What is WordPress
WordPress is a free and open-source Content Management System (CMS). It was initially released on 27th May 2003 by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. WordPress was announced as open source in October 2009. Wordpress is one of the most popular CMS. Initially, it was designed as a blogging tool but then because of its varied features, it has evolved into a versatile CMS. It can be used to make a full website with lots of features even when a person had little knowledge of website development technologies. It provides drag and drops features, fully functional pre-made segments like sliders, counters, etc. You can even create a fully functional online store like Flipkart or Amazon in this.
It is one of the easiest to use and most popular CMS tool due to its features like themes, plugins, etc. The thing which attracted people towards wordpress was its simplicity. Even a non-technical person can create a website to help his business or whatever, with the help of WordPress easily and for free.
Wordpress got popular in a short time. One of the reasons was its features which were developed by its open-source community of thousands of people from all over the world working on it continuously. Wordpress is completely free to download, install, modify as it is an open-source platform.
This tutorial will give you a lot of information about how to use WordPress and to make a website in it. Just stick with the step by step approach of the tutorial. At the end of it, you will be confident and skillful enough to use WordPress to make beautiful and attractive webpages and blogs.
What is Content Management System (CMS)?
A content management system or CMS is a software that helps in creating, editing, and publishing any content on a webpage. It stores all the data such as text, photos, documents, etc. which can be used in making a website.
Other than Wordpress, there are many other CMS present in the market like Drupal, Joomla, etc. Wordpress is dominating the market right now.
Wordpress Features
| Features | Description |
|---|---|
| User Management | It manages user information such as his role, athentication, create or delete the user, modify the user properties like username, passwords, etc. |
| Media Management | It manages various media files like audio, video, pictures, etc. and folders also, in which you can easily upload, organize and manage the media files. |
| Themes | It has pre-designed themes which are customizable according to the user's need. |
| Plugins | It has several plugins which provides various functions and features according to the user's need. |
| Search Engine Optimization | It also provides tools for search engine optimization (SEO) which helps in increasing the reach of the website. |
| Responsive Design | It develops a responsive website design which can easily be accessed in all the devices with different screen sizes. |
| Easy installation and upgrades | It is easy to install and upgrade with new features. |
Wordpress Advantages
- It's an open source platform so developing very fast.
- A user can also modify the CSS files according to the designs.
- Various plugins and themes are available to use and customize.
- The content is very easy to edit and modify.The editor is very user friendly almost like working in an Microsoft Word environment.
- It can import different media files to use in the blog or website.
- It provide various SEO tools which helps in increasing the reach of the website.
- It's an online platform so one can easily access and manage the website from anywhere.
Wordpress Disadvantages
- Using various plugins can make the website heavy to load and run.
- It can be expensive. WordPress itself is free, but when looking at the whole picture there are significant costs like for some advanced themes, plugins, etc.
- It needs frequent updates and updating WordPress versions can lead to loss of data, so a backup copy of the website is recommended.