When you recommend WordPress.com to your audience, start with what they want to accomplish rather than leading with a list of features. Someone starting a business may care about reliability and scalability, while a writer may care more about publishing and building an audience.
Use the guidance below to help you frame WordPress.com for different audiences and answer some common questions about the platform.
Start with what your audience needs
Different people come to WordPress.com for different reasons. Consider what your audience is trying to build, then focus on the parts of WordPress.com that matter most to them.
For businesses
Businesses often need a website that can support them as they grow without adding more technical work to their day.
When talking to a business audience, focus on:
- Tools and integrations that support their business
- Scalability as their website and business grow
- Security and reliability
- Ecommerce, payments, bookings, and other ways to serve customers
- Saving time by having hosting, security, updates, and other technical needs managed
For this audience, focus on what the website can help them do. Instead of listing technical features, explain how those features can save time or support the way they run their business.
For creators
Creators often use their websites to showcase their work, build their personal brand, connect with their audience, and grow their business.
When talking to creators, focus on:
- Design and customization
- Building a professional online presence
- Growing an audience with SEO, newsletters, analytics, and social integrations
- Connecting their website with the platforms they already use
- Tools that can help them monetize their site and content
- Getting help when they need it
Keep the language straightforward and approachable. Creators may be building their first website and may not know which tools they need yet, so focus on what WordPress.com can help them accomplish rather than assuming they know the terminology.
For writers
Writers and bloggers often want a simple way to publish their work, create a site that reflects their style, and build a community around what they write.
When talking to writers, focus on:
- Simple publishing and site management
- Customizable design
- Building a community around their work
- Newsletters and social integrations
- Ways to monetize their content, such as tips, donations, and subscriptions
- Spending more time writing and less time managing the technical side of a website
If your audience already thinks of WordPress.com as a blogging platform, you don’t need to correct them. Blogging is an important use case. You can also show them how WordPress.com can support other types of sites and grow with their needs.
For developers
Developers may have different questions, particularly if they’ve used WordPress before or have experience with self-hosted sites.
When talking to developers, focus on:
- Performance and scalability
- Security and availability
- Access to plugins and themes
- Staging sites
- SFTP and SSH access
- GitHub deployment
- WP-CLI
- Direct access to wp-admin
- Studio, WordPress.com’s local development environment
Be precise and specific with this audience. Some developers may have an outdated view of what WordPress.com supports, so concrete information about current developer tools can help clarify what’s available. Additional technical details can be found at wordpress.com/hosting.
Answer common questions about WordPress.com
Your audience may already have an opinion about WordPress.com, particularly if they’ve used another website platform or a self-hosted WordPress site. Here are some ways to address common questions and concerns.
“Isn’t WordPress.com just for blogs?”
Blogging is one use case for WordPress.com, but you can also use it to build business websites, online stores, portfolios, creator websites, publications, and other types of sites.
You can also tailor your answer to the person asking. For a business owner, talk about ecommerce, payments, integrations, scalability, and reliability. For a creator, you might focus on design, audience growth, and monetization. For a developer, talk about the tools and access available for professional WordPress development.
“Is WordPress.com expensive?”
When someone compares WordPress.com with other hosting options, focus on what they get for the price and which plan fits their needs.
WordPress.com combines managed hosting, performance, security, and support in one platform, so the essentials are included in the plan rather than added as separate services. WordPress.com also includes unmetered traffic and unlimited visitors, with no visit-based overage fees, so users won’t have any unexpected bills when a post, launch, or campaign takes off.
When comparing plans, consider what the site needs now and what it may need as it grows. See our WordPress.com hosting plans breakdown for an overview of the plans and what each one includes, or use the plan recommendation guide to help determine which plan is the right fit.
You don’t need to convince everyone that the most expensive plan is right for them. Instead, help your audience understand what’s included with each plan and how those features relate to what they’re trying to accomplish.
“Is WordPress.com real WordPress?”
Yes. WordPress.com runs on WordPress, the open source software used by millions of websites. The difference is that WordPress.com combines WordPress with managed hosting, security, performance, updates, and support in one platform.
That means customers get the flexibility of WordPress with more of the technical setup and maintenance handled for them.
“Can customers use plugins and themes on WordPress.com?”
Yes. Customers can install plugins and upload themes on all paid WordPress.com plans. This includes plugins and themes from the WordPress ecosystem, along with WordPress.com’s built-in tools and design options.
Free sites need to upgrade to a paid plan to install plugins or upload themes.
“What’s the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org?”
WordPress.com and WordPress.org provide different ways to use WordPress:
- WordPress is the free, open source content management system.
- WordPress.org is where you can download the WordPress software for use with a hosting provider of your choice.
- WordPress.com is an all-in-one managed hosting platform built around WordPress. Hosting, security, updates, and other infrastructure are managed as part of the service.
With a self-hosted WordPress site, you choose your hosting provider and are responsible for managing the hosting and technical infrastructure. With WordPress.com, those services are managed for you as part of the platform.
When you talk about WordPress.com, use the full name, including “.com.” This helps distinguish WordPress.com from WordPress, the open source software. See how to represent the WordPress.com brand for more guidance on naming and terminology and WordPress.com vs WordPress.org for a more detailed comparison between the two.
Focus on what your audience wants to accomplish
Features are useful when they help explain how WordPress.com can meet someone’s needs. Instead of listing everything the platform offers, connect each feature to something your audience cares about.
For example:
- Instead of saying “WordPress.com has security features,” explain that the platform manages security as part of the service.
- Instead of saying “WordPress.com has SEO tools,” explain how those tools can help someone grow their audience.
- Instead of saying “WordPress.com supports ecommerce,” explain how a business can use its site to sell products or accept payments.
- Instead of saying “WordPress.com has developer tools,” explain how those tools can fit into a professional development workflow.
For more help choosing the right plan for a specific audience or use case, see the WordPress.com plan recommendation guide and WordPress.com hosting plans breakdown.
