A casual look around the internet for ‘how to build a website’ results in WordPress appearing as the means to achieve this as an important result. There is the possibility of confusion when talking about WordPress, this is due to the free hosted blogging platform WordPress.com, which a lot of people tend to think of when the name is mentioned. The blogging platform is really great, it’s multi-featured, free and widely used, but this is not what I’m talking about. I mean the content management system and blogging software provided by WordPress.org, this can only be used on a personal hosting account. WordPress is, in essence, a website content management system, it allows you to create pages, articles, add multimedia of all kinds, all from a central administration panel. You can even create membership sites, from simple blogs to many paginated monster sites suitable for large corporate entities, WordPress is scalable.
All of this is possible, and it is relatively easy to achieve. If you do not have web coding skills, it is not a deterrent, you can build your website by selecting the best theme, which is the template shell of any WordPress site. Each theme is developed with a particular set of appearance options, you can upload your own custom headers, edit the layout according to your needs. If, for example, you want a magazine-like layout, you can achieve that, and there are thousands of free themes available. In simple terms, you can create any type of website you can imagine, the features and design philosophy behind WordPress allow you to do this.
PHP and CSS feature heavily under WordPress features, the ability to load smaller PHP-based applications into the main structure of your site is perhaps WordPress’ strongest point. These smaller PHP applications are called ‘Plugins’, they can range from a simple layout tweak plugin that disables page comments, to completely optional event management systems that a major company might use. The vast majority of these plugins are available free of charge; however, some plugins may also have premium level features available for a modest fee.
The great enabling aspect of WordPress is that it is within the reach of people with modest technical skills. Like all software, there is a continuous learning curve, but the availability of training from many user-based groups, and from wordpress.org itself, and from people who post “how-to” videos on YouTube, means that a person compromised can become proficient with WordPress quite easily. Currently, more than a billion WordPress sites are online, this is 22.3% of the entire Internet. This number increases daily; Even with the advent of free website building products like ‘Wix’ and ‘Weebly’, the sheer quality and level of control over the end result possible with WordPress dwarfs these other free offerings.
WordPress has also created a huge industry of website builders and support people who can make a living from WordPress, this aspect of WordPress is not often talked about. Basically, WordPress is just a huge online presence, and this creates a huge demand for services. All coming from a GNU open source software project, this is ‘People Power’ in rocket fuel. Yes, there are alternatives to WordPress, Drupal, Joomla are very respectable options, both have their strengths and both require a considerable learning curve to get up and running. I have used both Drupal and Joomla in my work as an online specialist, but these two systems do not compare to WordPress when it comes to efficiency and ease of implementation, let alone versatility. There are some circumstances where I would select one or the other over WordPress, but very rarely.
The current surge of interest in online businesses is being enabled to a large extent by WordPress. The word “entrepreneur” gets thrown around a lot, stay at home moms, dads, people wanting to quit their careers, the very young looking for immediate independence, retirees hoping to augment their dwindling resources, all of these groups may consider managing their efforts. online. because of WordPress. To me, this represents a huge change in our Western work culture. For the first time in history, an individual can create “the means of production” for himself, independent of the state or employers. While freelancing is nothing new, it has never been more available to so many in its online form. In addition, the possibility of creating a personal business of various types has been massively enabled through WordPress. But keep in mind that this will require some effort on your part, there is a learning curve. Nothing of value comes without effort, being prepared to work makes a difference to the 5% who manage to earn a good living, from the 95% who give up because it requires concentrated effort.