Introduction to Wordpress

What is Wordpress?

To quote the Wordpress site:

“WordPress is a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability.”

Wordpress is an open source (free to use) blogging platform. A blog (short for web log) is a website that is specifically designed to present entries, events, photos etc.. in a chronological order. Wordpress is one of the most (if not the most) popular blogging system on the internet and powers millions of pages.

Why use a blog if I just want a basic website?

The web is becoming increasingly dynamic – meaning gone are the days of boring static websites that never changed – these are being replaced with sites that encourage the owner to express themselves and also engage their audience by allowing commenting and discussion (whether you set your site to allow this is up to you). Wordpress can be tweaked to allow for a less “bloggy” feel if desired and I will show you how.

Why Wordpress specifically?

Wordpress has a number of features that are of benefit to you, the aspiring web developer:

Ability to add content without technical knowledge

That’s right… Wordpress offers you the ability to add pages as needed, the content of which can be edited easily using a visual editor. If you can use a word processor such a MS Word then you’ll find this even simpler. Uploading photos and videos is a snap.

Multiple themes

Themes are the “look and feel” of your site. Many excellent designers have created themes that you can use and modify as needed in order to create a professional site with minimal hassle. There are around 600 different themes available on the Wordpress site and many more can be found by Googling for them. A list of of excellent themes can be found here.

Plugins

Wordpress, out of the box, is mostly a writing platform. You might however have specific needs such as the desire to embed a photo gallery, create a simple shopping cart, etc. This functionality can be easily added through the use of plugins. Wordpress has around 4000 plugins available! A list of useful plugins can be found here.

Free

Wordpress is open source – which means that you can use it for free. Read the license on their site for further details.

Lots of documentation and resources

With any new tool or service there is bound to come a time when you will have questions. Wordpress has a very large user base and many many articles have been written on various aspects of its usage.

In short, Wordpress is a fantastic tool to get a website up in a few minutes. The perfect tool for any aspiring Guerrilla Web Builder!