Website Development: What Is WordPress?
WordPress is the number one content management system (CMS) in use today, powering more than 27.8 million websites across the world. It was originally created for blogging purposes but has since grown to power many different types of websites.
If you’re looking to develop a new website, you’ll most probably end up using WordPress. Here’s a primer on what WordPress is and why you should consider it for your next web development project.
Characteristic That Makes WordPress Stand Out From The Crowd
The best thing about WordPress is its versatility. It is the Swiss Army Knife of content management systems, able to handle almost everything that you could want or need for a website.
WordPress is a completely open-source project, which means that its source code is freely available to anyone who wants to download and study it. This is unlike many other proprietary software programs, which are typically used for website development, which keep their code proprietary and hidden from public view.
Because WordPress is such a large project with a lot of contributors, it is very likely that your website will not be developed using the same version as the original creators. This makes it even more versatile, as you will be able to upgrade it easily and effectively without risking downtime on your site.
WordPress also includes many different security measures and checks, which further contribute to its versatility. Even more impressively, there are people out there who make a living solely by charging other businesses to audit their WordPress installations and secure them from breaches and hacks. That’s the power of open source!
Why Should You Consider WordPress For Your Website Development Project?
There are many good reasons why you might want to use WordPress for your next website development project, the most obvious of which is its versatility.
But, beyond that, WordPress also includes several features that can really make your life simpler as a web developer or website manager. Here’s a shortlist.
Simpler To Use
One of the big advantages of WordPress is that it is designed to be simpler to use than many other CMS’s. In its most basic form, you will need just a few clicks to get a website up and running. There’s no coding required, as all the templates are pretty much pre-coded for you.
And if you’re looking to make your life even simpler, there are a number of free WordPress plugins that can be used to automatically generate certain types of content for your site. For example, if you’re running a blog and want to write and publish new content on a regular basis, you could look into using a content scheduler like ContentCalendar, which can automate the publishing of content to social media channels like Facebook and Twitter.
More Responsive
An important thing to consider about WordPress is how well it works on different devices. Mobile phones, tablets, and desktops all have very different screen sizes and pixel densities, so ensuring that your website looks good on all of them is a real challenge.
One of the ways that WordPress attempts to address this is by being more responsive than other CMS’s. Developers and designers can take advantage of a number of different templates and CSS styles that make your website look good on any screen size or device. This is a big advantage, as you will not need to create custom designs for different screen sizes and can instead reuse existing templates. You won’t get this level of responsiveness from pre-built themes, as they are typically designed with mobile phones in mind and may not look good on other devices.
Faster To Publish
Speed is a real factor when it comes to websites. While some people may argue that having a slow website is better than having no website at all, in today’s world, speed is always a consideration.
WordPress is pretty good at helping to ensure that your website downloads and opens quickly. This is because it is built on a LAMP stack, which stands for Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP, the four basic building blocks of a website.
The LAMP stack is responsible for making your site faster, as well as more stable, as it uses a number of different tools to boost your website’s performance.
One of these tools is known as Akismet. What this tool does is prevent your site from being hacked or vandalized by detecting and blocking spam comments as they’re posted. This can help to dramatically reduce the amount of content that needs to be moderated, as most comments will be spam or offensive in some way.
More Secure
It is well known that WordPress is a popular choice amongst hackers and cyber-criminals, as it is fairly simple to breach. This is because WordPress makes it much easier for hackers to gain access to your personal information or that of your customers.
There are a number of different plugins and themes that can help to secure your site. For example, the Sucuri WordPress Security plugin checks for any unknown plugins or themes on your site and alerts you if any are detected. It also scans for common attack vectors and helps to fix any vulnerabilities that you might have exposed on your site. With the amount of content that is published to social media platforms on a daily basis, it is well worth looking into tools that can help to secure your site.
How Do I Get Started With WordPress Website Development?
If you’re looking to get started with WordPress website development, you’ll first need to decide what platform you want to use. You have the option of using WordPress itself, which is what the software is designed for, or you can use a tool like Studio to build a professional-looking website quickly and easily, without having to touch a single line of code.
In this article, we will focus on using WordPress itself to develop a website, as it is the most popular option amongst beginners. For more experienced web developers and website managers, using a tool like Studio can be a better option as it includes advanced features that can make your life much easier.
Where Do I Begin?
With WordPress itself, you’ll need to make sure that you have the latest stable version installed on your computer. If you’re planning on using a tool like Studio to build your website, make sure that you have the proper plugins installed before you begin. These plugins will make using Studio much easier and will also allow you to take full advantage of its features.
After you’ve installed WordPress and the necessary plugins, you can begin by making a blank slate for your site with the help of the WordPress dashboard. From this point on, you can begin adding content to your site in a way that you see fit.
Creating A Template-Based Website With WordPress
A WordPress template is essentially a pre-made design for your site that can be modified and used as a base for your own site. There are several benefits to creating a template-based website, the most obvious of which is the amount of time that you’ll save.
Instead of starting from scratch, you can use a template to get your site up and running quickly. This means that you won’t need as much time to complete your site as you would if you were to build it from the ground up.
Another advantage is the security that comes with using templates. Since your site’s content is already there, it will be a lot easier for an attacker to gain access to your personal information or that of your customers. A hacker would ideally like to be able to access as much personal information as possible, so they can use it for fraudulent activities. If you’re looking to keep your personal information safe, using templates is a much safer option than creating a site from scratch.
Using Plugins To Extend Functonality
WordPress is a free and open-source content management system, which means that it comes with many different plugins that you can use to extend its functionality. These plugins can do everything from displaying social media feeds on your site to providing e-commerce shopping experiences and more.
Even better, many plugins are completely free and open source, which means that there is no reason not to try them out. This means that you don’t have to worry about copyright issues or that the plugins might end up being sold to third parties for profit.
A great place to start is with the most popular WordPress plugins, which can be found in the WordPress plugins directory. These are plugins that are extremely useful and will make your life much simpler as a web developer or website manager.