WordPress Guide for beginners: WordPress is a powerful tool for building websites, blogs, e-commerce websites and more. WordPress is actually one of the most used CMS, website creation and blog tools out there. If you have used the internet, you have been in contact with WordPress. The amazing thing about WordPress is that it’s open-source and over the years it has built a huge following, resources and add-ons. The number of quality plugins, themes and tools available is truly vast when you think that WordPress started as a simple tool for bloggers. The future also looks good for WordPress, with the introduction of the Gutenberg editor. This now makes WordPress more accessible to more creatives and opens doors for anyone else wanting to build a simple or complex website.
What is WordPress?
In this WordPress guide you will learn what WordPress is and why it is so popular. WordPress is open-source software built on PHP, that was originally intended to allow users to easily create their own blog websites. Since then it has grown into a platform that can be used to build almost any type of website you would need.
There are basically two types of WordPress. There is the managed version which is hosted by https://wordpress.com/ and offers a host of paid services to get you up and running at a small cost. The other type is the free version which is also called WordPress Community Edition which is free to download and to be hosted by the user. WordPress is designed to make it easy for a regular internet user to set up their own personal website or blog for free, just like millions of other blogs and personal websites are out there. The first version of WordPress was released in 2003. As a result, millions of websites, blogs and internet communities had their start and since then it has grown into the community we have today.
In this WordPress guide we break down the basics, to get you up and running with WordPress in no time.
Why WordPress?
One of the reasons why WordPress is so popular is that it’s easy to use. There’s a ton of plugins out there to help in any scenario that you can think of. This goes a long way to support WordPress and give it an extra edge to being one of the most successful CMS in the industry. Before you decide to build a website using WordPress, first decide if you even want to build a website using WordPress or not. This is one of the most important things to consider:
Are you just wanting a blog?
Are you wanting to build a scalable business website?
Do you need a brochure website to build an online presence for your business?
Are you a musician or creative that wants to show off your work?
All of these reasons are good enough to sway you towards WordPress.
Some reasons you may not want to use WordPress could include:
You are wanting to build an online App or SASS app. You want to build a financial data and security-driven site or application.
You want to build a bespoke website that is not constrained on the back-end by an already templated CMS.
Now, that is not to say that you couldn’t do the above with WordPress.
It is just maybe not best placed for this type of application.
WordPress Guide for Beginners
WordPress is an amazing tool that has its weaknesses. But, it also has plenty of benefits. A well-maintained WordPress website could be the best option for most people wanting to expand and market their online business. With a plethora of resources, add-ons and skilled WordPress developers. You can easily see why this platform has become so popular.
There are other tools out there such as WIX, Squarespace and there are even other popular CMS platforms such as Drupal. However, online website builders tend to be clunky to use and restricted by features.
With WordPress, you can also move your website from host to host and even backup your files to be shelved for later use, something you cannot do with WIX or Squarespace, not easily anyway.
WordPress websites are everywhere and if you want a platform that has legs. This is a good bet. If you are interested in building a new website but do not have the technical ability or time to learn web design.
Feel free to give us a call and discuss your idea with one of our team.
We would be more than happy to help out.
WordPress Resources
There are a plethora of resources available for WordPress.
The community and history are where WordPress really shines.
There are Github repositories geared towards WordPress plugins and development. YouTube also hosts thousands of videos on how to build, design and develop with WordPress. There are also worldwide meetup groups and conferences every year if you want to find out more and get involved. There are thousands of plugin developers and the list goes on and on. With WordPress, you are never a click away from finding what you need to advance in the world of WordPress. Facebook is also an amazing resource, with plenty of groups and pages geared toward the future of WordPress. I will do another blog listing some of these resources. But for now, a quick search engine session will open up doors in minutes to a wealth of training and resources on WordPress.
WordPress Tools
There are a wealth of amazing WordPress tools out there.
Plugins and tools are the heart of what makes WordPress such a useful CMS tool. I’m going to to a few blog posts outlining some of our favourite tools in the coming months, but below I will list a few that we use on a regular when building websites for our clients.
WP Rocket
WooCommerce
Imagify
RankMath SEO
Presto Player
Conclusion
We hope you have enjoyed this WordPress guide. WordPress has great possibilities and it’s a great way to create a website on a low budget. That said, there are some key things you need to know before you start a new WordPress project. However, these problems shouldn’t prevent you from starting. The good news is, there are solutions to most of them! So, let’s get started!
