What is WordPress?
WordPress is an online, open source website creation tool written in PHP. It’s probably the easiest and most powerful blogging and website content management system (CMS) in existence today.
WordPress is highly customizable and has literally thousands of plugin pieces of software so you can use your site for just about anything.
Why WordPress?
People often make the mistake of classifying WordPress as just a blogging platform. Although that used to be true in the past, WordPress has evolved throughout the years into a versatile content management system (A content management system is a software that facilitates creating, editing, organizing, and publishing content). While you can still use WordPress to create a simple blog, now it also allows you to create fully functional websites and mobile applications.
The best part about WordPress is that it’s easy to use and flexible enough for just about anything. That’s the main reason why WordPress has grown so much in popularity. According to a recent survey, WordPress powers 22.5% of all websites on the internet.
Due to its robust features, many of the top brands use WordPress to power their websites including but not limited to: Time Magazine, Google, Facebook, Sony, Disney, LinkedIn, The New York Times, CNN, eBay, and more.
Let’s take a look at why you should use WordPress.
WordPress is Free
WordPress is a free software, this means you are free to download, install, use and modify it. You can use it to create any kind of website. It is also open source which means the source code of the software is available for anyone to study, modify and play with.
There are currently 2600+ WordPress themes and 31,000+ plugins available for free. You can download, install and use them on any website.
Due to the nature of open source, WordPress is a community software. It is maintained by a large group of volunteers majority of whom are WordPress consultants with the active interest in growing and maintaining WordPress. By using WordPress you become part of that awesome community. You get free support from other community members, download free plugins and themes, and once you have little experience with WordPress you can even contribute back to the community.
WordPress is Easy to Use and Learn
WordPress is used by millions of people and almost every day new people are joining the WordPress community by creating their first WordPress powered websites. The reason why people quickly adapt to WordPress is that it is fairly easy to use.
WordPress is Extendable by Using Themes and Plugins
Most people using WordPress are neither web designers nor programmers. As a matter of fact, most folks start using WordPress without any prior knowledge of designing websites.
The reason why WordPress is such an ideal candidate is that there are thousands of free templates (themes) to choose from so you can give your website any look you want. WordPress themes are easy to customize because a lot of them come with their own options panel allowing you to change colors, upload logo, change the background, create beautiful sliders, and do other cool things with your website without ever writing any code at all.
WordPress is Search Engine Friendly
WordPress is written using standard compliance high-quality code and produces semantic mark up which makes your site very attractive to search engines.
By design, WordPress is very SEO friendly, and you can make it, even more, SEO friendly by using WordPress SEO plugin.
WordPress is Easy To Manage
WordPress comes with built-in updater that allows you to update your plugins and themes from within your WordPress admin dashboard. It also notifies you when there is a new version of WordPress is available so you can update it by just clicking a button.
WordPress is Safe and Secure
WordPress is developed with security in mind, so it is considered quite safe and secure to run any website. However, just like the real world, the internet can be an uncertain place.
WordPress Can Handle Different Media Types
Using WordPress you are not just limited to writing text. It comes with built-in support to handle images, audio, and video content. With WordPress, you can embed YouTube videos, Instagram photos, Tweets, and Soundcloud audio by just pasting the URL into your post. You can even allow your visitors to embed videos in comments.
WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org
Did you know that WordPress.com and WordPress.org are actually two very different platforms? Often beginners confuse the two which leads them to choose the wrong platform.
The best way to understand the difference between WordPress.com vs WordPress.org is to take a look at each platform individually.
WordPress.org
WordPress.org is the popular website platform that you have heard all the great things about. It is open source and 100% free for anyone to use. All you need is a domain name and web hosting. This is why it is also referred to as self-hosted WordPress.
Below are the pros and cons of using the self-hosted WordPress.org to build your website or blog.
WordPress.org Benefits
With WordPress.org, you have full control of your website. You are free to do anything you want and customize it as much as you need. Here are some of the benefits of choosing WordPress.org to build your website:
- It is free and super easy to use.
- You own your website and all its data. You are in full control.
- You can add free, paid, and custom WordPress plugins/apps to your website.
- You can customize your website design as needed.
- You can actually make money from your WordPress site by running your own ads without sharing revenue with anyone.
- You can use self-hosted WordPress to create an online store to sell digital or physical products, accept credit card payments, and deliver/ship the goods directly from your website.
WordPress.org Cons
There are very few cons of using the self-hosted WordPress.org site:
- Like all websites, you will need web hosting. This is where your website files are stored on the internet. Initially, the cost is around $3-$10 per month. However as your website grows and gets more traffic, the web hosting costs will increase as expected, but then you would be making enough money to cover the costs.
- You are responsible for updates. You can easily update your WordPress site by simply clicking on the update button (1-click), so it’s not too much work.
- You are responsible for backups.
The real cost of WordPress.org website varies based on what you are trying to build. On a low budget, you can build your website for as little as $46 per year.
WordPress.com
WordPress.com is a hosting service created by the co-founder of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg. Because of the same founder, often users confuse WordPress.com with the popular WordPress.org software.
The WordPress.com hosting service has 5 plans:
- Free – Very limited.
- Personal – $36 per year
- Premium – $99 per year
- Business – $299 per year
- VIP – starting at $5000 per month
WordPress.com Benefits
The free WordPress.com platform is a good choice for hobby bloggers and those starting a blog for their family. Here are some of the benefits of using WordPress.com:
- It’s free for up to 3GB of space. After that, you will have to switch to a paid plan for more space.
- You will not have to worry about updates or backups. WordPress.com will take care of that.
WordPress.com Cons
There are several limitations of free WordPress.com which differentiate it from WordPress.org. Here are some of the disadvantages of using WordPress.com:
- They place ads on all free websites. So your users will see ads, and you don’t make money from it.
- You are NOT allowed to sell ads on your website.
- You cannot upload plugins.
- You cannot upload custom themes. Free plan users can only install from the limited free themes collection.
- They can delete your site at any time if they think it violates their Terms of Service.
- Your site will display a powered by WordPress.com link. It can be removed by upgrading to the Business plan.
- WordPress.com does not offer any eCommerce features or integrated payment gateways.
- You cannot build membership websites with WordPress.com.
Test your knowledge-
1) What is WordPress?
2) Why should we use WordPress?
3) What is the difference between WordPress.com & WordPress.org?
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