Hello, it’s your old pal Uncle URL here to ask the questions you may not want to ask, because it seems like everyone else already knows the answer! Don’t worry, I’ll ask for you! Today’s question is all about WordPress. Anytime someone mentions a website, they say something like “Oh, is it a WordPress site?” Uh, What? What’s a WordPress? Sounds like you’re working out with a librarian. “Uh, yeah, when I first started, I could only WordPress a few paragraphs, but now I can WordPress three Harry Potter books!”.
What is it?
WordPress is the most popular way in the world to create websites. WordPress is so popular that at least one in every four websites IN THE WORLD are made with WordPress. Even more amazing is that over 500 new WordPress websites are created EVERY DAY. Microsoft uses WordPress for its official blog. Whitehouse.gov is a WordPress site. Even Disney uses WordPress for their website.
Officially WordPress is a CMS, which stands for Content Management System. A Content Management system is just a tool that makes it easy for you to create and manage content on your website without knowing a darned thing about computer programming or being able to write lines of computer code (shudder!). In other words, if your website is Oz, WordPress is the wizard behind the curtain making everything look great and work well. If your website was a car, WordPress is the engine under the hood. If your website was Willie Wonka’s chocolate factory, WordPress is the Oompa Loompa that makes it all work behind the scenes.
Since it is all free, WordPress makes building a website easy and accessible to anyone, even if you aren’t a computer programmer or web developer. Well, a lot of it is free, and you can always upgrade for something a little fancier and a little more complex. There are two things that I think make WordPress extra easy to use: plugins and themes.
Plugins
What makes WordPress even easier to use is something called plugins. Plugins are basically little packets of pre-written code that do a certain function. For example, if you wanted to add a something small like a contact form to your website, or a blog, or a gallery of pictures, or something really big like ecommerce, there’s a plugin for that. You just install the plugin onto your website, and boom! It works! There is a vast repository of free plugins available for anyone’s use. There are some plugins that have a nominal fee, but there are over 50,000 WordPress plugins that are open to the public for use. Just go to https://wordpress.org/plugins/ and search for your favorite plugin!
Themes
Another thing that makes WordPress easy to use are the premade themes. Themes are the stylistic elements for how a website looks. There are three types of WordPress themes: Free, Premium and Freemium.
The free themes are just that: free. Even for free themes, there are many great ones on WordPress that look and operate very well. They are worth checking out!
The premium themes are built so that they are optimized for SEO and ready to deliver more customizable options. There are several third party options from which to browse and purchase premium themes.
The “Fremium” themes are kind of cool. No initial investment, you can build your website on them, and later on if you want to have extra features, you can add those at a minimal cost.
What’s the catch?
There really isn’t a catch, but remember for a website you have to buy a domain name, and you have to pay for hosting that website every month. Other than that, that is WordPress. If you want to build a website, you will find this is the easiest CMS (Look at me using the jargon!) with the most functionality, most plugins and free themes, that is available in the world! Good luck! See you next time! Until then, this is your Uncle URL signing off!
