This is the first of a series of posts about how to build a website on WordPress.
I'll tell you what tools I'm using here and for my other sites. You'll get my reviews and opinions about these tools. I'll let you know how well they work for me, what problems came up, and if they worked as advertised. I'll tell you if I still use them, and if I think you should too.
This should come as no surprise to those of you know me... I enjoy building websites on WordPress. It's creative freedom. Freedom to talk about your passion. Freedom to make your site look and feel exactly how you want it. As well as the ability to assert our freedom of speech. Anyone who wants to publish their ideas on the Internet can use WordPress to get up and shout on their digital soapbox. For most people... that's a good thing.
WordPress is relatively easy to use, easy to edit, and totally customizable, WordPress is by far the world's most popular content management system (CMS). In fact, as of August 2019, it powers over 76.5 million websites around the world. (source) There are competitors to WordPress (51%). Drupal (5%), Joomla (3%), Wix, Squarespace, and all others (42%) (source)
Based on PHP and MySQL, WordPress is an open-source blog publishing and Content Management System - CMS.
Today WordPress powers nearly 35% of websites on the Internet, around 76.5 million of the 200+ million active sites in the world.
There are two versions of WordPress. WordPress.com and WordPress.org.
WordPress.com is free to use. Millions of people use WordPress.com for their personal blogging needs. For most of those people, that's all they need. One thing about WordPress.com though, is you don't have total control of the page. You can get more control with a paid WordPress.com plan
This series of articles will focus on the self-hosted version of WordPress. Whenever WordPress is mentioned, know I am talking about WordPress.org.
For Web Developers or Business people, the self-hosted WordPress.org is what you need. You buy your domain and hosting, install the WordPress software, then install a theme. Installing WordPress on your own domain and hosting is a simple and straightforward process. Most hosting companies use installers to make it very easy to get up and running.
For a comparison of WordPress.com and .org, check out this Infographic from WP Beginner.
If you remember the TV show "The Outer Limits", during the show's opening, a voice said "Do not adjust your TV set. We control the horizontal. We control the vertical..." Building a website using WordPress.org is like that. It's the best way to do build your website. And since you own infrastructure, you control everything a visitor sees. This ability allows us to get your message across to your visitors in the best way possible.
Advantages When You Build a Website on WordPress:
- Easy installation and maintenance
- No coding required, but if you know a little CSS, you can tweak it even more.
- Easy to update and organize
- Search engine friendly
- A large and helpful community to help you out when you need it
Here are a few disadvantages:
- WordPress updates happen often. Occasionally, this can cause bugs and erratic behavior from plugins or add-ons to your site.
- Clunky and inflexible user management. It's getting better and there are plugins to make managing users much better.
- Doesn't use a WYSIWYG editor (What You See Is What You Get)
Even though it has a few quirks, when you build a website on WordPress, you are using a state of the art tool. I use it to power all of my client's and my own websites.
What's your opinion of WordPress? Do you have any questions about using it? Keep Going or Contact me. I can help.
Next: Domains - Your Internet Address
This post was first published here on May 2, 2013. The last update was November 17, 2019.
