Interesting Ways the Enterprise is Using WordPress

WordPress has become the Content Management System (CMS) of choice for a growing number of enterprise organizations today. While digital, brand, and marketing teams used to operate independently, the sweeping effect of digital has created an increasing need for those teams to collaborate more closely. 

Because digital experiences are now integral to every aspect of the customer journey, enterprises need a CMS with the flexibility to meet diverse requirements, customizability to create unique experiences, and scalability to be and stay future-proof. 

Now powering over a third of the Internet, WordPress is the obvious choice for many high-growth companies. Enterprises, which have historically opted for proprietary CMSs like Adobe and Sitecore, are turning to WordPress to fulfill many facets of their evolving digital needs. Enterprise, high volume sites, like TechCrunch, have migrated a large majority of their digital presence to WordPress. Other enterprise sites are turning to WordPress to supplement their current digital offerings as well.

One thing is for sure, WordPress is only growing. As its functionality and usability continue to become more sophisticated, interesting use cases will become more apparent. In this article, we’ll talk about some of the interesting ways WordPress is being used by the enterprise today: 

Building Unique Digital Experiences with Microsites 

A microsite is a collection of web pages created for a specific campaign or target audience. It is best used for a larger campaign where it makes sense to create a unique digital experience, and it typically requires more space and creative freedom than a typical landing page provides. While landing pages exist as a pit stop in the complete user journey, microsites are their own hyper-focused, distraction-free destination. For example, NASA created a specific microsite to document the history of and future plans of spacecraft. 

Microsites are typically located on a separate domain from the company’s main website, but it can also exist as a subdomain. Microsites are typically independent of your organization’s main website and are often used to target a narrower audience. Because the audience is more niche, users can focus on longer-tail keywords not used on the core-site, expanding the overall SEO-reach. 

WordPress offers the flexibility and scalability to create microsites, fast. Many enterprises, which have built their core website with a different CMS, will choose WordPress for building microsites. Because microsites are often built using a sleek and simple design, enterprises don’t feel the need to build microsites using an expensive CMS that requires licensing-learn more about WordPress’ total cost of ownership. Lastly, certain CMSs do not offer the agility that WordPress and WP Engine offer, drawing out build times and increasing the time it takes to get-to-market.    

 Dependable Secondary CMS 

Using a singular CMS to power the entirety of your digital presence is no longer the norm. A survey conducted by Manifesto and WP Engine found that more than half of enterprise organizations use two or more CMSs. The reason: enterprises want specific CMSs for their diverse needs. Having an open-source option for specific campaigns or projects means a faster time to market, better ease-of-use, and increased agility. 

When it comes to secondary CMSs used by the enterprise, WordPress is used more commonly than any other CMS. Further, the majority of enterprise organizations that are using two CMSs are using Adobe as their primary and WordPress as their secondary—making it clear that Adobe and WordPress are the two powerhouses in the CMS market. 

Whether it is a customer-facing corporate website, product site, eCommerce site, or corporate blog, WordPress is being utilized in a variety of ways. As more avenues for digital creation and marketing are created, the use of multiple CMSs will only increase and WordPress’ market share will continue to grow. 

Scalable Intranet Solution

Organization and accessible internal communications are important to any enterprise organization. Many enterprise organizations have employees scattered around the globe, operating in different time zones, and reporting to different leaders, making it difficult to define expectations, provide transparency around company structure, maintain company culture, and more. An intranet is one method for organizing, classifying, and maintaining your internal communications worldwide. 

An intranet is a private network only users within your organization can access. In other words, an intranet is a “closed-circuit internet.” Intranets are only available at certain locations or via certain protocols and functions via a localized network and servers. Common uses for intranets include internal documentation, company-wide announcements, CEO communications, time-off calendars, hosting training manuals, and more. 

Most platforms meant for building intranet solutions charge per-user and growing enterprise organizations should be cautious of the feasibility and scalability of these plans. The cost of implementation for using WordPress to power your intranet is free. Outside of IT costs, an intranet built using WordPress won’t compromise your tech-budget.

Open Source DXP 

Another way enterprises are putting WordPress to use as a CMS today is by using it as the cornerstone for an open-source Digital Experience Platform (DXP). 

A DXP is a combination of tools and software that provides a fast and cost-effective way to build, personalize, test, and optimize digital experiences, and can be extremely helpful for enterprise organizations looking to streamline the various touchpoints that occur across the customer lifecycle.  

Because many of the large, proprietary options in this space fall short are both expensive and difficult to move quickly with, a growing number of enterprises are beginning to leverage WordPress as a central hub for their DXPs.

Because WordPress is open source and integrates well with other technologies, many enterprises find that using it to integrate with other aspects of their marketing technology (martech) stack can help them create agile solutions that rival the larger options available from Sitecore and Adobe. 

As younger audiences continue to demand more from the digital experiences they encounter, enterprises are finding that WordPress, coupled with other marketing tools, can provide them with faster speed to market when it comes to creating the digital experiences they need in order to resonate with their customers. 

For more information about how WordPress works with enterprise organizations, check out the WP Engine plans page.