What is WordPress?
In short, WordPress acts as the engine under the hood of your website. It lets it run, lets you edit site content, create new posts and pages, and then ensures that your website displays correctly on all devices.
What makes WordPress so dominant and what is it used for?
There are at least a few reasons:
WordPress is free
You can download it now without any money at all.
WordPress is open source
It is a community project created by thousands of volunteers around the world. Everyone can participate. Everyone can build on WordPress and help the platform grow even more.
Modern WordPress
If some features are considered “standard” in website software, you can be sure that they are available in WordPress.
WordPress is versatile
It can run any type of website. No matter if it is a simple business site, blog, photo site, hobby site, professional company site, portfolio site, wedding site, fitness site, directory site, or even an e-commerce store, they can WordPress easily handles everything.
WordPress is easy to access and easy to use
It can be used by users with low vision without any problem.
WordPress works on all screen sizes and devices
You can access your website via your desktop, laptop, tablet or phone.
WordPress is extensible
You can add the custom features to WordPress with the help of plugins. Think of plugins as “apps” for your website (like iPhone apps, but for your website).
Beautiful WordPress
There are thousands upon thousands of free and premium design packages available for WordPress. You can install those with one click.
How to use WordPress and how does WordPress work?
Allow me to briefly tell you how to get started with WordPress and then point you to further reading – if you’re interested in learning more.
Therefore, to use WordPress, you must follow either of two paths:
Case A: If you want to create a fully featured website with WordPress
So you need two components:
- Domain name – the address of your website; For example, our theme is themeisle.com
- Web Hosting Setup – aka. Web Server – Where your website will be saved
Although it may sound technical, getting your hands on both is fairly simple. There are companies that can register a domain name for you and also give you access to a web server. They will also take care of the installing WordPress for you. One such company is Bluehost.
We’ve written about the entire process of getting a domain, hosting, and installing WordPress from start to finish here. I highly recommend checking it out if you are going to create a WordPress website yourself. The good news is that you can do this in 15 minutes or less. Yes, you’re reading this right, from scratch to a perfectly working WordPress site in 15 minutes.
Case B: If you only want to create a local test site
If you’re not thinking of launching a fully featured site yet, but just want to try out WordPress in a sandbox-like environment, you might want to consider installing WordPress on a local server.
Now, the trick with WordPress is that, from a technical point of view, it’s a bundle of software. It’s just the type of software that you don’t install directly on your computer, but instead runs through a web server. So if you want to do it locally, you first need to get a local web server.
How to extend WordPress and change the design
The first thing most people like to do with WordPress is customize the default look/design of their websites.
As I mentioned, WordPress is very easy to extend and modify – both in terms of new functionality and design.
First, let’s talk about plugins.
Plugins are small pieces of software that can be installed on your WordPress site to expand the set of features included in it. There are thousands of free plugins which are available on the web. Here are some good starting points:
- Here is a list of essential plugins that all WordPress users should consider.
- Here’s how to install the WordPress plugin.
- Next, designs. Or as we call it in the world of WordPress – themes.
Themes are all-in-one design packages that can change the way your website looks in just a few clicks. They can be installed on your WordPress site just like plugins.
There are thousands of free themes available here, as well as many reputable theme stores that offer premium WordPress themes.
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