What is all this “WordPress” about?

Most of the sites I build are WordPress sites. In this post I’ll explain what WordPress is, why it is so popular and why I use it so often.

WordPress and WordPress.com

Let me first point out that there are two ways in how you can use WordPress:

1. A WordPress installation on your own server
2. A pre-installed WordPress version on wordpress.com

I mention these two options because some people do already have a blog, or even a small website, hosted on WordPress.com. This is a very good option to get familiar with WordPress, but it doesn’ t offer all the flexibility that you will have on your own server. All the sites that I create are WordPress installations on your own server.

What is WordPress?

WordPress was originally designed as blogging software. At the time that WordPress became popular there weren’t many other tools to build a website that could easily be maintained by the clients themselves. And that is what website builders like me are looking for: software that allows clients to update their webpages by themselves and without too much need for training and manuals.

So while WordPress gained many blog users, developers saw the potential in turning WordPress into a Content Management System. Creating pages, updating and adding images was so user-friendly that WordPress evolved from blogging software to a complete website maintenance tool.

The reason why I tell you about this history is that the blogging origin is still very present in WordPress. Even when you do not use a blog on your site at all, you will still see “Posts” and “Categories” in your dashboard, next to the “Pages” that you are using for a static website.

Why should I have a WordPress site?

Let me list the advantages of WordPress:

• It’s free!
• It is the most user-friendly system currently available.
• It is web-based.
• It is used by many people all over the world.
• It is open source software, meaning anyone can extend the functionality.

The great advantage of a web-based system is that you can update your website from any computer, all over the world. You do not need to install anything on your own computer.

Used by many others and open source are important because this means that the software will probably still be around in 10 years. It also means that it is easy to find somebody else to work on your website in case you need to find another web developer.

Do you only build WordPress sites?

No. I also build plain HTML websites and Joomla websites. The plain HTML websites cannot be updated by clients themselves, unless you have good knowledge of the HTML and CSS code. The advantage of a plain HTML site over a WordPress site is that it loads a little bit faster. Also WordPress has a lot of software updates which means that a WordPress site requires more maintenance.

Joomla is an older Content Management System. I like it a lot, but it is not as user friendly as WordPress. However, I find it more robust for larger sites that require a lot of extra programming work.