting platform Kinsta declared the existing dominance of WordPress in terms of market share.
Percentage Of Websites Using WordPress 2022
Per W3Techs, the percentage of websites in the World Wide Web being powered by WordPress this 2022 is 42.9 percent.
It only confirms Kinsta’s claim of WordPress being a current standout as a CMS.
As W3Techs said:
“„WordPress is used by 64.1 percent of all the websites whose content management system we know. This is 42.9 percent of all websites.
That was 39.5 percent in 2021, reported Search Engine Journal, and 35 percent in 2020.
In 2015, “25 percent of all websites” used WordPress, according to W3Techs.
WebsiteBuilder.org stated that the number of WordPress websites across the word is approximately 455 million.
In addition, the top three countries that use WordPress are (in no particular order) Russia, the U.K., and the U.S.
Some of the learning institutions that use WordPress:
- Cornell University
- Georgia State University
- Harvard University
- University of Berlin
- University of Melbourne
These popular brands/companies use WordPress:
- BBC America
- Coca-Cola
- Disney
- Forbes
- Mercedes-Benz
- NFL
- Nikon
- Samsung
- Sony Music
- Vogue
Do you know that Deadline Hollywood (est. 2006) and TechCrunch (est. 2005) both started as a WordPress website?
In 2009, per WebsiteBuilder.org, Deadline Hollywood was bought for $14 million. The following year, TechCrunch got sold for a whopping $30 million!
The power of WordPress.
Latest Version Of WordPress 2022
On May 24, 2022, WordPress Version 6.0 will be released.
It seems Search Engine Journal (SEJ) couldn’t contain its excitement.
“„WordPress 6.0 deserves to be called a major release.
And why is that?
WordPress 6.0, according to SEJ, will involve “97 enhancements and 131 bug fixes” and will improve:
- Block Editor miscellaneous Dev Note
- Bootstrap/Load
- cache API
- separator block (update)
- accessibility
- media handling
While waiting for WordPress 6.0, the latest WordPress version is the 5.9, released on January 25, 2022.
Prior to that, the last two versions were WordPress 5.7.2 (May 12, 2021) and WordPress 5.7.1 (April 14, 2021). All in all, in 2021, WordPress introduced a total of seven versions.
WordPress Version 5.0 was released on December 6, 2018.
According to W3Techs, with “all the websites who use WordPress,” 92.6 percent use WordPress 5.0 as of May 20, 2022. From these websites, 60.5 percent use WordPress 5.9.
People Ask
Is WordPress Good For Beginners?
Yes, WordPress is ideal to use for first-time bloggers.
As Florida-based content strategist Shayla Price wrote in her article for software company HubSpot:
“„It's actually built for non-technical people.
The dashboard (the control panel) is simple, which Price also described as “intuitive and friendly.”
With WordPress, it’s easy, among other things, to:
- create a post/blog
- customize a design
- add and use navigation menus
Why WordPress Is The Most Popular CMS?
There are several reasons why WordPress leads as a CMS, and some of them are because its:
- it’s free
- user-friendly (particularly for beginners)
- SEO (search engine optimization)-friendly (best for content writers/business owners aiming for increased readership/exposure)
- safe to use
- your posts will be secured
Shayla Price adds that WordPress “supports all media types.”
WordPress likewise offers more than 54,000 plugins (a plugin is a kind of add-on that can be used to improve one’s experience in using WordPress).
Is WordPress Losing Popularity?
No, it’s not.
As mentioned in this article, the total market share of WordPress, as of May 20, 2022, is 42.9 percent.
Moreover, WordPress events (e.g., State of the Word, WordCamp, WordMesh) continue to draw participants from around the world.
As a matter of fact, per WebsiteBuilder.org, over 1,000 WordCamps were already held as of 2022.
Is WordPress Still Relevant In 2022?
Yes, it is and shall remain to be important.
Blogging and ecommerce are very much relevant these days, and both are supported by WordPress.
WebsiteBuilder.org reported that 77 percent of people browsing the Web “read blogs.”
Also, 28 percent of online stores are powered by WooCommerce, a WordPress plugin for ecommerce.
Conclusion
The future appears bright for WordPress as it lords over as a blogging content management system (CMS) and as an ecommerce CMS, according to Kinsta.
Making a quick trip down memory lane via a blog post titled “Twenty Years of Blogging,” Christine Tremoulet closed it with this final line:
“„Blogging is what made my life as I know it possible.
WordPress helps make blogging relevant and life altering – even financially rewarding.
In its own right, WordPress is still a king, and it looks like, based on figures alone, it will continue wearing its crown for a long time.
About The Authors
Keith Peterson - I'm an expert IT marketing professional with over 10 years of experience in various Digital Marketing channels such as SEO (search engine optimization), SEM (search engine marketing), SMO (social media optimization), ORM (online reputation management), PPC (Google Adwords, Bing Adwords), Lead Generation, Adwords campaign management, Blogging (Corporate and Personal), and so on. Web development and design are unquestionably another of my passions. In fast-paced, high-pressure environments, I excel as an SEO Executive, SEO Analyst, SR SEO Analyst, team leader, and digital marketing strategist, efficiently managing multiple projects, prioritizing and meeting tight deadlines, analyzing and solving problems.
