Why WordPress?

WordPress is a content management system. It makes site building easy and accessible for everyone. Wikipedia defines WordPress as a free and open-source content management system (CMS) written in PHP and paired with a My SQL or MariaDB database.

The Content Management system is software that allows users without programming to create, edit, and publish web content. This web content can be text or multimedia elements.

In other words, open-source means that the platform isn’t restricted under copyright and is freely available. It helps our website in so many ways.

It allows websites to run and lets developers edit the content of the website. In addition, it can be used to create new posts and pages. Even after building the website, it makes sure that the website is displayed correctly on all devices.

The history of WordPress started in 2003. There was an existing blogging software called b2/Cafelog which was discontinued by the main developers. Two users of b2/Cafelog , Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little, decided to build a new platform as b2/Cafelog was discontinued.

The first version of WordPress was announced by Matt on May 27, 2003. There was a significant improvement from b2/Cafelog. The first version included a new admin, interface, new templates, and XHTML 1.1 compliant templates.

After the first version, different versions of WordPress have been released with improvements from prior versions. From what is published on WordPress.org the latest release is version 5.5.3 which is released on October 30, 2020. Now over 30% of websites are WordPress and currently, there are over 75 million sites that utilize it.

Even though WordPress has competitors — Joomla, Drupal, Magento, and Shopify WordPress accounts for 59.7% of software-built websites. Magento and Spotify have been around for a long time, but WordPress has the title of most popular content management system for seven years in a row.

Therefore, if anyone wants to build a website WordPress can be used. it enables us to build and manage a full-featured website using just a web browser. If anyone has ever used a text editor like Microsoft Word, the same experience can be attained at using WordPress. The only thing required will be a domain and a hosting service. We will discuss the later domain and hosting services.

Why is WordPress used

It is easy to learn

There are plenty of things to learn about WordPress but if someone spent ten or fifteen minutes with the dashboard, how the interface works could be easily understood. There are a lot of resources for learning WordPress. For example, when we type WordPress on a browser, we could get different articles, tutorials, and explanations on how to use it. These resources could be easily understood and implemented for building a website using its platform.

In addition, the installation process is easy and simple. Once installed, our posts and pages could be easily added to the WordPress website. Adding and managing images of our content to the WordPress website can also be done easily.

Therefore, since WordPress is easy to install and manage, even if you have no coding or programming knowledge you will be able to work with it easily. In fact, if you are a beginner and want to build a website WordPress would be a great choice to work with since it is a great website for beginners.

It is free software

You can download and install WordPress for free. Since it is open software, it gives the freedom of use, modification, building, and redistribution of the software in any way a user likes without paying any fees. You can use this free software to create any type of website.

But a domain name and a host are needed to install it and there is a cost to get a domain name and host. A domain name is the address of your website on the internet.

This is what the users of our website type on their browser’s address bar to access our website. Web hosting our website’s house where all our website files are stored. There are many domains and web hosting services to choose from.

Simple steps to buy a domain name and host are: -

1. Choose a reliable domain name from a domain registrar like GoDaddy

2. Find a domain availability checker

3. Pick the best available option

4. Finalize the order and complete the domain registration

5. Verify the ownership of your new domain

It has free Themes and Plugins

Word Press has thousands of free website templates (themes) that we can choose from. These built-in themes make our work easy to set up a website. WordPress themes have an options panel which allows us to change colors, upload logo, change the background of our website. These changes can be done to our needs and do not require knowledge of coding or programming.

Plugins are a bit of software that can be uploaded to extend and expand the functionality WordPress site. Plugins allow adding advanced features like analytics, contact forms, membership area, and more.

It is SEO (Search Engine Friendly)

SEO stands for search engine optimization; it involves making certain changes to your website design and content that makes your site more attractive to a search engine. You do this in hopes that the search engine will display your website as a top result on the search engine results page.

WordPress websites rank higher than others in search engines. This is due to the fact it is written using high-quality code. As a result, Google and other search engines give priority to a website built using WordPress. When a website is SEO friendly it can attract the attention of audiences easily.

Why is WordPress popular

There are several reasons why WordPress is popular. Among those the following are listed in this essay.

1. It is a free and open-source content management system

In simple words, anyone can use and manipulate them to build appealing websites.

2. It has the option of multisite

By using the multisite feature of WordPress, multiple websites can be managed from a single WordPress dashboard without purchasing extra websites or hosting packages.

3. It is a secure website

Since 30% of websites are built on it, WordPress provides regular updates to protect the websites from vulnerability. Therefore, users need not worry about hackers.

4. It supports multimedia

According to WordPress codex, images like jpg, jpeg, png, and gif are supported. Several audio files like mp3 and several video files like MPV are supported. When we add media types into our content users are attracted and more engaged in our content.

5. Has Premium plugins

A plugin is a piece of software that extends the functionality of the WordPress platform which is written in the PHP programming language. Plugins are usually user-friendly and designed to be used by people who have no experience in technology or WordPress.

To use premium plugins, you will have to pay a one-time fee or subscribe to a membership. Paid plugins are usually considered better. Most of the times, premium WordPress plugins offer more features than the free ones.

How to implement WordPress

With little to no knowledge of coding or programming, WordPress can be implemented to build different types of websites. Among the many website types, a few are discussed here.

Blog or personal websites

Blogs are informational websites where writers share personal views on individual subjects. If you are thinking of blogging WordPress has all tools you need including pictures,

Business websites

Business websites are designed to help business owners to communicate information with their customers, to sell their products, and to provide their business details to users. WordPress can be used to build a professional-looking website so that users will be able to get the information they need.

Portfolio website

These types of websites help to present one’s talent by creating a positive perspective. In simple words, portfolio websites are a place to showcase your work. By using WordPress user-friendly portfolio websites.

How to use WordPress

When you surf the internet there are many WordPress online or onsite classes. There are also free tutorials on how to use it. It is known that it is easy to use but to access it for the first time you need to be familiar with what it does. Here is a step by step guide on how to access it and start on your website building.

Step 1: — Go to WordPress.com

Step 2: — Click on get WordPress and Install

Step: -3- Enter Your Information

Step: — 5- Choose your theme

WordPress themes control the visual appearance of your site. There is a default theme for each website, but it can be changed according to preferences.

Step: -6- Add content to your website

Here the first process will be adding a few pages to the WordPress website. These contents can be edited and updated later.

Step: -7- Install Plugins

Plugins allow you to add new features and functionality to your website. As described on the WordPress.org plugin directory there are more than 48,000 free plugins available.

Step: -8- Play around with your website by adding more features

Recognized companies that use WordPress

There are many recognized companies that use their powerful platform. There is a way to check if a website is actively using it. All you need to do is go to isitwp and enter the URL address for the website and click the analyze button.

Microsoft News

The news site where they showcase their stories, news, and updates are created using WordPress.

Facebook Newsroom

Facebook, the most popular social media platform uses WordPress to publish their news and announcement.

BBC America

The popular television network with a variety of programs including lifestyle, comedy, drama and scientific series, movies, etc uses WordPress.

The Mozilla Blog

The Mozilla Blog, which carries the latest news, stories, and updates on Mozilla Firefox, community, and around the web also uses WordPress.

Disadvantages of WordPress

Needs frequent updates

The problem with frequent updates is, in some cases after a new update, the existing theme or plugin may crush resulting in the poor functionality of the website.

Managing MySQL Database

The back-end server of it is MYSQL, an open-source database management system. When a change is made inbuilt site it runs in a server and creates a database. Unless a complete backup of the database is taken a single error can cause complete loss of data which will result in a total crash of the website.

Runs on Heavy code

Since it is built-on PHP code, which can be heavy on your server, Loading and running heavy theme and resource-hungry plugins can slow down your server.

Takeaway on WP

The major advantage of WordPress is the ease of use from installation to maintenance. The fact being free and SEO friendly it will never let you down. Due to being popular, it has many tutorials available on the web.

In other words, there is a lot of support guide available if you want to learn about it. Deciding of using it for your site will pay off with an appealing website. Happy blogging.