WordPress is an open-source content management platform. It is written in PHP programming language and backed up by MySQL and HTTPS protocol. Currently, WP is the most popular platform for blog development. Ease of use, high availability of plugins and tools, huge theme galleries, and high-level security make WP an attractive platform for bloggers to start something new.
What is WordPress?
In the simplest form, we can say WP is a web builder. Unlike many other web builders, building a basic site with WP is easier and it only takes a few minutes to set up a website.
WP is free to everyone and it is open-source software. You can use WP, make changes to the code and do whatever you want without getting a copyright issue or legal issue. Almost half of the internet is powered by WP. ( 43% of the websites are WP sites)
What type of sites can I build with WordPress?
WP offer you unlimited options. No matter what type of website you need to build WP has it all covered. If you need to build a blog, just install WP on your domain, choose a free theme from the theme library, add a few articles and your blog is ready. Believe it or not, it is that easy.
Building portfolio websites with WordPress
If you need to build a unique and attractive portfolio website, then you can do some custom designing on your WP pages. You don’t need coding knowledge to do custom designs. WP platforms have multiple drag-and-drop designer plugins which you can get for absolutely free. Elementor page builder, Divi, Beaver, WPBakery page builder, and Page layer are some of the best free plugins you can try.
With the Elementor plugin, you can customize the appearance of your webpages to the pixels. Also, you can add graphics, animations, motion effects, multimedia, and many more things without any CSS coding knowledge.
Using elementor to build your custom site
Elementor is one of the most simplest and effective web builders I have ever used. The elementor plugin has two versions which are the free version and the pro version with advanced features.
Even with the free version, you can build an attractive professional-looking website. But, some of the essential elements are locked in the free version. However, you can unlock similar features for free. What you have to do is to search and install free add-on plugins for elementor.
Building eCommerce sites with WordPress
eCommerce is a rapidly growing industry. Businesses spend thousands of dollars to develop eCommerce sites to facilitate the best online buying experience for their customers.
Many businesses use Shopify or Presta shop-like platforms to develop their eCommerce site. These platforms are really expensive and customizing and making changes to the site is somewhat tricky.
WP eCommerce is a free plugin that any person can use to convert their regular WordPress site into a perfect eCommerce store. WordPress eCommerce facilitates order management, stock management, and payment, features.
Many banks and financial service providers such as PayPal, PayPal offer payment gateway plugins that are free to install on WP sites.
So, if you are willing to start an eCommerce site WordPress might be the best and cheapest option for you.
Is there a 100% free version of WordPress?
Yes, the WordPress.com site is a fully free version of WP where you can create a website without buying any hosting package, a domain, or themes.
When you create a site on WordPress.com, you will get a free subdomain for your website. This will appear as example.wordpress.com.
This free version of WP has some limitations and usually does not offer a good user experience.
WordPress.Org vs WordPress.com
WordPress.org offers free open-source software which you can download and install on a self-hosted site. Typically, you don’t need to do the downloading thing because most of the hosting service providers offer WordPress packages in the control panel.
This self-hosted version of WordPress provides better flexibility of the software and ease of use. You can easily customize anything, add new plugins and edit any page within a few minutes without any trouble.
WordPress.com is for people who want to create a site on WordPress’s hosted platform.
Why you should use WP to build your website?
Without a doubt, WP is the best content management software on the internet. But, there are many other web builders available on the internet with features that are not offered by WP. So, before you choose WP to be your platform it is important to understand both pros and cons.
WP is easily extendable
WP is easy to extend. If you need to add some special design or attractive and unique feeling to your website, you can easily find a suitable theme from the WP theme gallery. Also, there are many third-party theme galleries where you can buy your preferred themes.
Envato Elements is one such popular third-party WP theme gallery where you can buy premium versions of top-rated themes.
WP also has its huge theme gallery where you can find many different themes for free. Also, you can buy premium themes for an affordable price in the WP theme gallery.
The next interesting thing about WP is you can find a plugin to do anything within WP. As an example, if you want to make a download site, you can simply install an active download manager plugin from the plugin store.
Likewise, no matter what you expect to add to your WP site you will always find a solution in the plugin store.
With a WP site, it is easy to start with SEO
Have you ever heard of search engine optimization? Well, if you haven’t it is better to get some knowledge in SEO before building your website.
Typically, you need to consider many aspects to optimize your website with SEO. When you build a custom site you have to consider adding alt text for the images, meta descriptions, title SEO, and many more things. So, you could easily forget or miss one or a few essential SEO elements. The next thing is when you build a custom HTML site you are blind to SEO status. You know nothing about what is going on in the back end.
But, when it comes to a WP site you have multiple top-rated SEO plugins which you can get for free. Yoast SEO and Rank Math SEO are the most popular SEO plugins on the WP platform.
Rank math SEO
Let’s consider Rank math SEO. What kind of SEO tasks it can do for you? Well, it automatically generates meta descriptions for articles, generates a sitemap and robot.txt document, integrates with google analytics, and helps to index your content on the google search console. It does many more things silently. But, if you had to do each step manually by yourself, can you imagine how difficult it would be to work out?
Summary – Everything About WordPress
WordPress is an open-source, free-to-use content management platform used to create websites. WP can be used to develop portfolio websites, download sites, blogs, eCommerce websites, and static websites for businesses and there are endless capabilities.
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