What is WordPress? Why WordPress is widely used to create and publish content?

WordPress is one of the famous Content Management System (CMS) around the globe. We already discussed on content management system in our earlier posts. If you haven’t gone through that post till yet then please refer ‘What is a Content Management System (CMS)?‘.

In simple words, WordPress is just a software that you use to build your very own website or blog and publish it on the Internet. WordPress was created back in 2003 and since then it has become one of the most popular website publishing programs in the world.

Some facts about WordPress –

• WordPress is an open-source software and completely free to use.
• WordPress can be used to build any kind of website, blog, or app using any design.
• WordPress is most widely used software around the globe. More than 43% of the entire web/internet uses WordPress for their websites as content management system.
• The websites using WordPress ranges from hobby blogs to biggest news channel sites online.
• The WordPress community remains active 24/7 providing support to their users. The community includes developers, content creators, and site owners.
• Over 60 million people have chosen WordPress to power their web content around the world.

• Customizable Designs – Users can create any type of website using WordPress. There are thousands of readymade themes available for free download where a user can select anyone and design the website accordingly. The web pages can be customized in more possible ways using WordPress.
• SEO Friendly – Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the main aspect that should be considered while building your own websites and blogs. It is the SEO that plays a vital role in the appearance of your website/blog at the top in the search results. WordPress is very SEO friendly that means it helps your website to gain popularity in search engines, your work is just to write unique content and leave everything on WordPress.
• Responsive Mobile Sites – Responsive is the term used for changing the size of webpage accordingly depending on device screen size. Websites should be responsive, they should appear great in desktops, mobiles, and in whatever devices that users use for better search engine rankings. Luckily the websites designed using WordPress are responsive, you need not to do anything.
• High Performance – The websites using WordPress will be loaded easily when a user visit it. However the performance of a website depends on the WordPress themes and plugins we use for designing the website. Lightweight themes and plugins improve the performance of the website thereby enhancing the popularity in search engines.
• Manage on the Go – The websites created using WordPress can be managed from anywhere anytime. Users can focus on the content whereas all the other things like appearance, loading, etc. were self-managed by WordPress itself. Wherever you are in, whether it may be cafe, restaurant, or library, you can publish content very easily with the help of WordPress.
• High Security – The websites designed using WordPress are highly secured. The WordPress community routinely and actively checks the loopholes and vulnerabilities and always patch them as soon as possible. The data published through WordPress always remain secured. The possibility of hacking WordPress sites is relatively low due to its high security.
• Powerful Media Management – All the images and videos uploaded on the WordPress websites are organized perfectly in the Media section of WordPress. User can able to upload, delete, or modify any media at anytime. The media management in WordPress is relatively easy compared to that of other content management systems.
• Easy and Accessible – The websites created using WordPress are easily accessible from anywhere around the globe. Those websites are easy to manage and update.
• Extended Functionality – The functions of the WordPress websites can be extended by installing Add-ons which we called here as WordPress Plugins. There are thousands of plugins available for free download. User can choose any plugin and install it on WordPress website depending on the user’s requirement. More than 55,000 plugins are available to help the websites meet their needs.

The most common reasons for using WordPress widely are as follows –

• No coding is required. No need to learn web design and development courses. Everything is pre-built in WordPress.
• Easy to access and easy to manage. Creating and publishing articles using WordPress is damn easy. No skills and knowledge is required for publishing the content.
• Website designing is not at all required. Prebuilt templates i.e., themes are available, choosing any theme and carrying out the work is just required. Endless opportunities of tweaking all the fonts and colors of the themes and then designing website as per your needs is possible.
• WordPress is completely free to use as it is open source software, moreover thousands of people are available as WordPress Community who will help users in case of any errors.
• With the help of free plugins, users can achieve anything any functionality for their websites. Here in this case, no coding is required to add any functionality to the website. Plugins help you a lot in managing everything. Most of the plugins are free, however there are few which are paid ones, however everything around WordPress is affordable and free.
• Users can earn money using WordPress through displaying advertisements, or by promoting products of other companies i.e., affiliate marketing. Monetization is simple and possible with WordPress.
• WordPress can be used to design simple biography websites to big e-commerce websites with no extra charges.

These are the common reasons for WordPress being used more commonly. There is a freedom to build anything with the help of WordPress.

Whatever explained above is possible only with self-hosted WordPress. Self hosted WordPress requires a domain name and a good web hosting.

There is another option i.e., wordpress.com, which does not require any domain name and web hosting, however there are limitations which are as follows –

• Users can’t use their own domain names for the websites.
• Users can’t upload any plugins for extending functionality. There are limitations over the installation of plugins.
• Possibility of deleting entire website if the user fails to comply with the terms and service of wordpress.com.
• Users can’t monetize their websites i.e., users can’t be able to earn through displaying advertisements.
• Users can’t upload a customizable theme, only few limited options of themes are available among which the user has to select any one.

As per my view, using self hosted WordPress is far better than wordpress.com blog.