6 Reasons Why Graphic Designers Should Use WordPress to Manage Websites

In the world of graphic design, opportunities are endless. Every business, blog, and creative project needs a website that is functional and looks great. If you have the skills and expertise to help with this, you can streamline a steady flow of work to make clients and your bank account happy.

Unfortunately, there is also a lot of competition among graphic designers. You need a way to distinguish yourself from the rest of the pack, and getting familiar with the platforms and processes your potential client base uses is essential.

WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems, and here are six reasons why graphic designers should use WordPress to manage websites.

1. WordPress is In-Demand

There are a handful of commonly known and used content management systems, but WordPress is still the most widely used. Of all the websites on the internet, over 40% of them use WordPress. 

There are currently over 2 billion websites. Do the math, and that means nearly 1 billion of these use WordPress. If you want to stay in the game and remain relevant, it pays to be familiar with the most widely used platform. 

Graphic designers looking for a leg up when establishing themselves initially or gaining new traffic should keep the popular WordPress in mind. Part of this popularity is because the program has an easy-to-use content management system that business owners of all kinds appreciate. 

If you learn how to operate this system and use it as a tool to display your graphic design skills, you’ll have a recipe for success. 

Another stat worth mentioning that displays the in-demand nature of the platform is that 23% of the top 10,000 sites in the world use WordPress. If you want to go after the most prominent clients and businesses out there, you need to know WordPress. 

2. Ease of Use, Endless Expandability

You might be thinking that WordPress takes work away from graphic designers because of the ease of use it offers. While this might be true on the surface, it opens the door for more opportunities. 

It’s easy to create a basic website using the platform but turning it into a visually engaging and fully functioning portal is a different animal entirely. It only took me about a week or so to get familiar with it. 

Many people who build a website using WordPress quickly turn to the pros to ask for help. If you are familiar and comfortable with the platform, you can help expand and develop these sites from the basic to the professional level. 

An extremely wide array of plugins and tools are at your disposal as well. WordPress offers over 50,000 different plugins that you can use to improve the function and performance of any site. 

As the most popular CMS for freelancers, WordPress keeps perfecting their features to make solopreneurs and small business owners’ lives easier. To keep all your client data, invoices and graphic design projects at the same place, you no longer need to create new files all the time and make your drive explode. With the convenience of a CRM plugin like WP-CRM System, you can operate all the odds and ends of your practice directly from your WP Dashboard.

The ease of use and expandability carries over into the look of a website as well. WordPress contains many different themes you can use to dial in the perfect look for a site. Even better, you don’t need to be a skilled coder to make this happen, as many of them can be installed and adjusted visually. 

3. Build Your Graphic Design Business

Using WordPress can also help you build your graphic design business. You want others to see the beautiful design you just made in Adobe Illustrator or other design tools. If you are not yet an established designer, you need to promote yourself to get work. Creating a good portfolio website of your skills and services is a must. 

WordPress is a great platform that’ll help you to get this up and running in no time to help you land clients and build valuable experience. 

A WordPress site can function in more ways than just a portfolio to help build your growing business. For example, if you take advantage of the blogging features of the platform, you can begin to develop tone and communication skills that will benefit your marketing efforts. 

You can also use your blog to attract followers and make connections with other professionals in your field. 

Search results are critical in building a graphic design business and another area where WordPress can help. You can quickly establish a content calendar of new and current posts to help attract potential clients to your website. 

By putting in a little effort towards SEO, you can create blogs that cater to the search results that apply to your niche and build things up from there. 

4. Function and Form

Whether you are using WordPress for your personal graphic design website or creating a site for a client, you need it to function properly and look good. As you build a portfolio, future clients will look at the work you’ve done in the past to see if you have the skills and aesthetic they are looking for. A slow-load website or one that doesn’t look top-notch can prevent a potential client before they ask a single question. 

WordPress is well known for loading quickly, as long as you set things up on the back end to do so. Make sure to explore speed optimizations and a quick-loading theme as you design. 

I’ve already looked at the visual tools that can help enhance your design skills, but the responsive nature of WordPress is another solid feature it provides. Your work will translate effectively to mobile platforms to remain congruent no matter where it is viewed. 

5. WordPress is Affordable

WordPress is also an affordable content management tool, making it great for any graphic designer working hard to build their portfolio. It’s free to download, and then you pay for the plugins and themes you want as you build. This means you can cater a build to your budget or start with the basics and work your way up as business improves. 

6. Help is Out There

Being such a popular content management system, WordPress has a vast amount of help and guidance at your disposal. There are a ton of tutorials to help you learn how to operate the platform and forums to discuss any issues or ask questions with other users. If you ever have a problem using it, there is easy to find help out there.

Wrapping Up

Whether you’re still exploring or just starting your graphic design business, WordPress is the go to CMS for you! It’s super easy to get started and you can build a nicely designed website without a lot of expertise. If you ever need help, there are a lot of easily accessible resources you can find online.  

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