What Is WordPress?
WordPress is a free and open source blogging platform and Content Management System (CMS). Simply put, WordPress is the software that powers blogs and many websites. “Many” is a bit of an understatement – WordPress is used to power 60 million blogs and websites, including almost 15% of the world’s top 1 million sites and 22% of all new websites. Despite getting very little attention from mainstream media sources or brand recognition among the general public, WordPress works behind the scenes to power websites and blogs that receive tens of millions of pageviews daily.
Two main Features
Two important features make WordPress an incredibly versatile and powerful platform for hosting a website or blog. First, WordPress allows administrators to freely switch between thousands of readily-available themes that, when implemented, completely customize the appearance and user-interface of a website or blog. Secondly, WordPress also allows administrators to install plugins, or smaller programs that change, enhance, and extend the features and capabilities of the original software. With the almost endless customization options available through the use of themes and plugins, WordPress can be used to create just about any website imaginable!
Free Words!
Considering how expensive some commercial software products can be, a business owner may expect WordPress to be expensive as well. Believe it or not, WordPress is a free product! Not only is WordPress free to download from WordPress.org at no cost, it is licensed as Free and Open Source Software, also known as FOSS. This means that WordPress can be freely used, studied and distributed by anyone. Also, the source code for WordPress is also free to download at WordPress.org and anyone can use it to study how WordPress works and even write improvements to the code. These improvements can be used internally within an organization or released publicly, as long as the new code is released under the same license as the original software.
What Can WordPress Do For My Website?
WordPress can do, well, just about anything for your website or blog! Whether you are interested in creating a relatively simple website with static content and a simple blog or you want a dynamic website with rich multimedia, interactive features and even an online store, WordPress can be designed and extended to support both of these websites.
The flexibility of WordPress also allows for almost endless upgrades and customizations in the future. Are you interested in changing the design or layout of your WordPress-powered website or blog? Maybe you would like to add a contact form, a poll or even a picture gallery or new sidebar to your website? By customizing a new theme or adding plugins or widgets, we can implement these upgrades and customizations without always having to completely rebuild your site.
Not for everyone
While WordPress is an excellent platform for websites and blogs of all shapes and sizes, it may not be the best platform or CMS to use for every website. If you are seeking a dedicated eCommerce platform with premium features, Bigcommerce may be a better solution for your website. On the other end of the spectrum, WordPress may be unnecessary when designing and hosting a simple, static website with little to no dynamically-changing content. To ensure that we use the best platform and CMS for your specific needs and requirements, we schedule a personal consultation for every new client.
So although WordPress doesn’t receive the same press or attention as Facebook or Google, it continues powers over 60 million blogs and websites worldwide and is growing every day. Its popularity is due to its free to use software and very versatile look. If you own a website that is not powered by WordPress and would like to try it out, contact us and we would be happy to sit down and talk with you about your options.