A Beginner’s introduction to WordPress

WordPress is perhaps one of the most popular terms on the Internet today, period. Everyone is talking about it, but it can sometimes be a little confusing. Is WordPress a blog, a website, a hosting service or something else?

Well, let’s take a quick look at the basics of WordPress.

WordPress:

In the simplest of terms, it is a Content Management System (CMS).Founded by Mike Little and Matt Mullenweg in 2003, WordPress is open-source. It means that any of the millions of users can modify the code of WordPress to suit their needs, without needing any permission. Today, WordPress is one of the most popular CMS in the market, and the first choice of bloggers.

WordPress.org is completely free, and all it asks from you is your own hosting and domain name. Currently, more than 60 million websites are built on WordPress.

WordPress Themes:

You can understand themes as the gift wrap that makes the site look presentable. Containing PHP, CSS and HTML code, themes could be installed above the site without changing the content of the website.

WordPress offers two categories of themes- free and premium. Premium themes are made by experts with a wide range of features. Free themes offer basic features and could be used by those who don’t want to invest any money. The themes are also customizable, so you can modify them with your own code.

Plugins:

One of the best things here is the plugins. Apart from the basic utilities, you can install plugins for specific features. With more than 40,000 plugins available in the WordPress store, you can achieve a lot of additional functions on your website. These include SEO, popups, email marketing, social media extension etc.

Conclusion:

WordPress is one of the simplest CMS currently in the market. Any beginner can master the basics within a few days. With their in-built and extended features, it is definitely one of the best choices to build a website on the Internet.