What is WordPress? At its core, WordPress is the simplest, most popular way to create your own website or blog. In fact, WordPress powers over 40.0% of all the websites on the Internet. Yes – more than one in four websites that you visit are likely powered by WordPress.
On a slightly more technical level, WordPress is an open-source
content management system licensed under GPLv2, which means that anyone
can use or modify the WordPress software for free. A content management
system is basically a tool that makes it easy to manage important
aspects of your website – like content – without needing to know
anything about programming.
The end result is that WordPress makes building a website accessible to anyone – even people who aren’t developers.
What Kinds Of Websites Can WordPress Make?
Many years ago, WordPress was primarily a tool to create a blog, rather than more traditional websites. That hasn’t been true for a long time, though. Nowadays, thanks to changes to the core code, as well as WordPress’ massive ecosystem of plugins and themes, you can create any type of website with WordPress.
For example, not only does WordPress power a huge number of business sites and blogs, but it’s also the most popular way to create an eCommerce store as well! With WordPress, you can create:
- Business websites
- eCommerce stores
- Blogs
- Portfolios
- Resumes
- Forums
- Social networks
- Membership sites
- pretty much anything else you can dream up.
Here’s how to install a WordPress theme
What’s The Difference Between WordPress.org and WordPress.com?
WordPress.com is a for-profit, paid service that is powered by the WordPress.org software. It’s simple to use, but you lose much of the flexibility of the self-hosted WordPress.
All you need to do to get started with self-hosted WordPress is purchase web hosting and a domain name.
Who Made WordPress And How Long Has It Been Around?
WordPress was created as a standalone project all the way back in 2003, originating as an offshoot of a previous project called b2/catalog.
WordPress is open-source software, so nowadays it’s made by a huge community of contributors. But if we were to trace WordPress’ origins back to its roots, its original creation was a collaboration between Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little.
Since then, Matt Mullenweg has largely become the face of WordPress. And he’s also the founder of Automattic, which is the company behind the for-profit WordPress.com service.
The history of WordPress between its founding as a blog platform back in 2003 and today is a long one…
But suffice it to say, WordPress has pushed forward and, thanks to its contributors and huge community, developed into the most popular solution to create any type of website.
Who Uses WordPress
WordPress is used by individuals, big businesses, and everyone in between! On an immediate note, we use WordPress! So the very site that you’re looking at right now is powered by WordPress. Lots of other well-known entities use WordPress as well. Here are some of our favorite examples:
Can I Install WordPress On My Personal Computer?
Absolutely! There are several good reasons why you might want to install WordPress on a local computer. You are building a new site from scratch, install a new theme or plugin or you just want a safe space to experiment with your existing website, without fear of breaking it. In this case, we recommend a free tool called DevKinsta that allows you to install WordPress on your Mac or PC.
WordPress Is Flexible
We’ve touched on this already, but WordPress is great because it lets you create pretty much any type of website. Better yet, your website can also evolve with you. Want to add a forum to your existing WordPress site? No problem – just install the bbPress plugin! Want to add a social network? No worries! Just use the BuddyPress plugin. You’re never locked into a specific set of functions – you can always adapt and evolve.
So What Is WordPress? It’s The Best Way To Build A Website
WordPress is the most popular way to build a website for a reason. If you want to build any type of website, from a blog to an eCommerce store, WordPress is a great option. Just remember that self-hosted WordPress.org and WordPress.com are not the same things. And, in most situations, self-hosted WordPress.org is what you want to build a website.
Self-hosted WordPress.org gives you more ownership as well as access to all the perks and benefits of the WordPress community.
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