WordPress for Enterprise: The Ultimate Guide to Using WordPress as an Enterprise CMS

28% of the top 1 million websites online use WordPress to help them create their perfect website, including many big and small enterprises. But since WordPress started as a blog platform, many businesses actually wonder if it’s suitable for enterprises when they hit their scaling-up stage. 

WordPress has so much more to offer and is one of the most popular Content Management Systems (CMS) in the world because it’s easy to use, with many customizable features that can suit your business needs, regardless of where you are in the scaling-up process. 

This post will show you why WordPress is an amazing enterprise CMS tool and how you can make the most of it.

Why WordPress is the enterprise-level CMS you should be using

A content management system, or CMS, is software used to create and share content online on a website, allowing users to create websites and publish content without prior knowledge of programming languages like HTML. WordPress is a CMS that allows you to create pages and blog posts and design the entire front end of an entire website with its easy-to-use interface.

WordPress was started in 2003 by founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little as a way to make online publishing accessible to everyone, and while its auspicious start as a blogging platform might make it seem like it’s not a great CMS, this is far from the case. With more than content creation tools on offer, WordPress helps businesses in the following ways:

• Building an online or affiliate store. 
• Creating forums. 
• Creating memberships and subscriptions.
• Building a Learning Management System. 
• Making their website more functional with its various plugins.

WordPress is flexible open-source software and is vital to enterprises in the scaling-up stage as it can connect its various tools, acting as a central data and communications hub. Put simply, WordPress is purpose-built to take your workload. Businesses, big and small, use it every day to create and share content, attract leads, convert leads into customers, and so much more.

Should you choose WordPress as the CMS for your enterprise?

WordPress is a great tool that helps hundreds of companies around the world, not just small enterprises but world-dominating brands like Disney, IBM, and Microsoft, have all used WordPress! 

When companies are looking for an enterprise-grade CMS, WordPress provides effortless eCommerce functionality. Powerful plugins like WooCommerce allow WordPress users to create and customize an online store easily, but enterprise CMSs need to go far beyond that! It must be capable of offering a complete package that covers the essential elements: 

• Design (visual and architecture).
• User experience.
• Workflow optimization.
• A trusted advisor to partner with them on a technical level to drive their business vision the right way.
  

You would benefit from WordPress if you:

• Want more control over your website design and layout. 
• Want users to have more options to customize their website experience to stand out from competitors.
• Need advanced website functionality. Enterprises may need a number of functions beyond website design, like databases, LMSs, and mobile optimization, to create a cohesive platform for greater user-friendliness.
• Have complex requirements for your website. WordPress may be the ideal solution because it has a lot of built-in functionality while also allowing you to add more features with plugins, so you can optimize your on-page SEO (Search Engine Optimization), eCommerce (via its WooCommerce plugin), and so much more.
  

When scaling up, your business needs to start investing in its tools more so than ever. Your website is now more important to acquiring and keeping customers, which is why using WordPress can help you turn your small business into a large one, especially in the following areas: 

Hosting

If your website is not loading within the 2-second timeframe, this can result in you losing customers. Upgrading your web hosting to deal with the demands of increased customers is essential, and WordPress hosting options allow you to ensure your website is fully optimized, secure, backed up regularly, and the plugins and CMSs are updated. 

Caching

Serving more website “requests” is essential as you prepare for increases in web traffic, which is where caching can help. Caching is the process of storing resources from a request and reusing them for subsequent requests. Caching makes WooCommerce websites faster and reduces the load on the server, making websites easier to access, and improving the site’s performance by reducing the overall load. 

Performance 

Better hosting and caching are two components that improve a website’s performance. A well-optimized WordPress theme can boost every aspect of your webpage, improving functionality, reducing your bounce rate, and increasing custom! As WordPress can help you optimize your website with tools to improve image optimization, run a site speed diagnosis, delete unused plugins and themes, and so much more, which will greatly improve your website’s functionality. 

Plugins 

Plugins allow users functionality without having to develop it themselves. The right plugins will bring important functions to your website, including SEO, site speed optimization, offering email opt-ins, and more. As your business scales up, you’ll find WordPress has thousands of plugins to improve your website.

If you want to scale up your website, you can take advantage of other methods, either by hiring developers or by using a managed WooCommerce service like Saucal. As your business scales, it’s good to know that what you build on WordPress today needs to be functional in the future, even when you make changes and updates to your site.

Enterprises using WordPress

It can be easy to think that small businesses is exclusively use WordPress. In fact, big-name brands like eBay, UPS, and CNN all use WordPress, all with their unique needs. Here are some recognizable brands that use WordPress:

The White House
The official website of the White House, owned by the United States government, uses WordPress and provides the latest government-related news.

IBM Jobs
One of the most powerful computer companies in the world needs a powerful WordPress theme. The official site for IBM Recruitment provides an insider view of the company and its vision of what they have to offer.

Mercedes-Benz
The German automobile manufacturer Mercedes-Benz uses WordPress to showcase its latest new products, all with a streamlined and sleek WordPress layout.

Spotify Newsroom
The Spotify Newsroom is the press website for Spotify music, where readers can find every update on the latest music releases, all created by WordPress.

The New York Times Company
The New York Times Company website provides insights from one of the top newspapers on the planet. With over 150 million global monthly readers, WordPress is critical to its functionality, ensuring subscribers can get their daily dose of news quickly.

Working with WooCommerce businesses, I’ve seen WordPress meet enterprise needs that go beyond tech. As your company grows, there is a commitment to quality, consistency, and security that WordPress provides that becomes invaluable. Since WordPress is open-source, you know you’ll always be able to use it as the central hub to connect to all your marketing, ERP, tax, and other software. Your company secrets are also safe since your data will be yours and yours alone, stored where you like and shared with those you choose. Unlike with some software vendors, with WordPress, you’ll never fear lock-in or feature removal as it’s a blank canvas that works the way you want it to. Additionally, it’s a truly global platform available for almost every major language and with payment processing integrations to accept sales worldwide.

Mitchell Callahan, Saucal Co-Founder

The benefits of using WordPress for enterprise businesses 

With WordPress, once you have hit the enterprise stage, you have access to a huge network of support, integrations, security, hosting, and many other options, so you may never want to switch! Here’s why WordPress can continue to help you: 

It’s easy to use 
WordPress is a very intuitive and user-friendly tool that caters to people of all levels of WordPress development, even if you have none at all, as the admin interface is easy to navigate, and choosing and activating plugins is simple as they come with user guides and instructions.

Endless content creation and content capabilities
With almost infinite plugins to help you optimize your SEO, add images, or even start a podcast, you can create the best content for your site effortlessly.  

Customizability
Customizing your site to your needs ensures you have complete control over every aspect, and themes like Divi, Kadence, and Astra, are just some of the thousands out there!

Hosting options
WordPress provides a variety of hosting options, but some of the best can withstand the heavy traffic demands enterprises have. WPVIP and Convesio are both great options that can help enterprises host their sites without posing major demands.

Multisite options
Helpful if you’re looking for multisite options like creating a site for each region where your enterprise has a presence. This also means having multilingual functionality, which WordPress supports.

Multi-tenancy
Multi-tenancy, where multiple WordPress sites run off a single WordPress codebase, is cost-effective, secure, and easily scalable.

Longevity 
WordPress guarantees website longevity, allowing you to maintain and improve functionality as your business grows.

Compliance
Every WordPress software upgrade is done in accordance with the regulations of the time. WordPress versions 4.9. 6 and higher are GDPR compliant and have several GDPR-compliant features to prevent security issues and process data legally.

Enterprise-level security
The WordPress security team has 25 leading experts in development and security. If you have security concerns, you can take special care of security in the four following areas:

Implementing login security and server.
Every site suffers login attempts, and hackers will try to break into anything with a weak password. To avoid this, you scan your site with SiteCheck or similar tools to detect what are called “backdoors.” You should also use 2-Factor authentication, block IPs, restrict admin access, and prevent unauthorized PHP file execution.

Avoiding user error.
To avoid user errors that can expose website vulnerabilities, you must have malware protection on any device you log in with, use a VPN (especially on unsecured or public wifi), use a password manager instead of emailing passwords, and stay up-to-date on WordPress security via their FAQ page. 

Upgrading your hosting service.
The hosting of a website can seem too technical for some, but it’s critical to keep this aspect of your site safe and secure, which you can do by opting out of self-hosting.

Maintaining recurring updates.
To prevent hackers who gain website entry via out-of-date plugins, your updates should be recurring and always test new updates to avoid errors when updates go live.

How do you create a customized and secure enterprise WordPress site?

There are two main ways to set up WordPress as an enterprise CMS: self-hosting or using a managed hosting service. 

Self-hosted site 

Self-hosting offers many benefits, including

• Having complete control over your site.
• Being able to scale according to your needs.
• Extra flexibility, especially in customization. 
• Full data control.

However, there are disadvantages: 

• You need the technical knowledge to set up the server. 
• Troubleshooting issues becomes difficult if you don’t know how to use them properly. 
• Scaling up takes time and requires more planning and preparation. 

Managed hosting service  

Third-party managed hosting solutions can take the pressure off. They can take care of specialized server setups and deal with the technical aspects of maintaining a website, such as automating backups and arranging security. A managed hosting service also comes with a great selection of developer-friendly tools like SSH and WP-CLI, which enables you to interact with your WordPress website directly by using text commands.

Saucal can provide support in this area, such as getting access to top developers with a detailed understanding of WooCommerce and tools like Inventory Management and Order Management software to improve your workflow and help you work smarter.

In addition, as your enterprise grows and evolves, especially in international territories, consideration of privacy implications of where your website is hosted becomes imperative. Offshore web hosting is an option that can provide enhanced privacy, legal protection, and improved performance for a global audience.

Host and optimize your enterprise WooCommerce with Saucal

With businesses looking for ways to improve their webpage functionality, the right tools will make a world of difference. WordPress can do so much for your website by helping you with content creation, hosting, performance, and so much more! 

Ready to let us help you optimize your WordPress website with our resources?

Contact Saucal today, and we can take care of your WooCommerce goals for you.