If you wish to build your own website, then there is no going wrong with WordPress. WordPress is a flexible, powerful Content Management System (CMS) that powers nearly a third of all sites on the Internet.
Although it may be intimidating at first glance, WordPress is much easier to learn than many competitors.
With only a brief WordPress.org overview, you will quickly find yourself able to create a high quality website in only 5 minutes. Despite trying out other CMSs, we kept coming back to WordPress as our platform of choice.
You can also customize the site to meet your needs and goals.
Table of Contents
What Is WordPress?
WordPress is a CMS that allows you to build and maintain a website without coding knowledge. You can also customize just about every aspect of your site with ease.
The original version of WordPress was created in 2003 by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little.
It began as a simple platform to allow people to create basic blogs and host them on the Internet.
Over time the site has grown into a more flexible, powerful tool for creating almost any type of site.
Before we continue on, there are two sites named WordPress. WordPress.com is a hosted website builder where you can create and host a site for free.
This site is much simpler than WordPress.org, the self-hosted version, but it is also limited in terms of what it can do. To read more about the differences, check out our article on the differences between WordPress.org and WordPress.com.
WordPress.org is a far more open and powerful platform and is the one the rest of the article is focused on.
What Makes WordPress Unique?
The first thing to understand when using WordPress is that it is an open source software.
If you are unfamiliar with this term, it simply means that the platform is not restricted under copyright or trademark and is freely available for anyone to modify and download.
The WordPress Core is developed and maintained by a dedicated community. This is good news for you as the platform will always be free to use.
Many free or low cost tools are created for use with WordPress.
WordPress is designed to be user friendly by its community, and it also has the features that are most needed by website creators.
The site allows freedom in how you use and interact with it.
You can modify it any way you want via hard coding and other tools.
Being an open source has enabled it to develop a strong, diverse community of contributors and enthusiasts.
It is not a stretch to say that WordPress has become an increasingly popular platform and when you are struggling or have gone wrong when designing your site, there is plenty of help available when you need it.
You will be able to find plenty of online documentation, forums, WordPress focused blogs, dedicated courses, and resources.
No matter what you are trying to do there are very good odds that someone else will have done it before and can help you out.
The main advantage of the CMS is that it can scale alongside its users, WordPress is not just for beginners.
As you continue to learn about the platform you will acquire more technical knowledge and skills and will be able to do more with WordPress.
You can run just a simple blog, or you can also design large complex websites for businesses and online stores.
What Can You Do With WordPress?
WordPress has humble beginnings. It simply started as a small, blogging focused platform.
This means that many of the features will lend themselves to blogging, and if that is your aim, then there is no better solution in terms of a site you can find.
As we have seen WordPress is not just for blogs but can be used for so much more.
You can use it to create just about anything. Some of the things WordPress is ideal for are listed below.
Online Portfolios
It is easy to set up an online portfolio to show off your skills and achievements, display your work and past projects, and bring in new clients.
Affiliate Websites
If you wish to create an affiliate marketing website, the WordPress community can offer many dedicated solutions.
News Sites
WordPress’ blog format works well for news articles. Many of the features will lend themselves to both blogging and news sites.
eCommerce Stores
Running an online store can be difficult to get all the plugins to work properly. However, many WordPress tools can help such as the WooCommerce plugin, make the job much simpler.
Community Hubs
It is really easy to create forums, fan sites, knowledge bases, and wikis or to create any other place where like-minded people can gather in one place online.
Business Sites
Whether your business is small or large, you can use WordPress to share information, provide contact details, incorporate your branding and build a strong online presence.
WordPress.org Security Considerations
Some security is built in, but you still need to take the following precautions when using WordPress:
- Secure password — We’re talking a good length, seemingly random, and lots of special characters.
- Login name — Change it from “admin” to whatever you like. Only publish content on a separate account with limited permissions, so cyber ne’re do wells won’t get access to your entire site.
- Backups — Many hosting services offer a backup service. Use ManageWP for additional backup protection.
- Updates — Install updates as soon as they’re available, as they’ll often improve the security of your site.
WordPress.org Overview – Final Thoughts
WordPress is incredibly popular because it is often the perfect solution for various applications. It’s truly the weapon of choice for real players in the website creation game.
Its easy to use interface and easy setup make it perfect for beginners and seasoned website developers to create small blogs, eCommerce sites, and any site you can possibly imagine.
Creating a WordPress site is easier than ever. All that you have to do is select a domain name and sign up for a hosting plan.
From there you can install the platform and start customizing your site.
With the WordPress website builder, making your website is fast and easy.
So choose a unique theme, add your pages, and you are ready to publish.
If you think you have the skills to handle some of the more hands on aspects often omitted by popular site-building tools, you’ll excel using WordPress.org, as the sky really is the limit!