There are other free and inexpensive traditional CMSs, which are worth looking at. Drupal and Joomla are the usual alternative ones. In most cases, these require development skills, which is why many startups prefer WordPress.
Compared to website builders, WordPress remains the best choice for the more strategically minded founders. Those whose visions extend beyond brochureware, are planning business-critical tools and want to set a solid digital foundation for their company.
Price is always a factor though. Website builders have argued that WordPress isn’t free. You have to factor in hosting and the bundle of Pro plugins you will inevitably need. What that small cost buys you, though, is scalability.
You want to add functions and features – both off-the-shelf and custom developments – as business and operational functions grow (along with customer expectations).
Scaling WordPress is not just about the technicalities
If you invest in content marketing and SEO, for example, few other platforms are flexible enough to support these large-scale efforts.
Writing and publishing blog posts 3 times a week is not enough. On-page technical SEO is very granular and you’ll need a strategy that covers navigation and contextual links while making it easy for both users and search engine bots to find what they are looking for.
This is where Wix, Squarespace, and the like fall flat on their faces. They can handle small sites. As soon as pages add up, you need a platform that can scale SEO efforts.
A similar argument can be made about the human resources a founder needs to drive growth.
A lot of founders start by hiring a full-time VA and a dev on a project basis. Once the site has been built a growth hacker can build a funnel to capture and convert leads. By the end of the first 12 months, they will have formed a team.
How does this relate to WordPress? The same scenario unfolds regardless of the tech you’ve put in place, right? Absolutely.
The difference is, the WordPress ecosystem is so big that you can quickly find and hire the right professionals for the job.
If you search for “drupal developer UK” you get 513 results. The same query for WordPress returns 15,100.
Founders can also tap into many WordPress communities where they can ask for advice and meet other like-minded people.