WordPress : Basic things you need to know

WordPress : Basic things you need to know

This article will explain to you the basic things you need to know about WordPress in “Simple English😉”.

If you are a Pro at this already, Sincerely you don’t need to read this except you want to get some facts about WordPress, else all you need to do is share 🔗 this article to people you think needs it either presently or for future purpose.

In this article you will get to know the following:

• Little History of WordPress

• What is WordPress

• Difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org

• Meaning of CMS.

• Benefits of WordPress

• Some Companies that makes use of WordPress for their official websites

• How to get started with WordPress

• Some useful resources to get started

• Some useful resources to read more about WordPress

Little History of WordPress

WordPress was born out of a desire for an elegant, well-architectured personal publishing system built on PHP and MySQL and licensed under the GPL.

WordPress started out because the development of an existing blogging software b2/cafelog was discontinued by its main developers. In 2003, two users of b2/cafelog, Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little decided to build a new platform on top of b2/cafelog.

They probably didn’t know that they are about to start a journey that would eventually benefit millions of users around the globe😊, create thousands of jobs☺️, and a whole industry of developers🤗, designers😇, writers😃, bloggers🙂, and web publishers😁 would make their living off it.

On May 27, 2003, Matt announced the availability of the first version of WordPress. It was well-received by the community. It was based on b2 Cafelog with significant improvements.

Ever since then, people have continued to contribute to the development of WordPress year after year😎.

In 2018, WordPress 5.0 was released with a brand new editing experience. The new WordPress block editor project was codenamed, Gutenberg.

On February 21, 2019, WordPress 5.1 “Betty”, named for the jazz musician Betty Carter, was released to the public. So many versions were released till the latest WordPress version which is 5.3. 2, a maintenance update that was released on Dec. 18th, 2019.

What is WordPress?

wp2.jpg

WordPress is an online, open-source website creation tool written in PHP. It is free and probably the easiest and most powerful blogging and website content management system (or CMS) in existence today. It is the simplest, most popular way to create your own website or blog. This does not mean that WordPress can only be used to build websites for personal use. As you read further you will see a list of big organizations, countries, that makes use of WordPress to build their official website.

Before I move on let me tell you that WordPress powers over 35% of all the websites on the Internet. Yes, meaning one in four websites that you visit are likely powered by WordPress. Are you surprised? Please don’t be yet.

The beauty of WordPress generally is that it makes building a website accessible to anyone – even people who are not developers or people who don’t write codes.

Like I said earlier WordPress is not just used to build personal websites alone, it can be used to build:

• Business websites

• eCommerce websites

• Blogs

• Portfolios

• Resumes

• Forums

• Social networks

• Membership sites

• And anything else you can think of.

Difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org

For those who might have read a few articles or heard a few things about WordPress, you might be a little bit confused😪 about the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org. Some people even ask questions like: Is WordPress com and Wordpress org owned by the same company? Is WordPress org free to use? which is better And many more.

But first let me explain and highlight some differences which would properly answer the questions mentioned earlier and those on your mind.

Firstly, wordpress.com is an online platform where you can start a blog or build a website for FREE in a couple of minutes🙄. It is a simple platform like Blogger or Tumblr where you can create your own blog and publish content.

WordPress.com is a fully hosted platform backed by a company called Automattic. Automattic uses the ‘WordPress software’ to power WordPress.com.😮 It ensures high-quality, spam-free and secure hosting of your website forever for FREE of cost. It means that you are away from the worry of finding a hosting provider if you choose WordPress.com. Additionally, it takes care of your website security, maintenance, backup and software updates.

At WordPress.com, you don’t have to download and install the software or pay for hosting. So, free hosted WordPress.com is the easiest platform to build a WordPress-based website. However, there are some limitations.

Simply, using wordpress.com all you have to do is Focus on your beautiful content, and they would handle the rest for you, Choose from hundreds of beautiful themes. Make it your own with Custom Design, Popular features like sharing, stats, comments, and polls are included. There’s no need to install plugins, You must register for an account on WordPress.com and abide by our Terms of Service, e.t.c.

while.

WordPress.org is the home to open-source software WordPress. This is where you can download the WordPress software and install it on any web host to create a website. When people just say ‘WordPress’, they often intend to say ‘WordPress.org’, not ‘WordPress.com’. It is a self-hosted platform which means that you need to find a hosting company on your own along with a domain name. Website performance, security and overall aspects of your website are all of your responsibilities which mostly depend on the quality of web host you use. You will have enough freedom and customization possibilities on this platform. WordPress software is FREE but you need to spend money on the hosting. At WordPress.org platform, if you want to build a WordPress-based website, you have to download and install the software, find a host that demands both time and money.

Simply, using wordpress.org, you have to get your hands dirty😞 and host your website yourself. Install custom themes or build your own with PHP and CSS. Install plugins to extend your site’s functionality. No registration with WordPress.org is required. And lots more.

WordPress.com and WordPress.org both are for creating WordPress-based websites but they are fundamentally different.

The key difference between these two WordPress flavors is ‘Hosting‘ or who hosts your website.

WordPress.com is a fully hosted platform while WordPress.org is a self-hosted platform allowing you to host WordPress installation on your own server.

Other major differences are about customization, maintenance, and security, etc.

Meaning of CMS (Content Management System)

CMS Stands for "Content Management System." A CMS is a software tool that allows you to create, edit, and publish content.🧐

Benefits of WordPress

There are so many advantages or benefits of WordPress, of which I would be stating few here:

• It is easy to use

• You have control of your site

• The code behind WordPress is very clean and simple, making it easy for search engines to read and index a site’s content. In addition, each page, post, and image can have its own meta tag keywords, description, and title, and be optimized for specific keywords, allowing for very precise search engine optimization.

• The design of your website is 100% customizable

• WordPress sites are very scalable. You can have hundreds of thousands of pages or blog posts on your site and the performance of the site will not be compromised in the least.

• As an administrator of a WordPress site, you can set-up multiple users for the website and assign access levels and capabilities to each user.

• Speed

• Strong community support

• And lots more.

Some Companies that makes use of WordPress for their official websites🤭

BBC America

Bloomberg Professionals

MTV News

Playstation.blog

Sweden’s Official Website

Microsoft News Center

The New Yorker

• And many more.

How to get started with WordPress

Getting started with WordPress, you have to decide which platform to use, either wordpress.com or wordpress.org.

I would be dropping useful links on how to go about learning how to use WordPress.

Some useful resources to get started

wordpress.org/support/article/new-to-wordpr..

youtube.com/watch?v=wWVbiGc6XKk

Some useful resources to read more about WordPress

kinsta.com/knowledgebase/what-is-wordpress

websitebuilderexpert.com/wordpress/wordpres..

wordpress.com/support/com-vs-org

themegrill.com/blog/wordpress-com-vs-wordpr..

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