What Is WordPress?

From coding to drag and drop, the internet has been able to give many of us a voice in many different fields and ways. The internet is and has been for over two decades now a platform allowing users to express themselves, create sources of income, share their ideas, and much more.

From news, science, art to entertainment.., etc. The question is, what is WordPress?

WordPress is a content management system allowing you to create a website, regardless of your niche. It is an application that allows you to easily build websites, and publish content online.

In simple terms, WordPress can be defined as a vessel allowing you to express yourself on the World Wide Web.

Being that it is open-source, it is free by default. Allowing anyone, from anywhere to create, modify, and manage a website for free.

Well technically… More on that later…

How does WordPress Work?

Well, if you want to get technical, WordPress is like a software built and packaged by web developers, so you don’t have to take on the coding part.

See, up until 2003, you needed some coding knowledge to create a website and publish it online for everyone to see. The coding languages usually used for web development are HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

While WordPress is written in PHP, and MySQL for the backend.

These coding languages were nowhere near where they are today. So WordPress removed the need to write code to create a website.

Although you still have an option to write your own code on WordPress, it is still a drag and drop platform, allowing you to be more efficient without worrying too much about the technical aspect of it.

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Is WordPress free?

Yes, WordPress is an open-source platform, which makes it free by default.

Open-source in this case, if not most cases, means that the software is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the right to use, study, change, update, or upgrade it for any purpose.

In our case, WordPress is developed by Web Developers all over the world. And we should thank them for the amazing work they keep doing.

What is the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org?

Okay, if you’re new to WordPress, you may be confused by the fact that there are two versions of WordPress.

Ultimately, WordPress in general gives you two options when it comes to creating a website.

— WordPress.org gives you full control of your website. This is the Self-hosted version of WordPress. It is generally for tech-savvy users or users that are good at following instructions step by step as it can be a bit intimidating if you’re just getting started with WordPress. This version does not have too many restrictions when it comes to creating a website, allowing you to customize your website as you see fit.

— WordPress.com This version of WordPress is a hosted publishing service. Almost 90% of the tasks are handled by WordPress.

The downside is the fact that you have very limited control over what you can do on the website. This type of hosting is common with Blogging or photo display. If you were to add more functionality to the site, you’d have to upgrade your plan. This means that you might end up paying more in the long run.

Here’s a shortlist of different types of websites you can create with both versions of WordPress:

— Portfolios

— Blogs

— Resumes

— eCommerce Stores

— Forums

— Magazine

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Is WordPress a Good website builder?

WordPress has come a long way when it comes to website building.

It has also gotten easier to use over the years. With the recent Gutenberg update, WordPress is now almost comparable to the likes of Wix or Squarespace. In terms of ease of use and user-friendliness.

Needless to say that WordPress is far far ahead of its competition.

A study led by Kinsta revealed that roughly 60.8% of websites are powered by WordPress today, and it powers about 14.7% of the world’s top websites.

The sheer dominance shows that not only it is a good website builder, it also seems to be the most effective platform to build a website on.

Especially when it comes to SEO building.

Before you go…

We also have to make the distinction between themes and plugins. In this learning process, you’ve probably already stumbled upon these two words, or we should get you ready and tell you what they are.

What is WordPress a theme?

Remember how we said that WordPress is a pre-packaged software allowing you to create a website without coding? Yes?

Yes… A theme is a bunch of written code, packaged in one big file, allowing you to change the layout and design of your website without writing a single code.

If there is a certain look or design out there that you’d like to replicate, then you’re in for a treat because there are about 50 thousand WordPress themes out there. Either for free or for sale. But the options are there for you to let your creative eye design something awesome.

Themes can also be edited. Not only do you get a theme with a certain design, but you can also change and tweak it to look exactly the way you want it to look.

You can edit it from the source with some code, or you can edit it using the easy WordPress editor.

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What is a plugin?

Much like a theme, a plugin is a piece of software allowing you to add more functions to your website.

A plugin can extend functionality or add new features to your website without you writing a single line of code. And that is the beauty of WordPress.

Each plugin is different, and you can install more than one plugin on your website, depending on what you design your website for.

Plugins can be downloaded on the wordpress.org plugin directory.

What are WordPress templates?

Don’t let this term confuse you, WordPress template usually refers to a theme, as we explained above. These templates are designs that you can install on your website to give it a certain look or feel.

Themes or templates are available online for free or for sale, depending on your needs.

Here are a few platforms available for WordPress theme:

— WordPress

— Themeforest

— Template Monster

What is WordPress hosting?

There is no such thing as WordPress hosting per se. It is a term indicating hosting that has been optimized for WordPress. This is about how fast and how easy it is for you to install WordPress, how fast is your website once you’ve installed WordPress, and many other metrics.

If you’re looking for different options on how to create a website, WordPress is an option worth considering as it is versatile, easy to learn, fast, and quite simple.

Feel free to read more about WordPress here.