Imagine your website is like your body. Every person, no matter their age or how they look, has a skeleton that holds their body up. This skeleton is like WordPress for your website. What is WordPress? It’s the structure of the website, but it does not determine how your website looks.
WordPress is a Content Management System
WordPress is called a content management system (CMS) because it manages your website content. Websites used to be made using simple HTML which required an FTP program to make changes to the website. This was tedious and only those with coding knowledge were able to make changes to the website content. A CMS is now used because it puts the power of content updates in the hands of the client. It’s a way of organizing the content on your website in a way that makes editing your content as easy as using a word processor such as Microsoft Word. Take a look at this screen capture below to see what WordPress looks like behind the scenes AKA the WordPress backend administration.
WordPress.com OR WordPress.org
First, let’s get something straight. When we talk about WordPress, we aren’t talking about WordPress.com. WordPress.com is a hosted service by Automattic that gives you a very limited set of themes and functionality and usually involves advertising in exchange for free hosting. WordPress.com is very limited in scope.
Rather, we are talking about WordPress.org where you can download the WordPress CMS for FREE.
Why You Need It
There are a number of reasons I use WordPress for all my client websites (I own a web development business called D3 Website Solutions) and why you need it.
- It’s open source which means it’s free to use and has a large community of very talented, knowledgeable people maintaining the code.
- It’s easy to use even for a non-computer person. I give all my clients a set of training videos and most clients have been pleased to find out just how easy it is and are excited to have the ability to make edits to their website content themselves.
- It’s flexible. This, perhaps, is the greatest strength of WordPress. I have not found a website yet that didn’t work using WordPress. There are thousands of ways to expand the core features of WordPress and I have achieved every dream a client has brought to me.
- It’s a chameleon. You can create thousands of different designs that work with WordPress so no two websites look exactly alike – just like people. Just have a look at the wide array of websites I’ve developed using WordPress. Best of all, there are hundreds of thousands of free and premium WordPress themes that allow you to create a stunning website with just the click of a button.
I could go on, but I’ll spare you. Want to know my favorite WordPress themes and how to pick a good theme? Get that free video tutorial below!
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