We make our living from WordPress, so once in a while we take our head out of the sand and look around. As part of a different research that I was doing, I stumbled upon a big warning light.
Try it, to see what I’m talking about:
https://www.google.com/search?q=business+website
https://www.google.com/search?q=restaurant+website
https://www.google.com/search?q=website+for+my+hotel
Even though WordPress powers 25% of the Web, WordPress is nowhere to be seen in any of these results.
Today, clients find WordPress because Web agencies use and recommend it. But when clients already come to agencies with another platform in mind, this can quickly change. It’s happened before to other ex popular platforms.
The only way to reverse this trend and put WordPress back again in the mind of prospects is by getting together.
We’re trying to do our bit by launching a new WordPress Marketing podcast.
Are you interested in helping? Please leave your comments with your thoughts.
Well, nothing special, I think.
There was a time, when only coders could create websites. It was great time for them.
But, as all we know, paradise does not last forever and then appeared the visual editors(Dreamviewer etc.), in which people could create the websites, without knowing the programming. Although, it was still very necessary, the ability to write or edit codes.
The next stage was the CMS, in which the need for programmers was reduced to almost zero and almost everyone could create the website.
It seems, the next stage will be the online CMS, when you don’t care about the hosting, databases, etc.
And I do not yet see that wordpress developers understand this.
@davidG-36 I think that’s not the point. You will need a WP (or whatever) developer anyway, no matter if it’s an online CMS or a static sites. There are still lots of things to consider, which are out of scope of a normal user.
The point is the time it takes to get something online and run at a proper speed. If it takes 2 days to create a simple website and another day to make it run fast – and on top of that you need some fast and pricey hoster, that will not work out for lots of small businesses. And then installations begin to drop…
I am a “skillful amateur” who uses WordPress for my hotel website. I like WordPress a lot but it is super slow, even after upgrading my hosting package and giving it loads of resources it is still slow. Like other comments I too dread updates. I use a limited number of plugins to reduce the impact on speed but even with this I have problems when a plugin update conflicts with a version of WordPress.
I recently used a professional agency to make some changes on my site, it is in 6 languages and uses WPML, they told me that editing is so slow they should charge me more!!
Although I use WordPress the OTAs, booking.com etc., also offer ready made websites. I suspect many hotels, especially smaller ones, would use this.
There are solutions to slow site performance. All our sites are multilingual and they work pretty fast (and with a whole lot of traffic). Of course, WPML adds code that needs to load and run, so it takes resources. However, if it adds more than 1/2 second for admin pages to load, something else is wrong.
We debugged many sites that had critical performance problems. In almost all cases, this was 3rd party code that was loading way too much information into the database. It’s slow without WPML, but when you also add translations to it, the site becomes incredibly slow. This excess data is typically never used anywhere. It’s just loaded because of some code that needs heavy optimization.
Among our contractors, you will find developers who can profile and optimize custom code that runs on your site.
https://wpml.org/contractors/
Hey Amir,
yes – and that’s exactly the point… There’s so much going on behind the scenes, where professional Optimization is needed. Imagine you buy a car and to use it conveniently you need to visit a garage first -> no one would use that 😉
WordPress doesn’t need new features, it needs a facelift (or backend-lift). It needs included caches, output to static sites, support for faster and more flexible DBs (e.g Postgre, SQLite, MongoDB), etc…
Also, inclusion (or communication) of WordPress with other software -> REST is a good start, but also way toooo slow…
In times where things move at a fast pace, it is not enough to have a good toolset, but also to be competitive in all areas (including performance and easy maintainablity) and there’s where the problem with WP starts. Sure – it can be solved by choosing a dedicated WordPress-Hoster, but know what: Put your static site on the cheapest shared host and it performs fast! That’s it..
I’m still using WP a lot for all kinds of websites, but lastly I also spun up a couple of sites using builders (like Webpack and Browserify)… I can move those sites from host to host, changing URLs and whatnot – and nothing breaks, nothing get’s hacked or is vulnerable. If something gets lost, just copy over from your local copy: Done.
That’s what’s needed: Speed, Convenience and Security…
Just my 0.02
andy
Great article and points about WordPress.
Personally, I wouldn’t say that WordPress(.org) as a whole has a marketing issue – as word of mouth is the best form of marketing so to say.
Sure, some agencies are shy about mentioning that they are using WordPress(.org) to build sites – but I’d say this is due to the negative connotations that are publicly associated to it in the mainstream media – such as it “being free”, “often hacked”, “complex to manage” – of which WordPress(.com) and many of the tier one WordPress-Hosting-as-a-Service companies are doing a fantastic job at clearing the air against for their hosted flavours of WordPress.
An interesting analysis would be the volume of positive to negative consumer level WordPress news that hits the everyday business.
Furtherso, one item that it worth taking into account for awareness is the success of WordPress.com, bringing visiblilty to a very wide and associated community on social media and in Gogole search results as a whole – https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=wordpress.com,wordpress.org
The long-term results of their marketing efforts are not hugely impressive:
https://www.screencast.com/t/yszj4k9M
better think why the search of the pages go down.
1. I was not on the wp pages for months, but use WP every day, why should I? I get every update etc from the wp-system and can download search updates and plugins there.
2. people do not search for domains as often anymore 😉
I think google trends is definitely not the right tool for getting numbers to talk about like we do here right now
Well. The exact same tool shows the popularity of other platforms on the rise.
Hey Amir,
which one for example? 🙂
Best
Stefan
Wix
Agreed to the previous comments, however the moving landscape should not affect a great tool like WPML. Porting your tools to other online to website dev tools for non technical users is necessary for you. For me I continue to use wordpress, which is a great tool and tremendous plugins that make it even greater.
yes i am interested
We should do stand together for a professionell marketing.
It will not be long before we work with artificial intelligence computers, though
we have to use this technology for our favor, we will have website programmed and the human being will only write his own signature so that he himself can always stay in control.
Not really sure a few Google trend charts show this happening, getting a mail shot to this post too really shows maybe your business is not doing so well. WP could do more for sure but whats the insight behind those search terms? Where is the intent?? Anyway I cant see anything here with any real research. You are wrong as well I sit all day long speaking to clients who know WP, who want WP, this kinda of rabble rousing is not good for the community, come with solutions – not problems.
I’m sorry if this post and my newsletter offended you. There’s no big research here. Before proposing solutions, I wanted to bring up the problem and hear what others have to say. We already have a lot of comments here with some great ideas. You’re very welcome to browse and get inspiration.
@nyallflynn good post! Thanks!
I have read this whole thread twice and followed some comments, but the conclusion is, there is no point (yet)..
Reason 1: Security – I know too many wordpress pages that have been hacked but almost none of a different platform.
Reason 2: Plugin and Theme Bullshit – There are many great Themes and plugins but also soooooooo many horrible, insecure and poorly coded themes/plugins. And there is not way to tell which ones are good or bad. Even those with a high rating and often used are sometimes really bad. Also Pay-Plugins are often quite bad.
WPML:
When I bought WPML I thought it would be an amazing tool. Now I think it is an OK tool. That is exactly what I mean when talking about the plugin market.
To be quick: Your usability sucks!
WPML is great at letting you fulfill your translation goals effectively but not efficient and far from intuitive.
I am a developer and see what you are doing to make the impossible possible by trying to be compatible with so many themes. That makes WPML really effective.
After using it for a while I found my way around but every time I am trying to explain how to use it I would only explain how to translate an article because the rest is toooo complicated for most people.
100% agree! WP with WPML, JetPack and ACF – that’s a minimal “must have” case. For other features we use functions.php.
Today we have social networks, wysiwyg tools and other stuff to build website without professional webmaster. But it’s poor quality way.
Chris, you nailed it. I feel the same way. I’m pretty sure WPML is a great tool. I just don’t have the time to learn it and teach my clients how to use it and always end up delivering jobs with crapy automatic translators.
Hi, my daily business is creating and maintaining WP websites. I have not made the experience that the overall request for WP has somehow reduced in the last years. Only because Google Trends says, that the Buzzword “wordpress” is less asked for, does not mean, that potential customers ask less for it.
If someone wants to build a new Website, he normally does not know the brand “WordPress”. He searches for things like “developer website” or “free website builder” etc. You are right, that it would be nice, if all possible requests would in the end point to WP. But I strongly believe, that this is already the case for many general questions after CMSs or systems to build websites.
And many website develeopers still recommend WP. So I guess, it is up to us developers to keep our eyes open, if there comes a trend (like website builders eg WIX) that REALLY become a serious alternative for WP and in the end adapt to it.
There’s just not enough good content on wordpress.org to make it happen today. Wix and Squarespace have a ton of content about how to build sites. We don’t. At least not on the only site that has enough authority to compete.
I have other problem. I’m Drupal developer but I started to develop websites in WordPress because clients asked for it. I even migrated some of my Drupal projects to WordPress.
If you look at the Google trends chart for “woocommerce”, “divi” or other terms closely related to WordPress, you have a very different picture…
https://trends.google.fr/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&geo=FR&q=woocommerce
Yup. WooCommerce is trending up. Does this give an excuse for not actively marketing WordPress?
Interesting topic, keep me updated.
Thanks and best regards,
I was glad to read this post. World domination can’t be good. More players makes more fun and offers less impact of single point failure. Excel in a lesser known CMS and find joy in the struggle to take it to the top.
Maybe it would. But who should decide on which keywords the WordPress team should put their effort into? Business websites, websites for companies, websites for self-employed persons, for hotels, for …?
I think the WordPress team should put a lot of effort into developing a great system and the rest will come by itself.
@All the people who complain about performance were not forced to use WordPress. You could use another system like Drupal where each version has been a complete rewrite of the code base. So with each major version, you had to develop a complete new system.
WordPress instead supports all recent versions what will save you a lot of time. (And the money of your customers… 😉 )
And of course you can create big WordPress websites which are still really fast (<500ms)! 🙂
WordPress must remain! I’m interested.
Hi,
well are you afraid wordpress Installations will go down when you look at the google Trends graphs of your searches?
First of all: what does the graph show? It shows us searches for “wordpress” in relation to the highest searches ever.
I think much more important are the numbers of installations and this numbers shows a different szenario.
As a Web-Agency in Germany we have installed wordpress over 200-times, it gets better and better every year. And when i look around, wordpress is used by more and more web agencies. Because it is easy to usw, nice designed, customers love it and come to us, talking about WordPress before we say anything.
Google Trends:
Compare all your searches (Restaurant, business, hotel etc) to wordpress and you will get impressed, they are all unter 1%.
I think you make a mistake when you think about how people search/google for getting a new Website. They search not for a system, they do not mind. They want a website. (check website vs wordpress in trends!) And for people who do not want to do it on their own, they search for a agency, Web designer, Web Developer, Student or some who will do this for them.
I do NOT think wordpress goes down, because of bad marketing. No CMS is searched more often (wordwide is the word “website ist searched ONLY 3 times more often then wordpress, in Germany it is even equal!!). Check Wix, jimdo or sqarepace against wordpress in Google trends. Wix is not even 30% of WordPress and has a much different type of customer.
Tell me what do you think about my opinion !
greetings from germany
Stefan from SAGS
Hi @all, Amir main question is “Why WordPress Marketing sucks and will you help fix it”
I don’t see why so many people are complaining about the issues with the platform, they can be fix by being better at development and hosting. The thing is Marketing and by Marketing is the relationship between the Consumer’s Market and the ecosystem in which Developers, designers, etc are part of. IMHO it goes as far as “Why People are switching using other platforms and WordPress usage is declining”. I made a point earlier about “positioning” and now another about, “Is Automattic the only responsible or is the community the one that should be supporting Automattic back?”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positioning_(marketing)
I don’t like WordPress logo.
I don’t think there would be a faster platform to develop a CMS along with good designs than WordPress. However, recently I was struggling with dual language clients where WPML was implemented may be because of lack of my knowledge on the plugin and the technical spirit of WPML setup and implementation. However, I suggest WPML to head to tie up with WP and integrate the plugin in a much easier way with the templates or WP installations and provide an integrated and very user friendly interface for dual or multi-lingual websites with an additional cost of the plugin/ plugins the user may choose to opt for but should not be shown as a plugin rather than a setting only. Method of controlling multi-lingual content editing can be explored from Prestashop, OpenCart, etc.
Wish you all the best..
I have used WPML in the past and soon will use it again. I just setup Poni Divers () on WordPress Multisite. I still enjoy all the comfort of WordPress and that said, so many new systems are far too limited (wix etc) in order to fulfill the needs of my client. Many clients see something and just want a copy of it. In the end, it’s just the same old same old. Coding for years I have realised that less and less people and companies are willing to spend some more bugs for unique layouts / designs.
WPML is no different here. Sure, it is not without a flaw but considering where it started and where it is now they have done great.
That said finding the problem maker in terms of loading speed is still a hassle.
Anyway, your approach (the 3 search strings) I’d quite limited. There are so many ways to encounter WordPress and WPML on the net + word of mouth is still a strong marketing tool and will be as long humans are out there.
Most of my colleagues use it or at least recommend it to other companies. Don’t forget about Asia, many are just about to discover things like WP or Jooma. I am working in Asia and I see it every day. Often no knowledge what so ever.
I agree that WordPress today spreads through word of mouth. That’s a very powerful marketing vehicle. But WordPress also has one of the strongest domains on the Web. Does the fact that we have good WOM marketing mean that we should dismiss our other marketing opportunities?
I’m a casual developer manager of WP sites – I no longer have to do this for a living, thus some different viewpoint,
1. The examples are classic as a huge budget is needed to dominate main key words. A small hotel will never feature in the top 3 pages of G these days on generic key words.
2. The more niche, the more specialized a business or site may become if the basic process for on line is not simplified respectively streamlined.
I do pick up developments that have run into the “mainstrem” wall and or have realised that you get what you pay for (not much).
One of the issues is diversity. WP on its own is nothing but a base cms, WPML allows for globalisation & Woo does the e-com. That is 3 systems, 3 supports, 3 different approaches.
The cherry pickers have simply used this and combined it into a unique approach and smoothed out the stepping stones.
This could be an indication for the three W’s (and or others) to maybe want to look at a combined standardised entry and management.
This would be with the caveat of “ring fencing or walled garden”. By this technique (successful at the A company) limiting exposure to risks, failures and admin overhead.
At present I have admin for WP, WPML,Woo and some other stuff, all more or less different.
The good old 80/20 still applies these days and the plethora of plugin’s, themes etc dilute the core messages of the W’s simplicity, stability and ease of management.
From where I sit the most important plug-in is the one that prevents loading of unused plug-ins.
Here is an idea which may already exist somewhere:
I do this manually as I have no time to write a script, but a simple multiple choice db driven front end that spews out a standardized install with a clean standardized admin and a single combined config, than running automatic security updates could in my opinion put a spanner in the works of the “cherry-pickers” and allow a brighter way forward.
And yes if this is something worth following count me in.
And here is an example of a 3 W site that easily outperforms others (I do sit in Spain)
Textiles Naturales – BUT it also shows the problem of drifting out of sync over time due to un-unified admin.
Saludos
Martin GJ
It’s not a problem with WordPress alone, but with Web development and PHP too.
For example:
Web development trends graph:
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=web%20development
Php graph:
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=php
Interesting observations. However, this doesn’t give us an excuse for not marketing our platform.
If a client needs a new website, it is my job to offer him the best solution. WordPress is always fine, if reliable plugins exist. Clients can fill content by themselves – this is a big point. If there are special needs, wordpress cannot handle, we offer other systems like Typo3 and Shopware. But – if it is possible, we will offer a wordpress based site. It is easy to handle and modify. I dont offer them a “wordpress” site – i offer them a website which works and they are happy with and this is 80% a wordpress based site.
I think it is great that you are thinking ahead and looking for feedback. It never hurts. But the key people to be asking are those behind the WordPress.org platform. Do they have a marketing plan already in place? Can we support that marketing plan?
I am introducing the concept of WordPress blogging to a small South American nation and the majority of users shy away from the platform. It looks intimidating to people who were raised without computers and went straight to smartphones. I am having to introduce forms that strip away anything that looks like code to make them feel comfortable. The majority of people would rather hire a web designer and few know that they have the ability to design their own website affordably with WordPress. Perhaps education is the answer.
For example, how about free WordPress starter classes in developing nations to businesses that are in need of multilingual websites (tourism immediately springs to mind but it’s my specialty)?