What Is WordPress?
WordPress is a popular content management system (CMS) that allows users to build and manage websites without needing to code. It provides a user-friendly interface for creating pages, blog posts, and other content, using a range of pre-designed themes. WordPress is highly flexible, meaning you can create anything from a personal blog to a complex business website or an online store.
WordPress operates on a flexible architecture, which enables users to extend its functionality through plugins.
How WordPress Work
- Themes: These are pre-designed templates that control the appearance of your website. You can choose from thousands of free and premium themes to suit your needs.
- Plugins: Plugins are additional tools or features you can install to extend the functionality of your site, such as adding contact forms, SEO tools, or eCommerce capabilities.
- Dashboard: The WordPress dashboard is the control center where you create and edit content, install themes or plugins, and manage all aspects of your site.
- Pages and Posts: WordPress allows you to create static pages (like “About Us” or “Contact”) and dynamic blog posts. These are easy to manage and update via the dashboard.
- Customizing: While WordPress is user-friendly, those with coding knowledge can further customize it by editing HTML, CSS, or PHP files directly within the platform.
Importance Of Understanding WordPress
Understanding WordPress is essential because it powers over 40% of all websites on the internet, making it one of the most widely used platforms for website creation. Knowing how to use WordPress equips you with a versatile skill, as it can be used for blogs, portfolios, business sites, and even full-fledged online stores.
Even if you’re using themes and plugins, understanding how WordPress operates allows you to better manage your site, troubleshoot common issues, and make customizations. It gives you a great balance of flexibility and ease, making it perfect for beginners and experienced developers alike.
Why We Choose WordPress
We use WordPress because it significantly speeds up the process of building websites while still allowing for high levels of customization. With the right combination of plugins, we can create professional and functional sites without reinventing the wheel. It also offers scalability, meaning I can start with a basic site and add features as the client’s needs grow.
WordPress also has an active community and a vast marketplace of themes and plugins, which means we don’t have to develop everything from scratch. This saves time, and we can still focus on creating unique, custom elements that add value to the website while relying on WordPress’ core features to handle most of the heavy lifting.
As a CMS, it allows us to transfer management of the website over to the client once the project is completed. Unlike with plain HTML, WordPress makes it easier for customer to update their own website.