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 34% 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.
A few things you didn’t know about WordPress Features
- WP Social Network
You can turn WordPress into a social network and this can be a great tool if one wants to reach their niche audience, such as a sports team or company. One way you can do this is through BuddyPress.Your visitors can sign-up, create profiles, and post messages through it. This free download is also available in the following languages: English (Australia), Español, Français, Português do Brasil, Русский.Another popular plugin through which you can transform your WordPress site into social network is WP Symposium. - Parallax Effect
One of the most eye-catching and trendy effects in UI to come out in recent times is the parallax effect. This effect has been around since a long time but it has gained momentum in the last few years. Increased number of WordPress users seem to agree, and parallax seems to be in vogue at the moment.Add visually stunning parallax effects with The Parallaxer WP plugin. - The World of Plugins
Talking about plugins in the previous point, let the fact come out that, for WordPress,there is a plugin about almost everything. Whatever function you can think of and want for your website, there are high chances that you will get not one but a plethora of plugins for it when you throw in the search query.You will get at least 50,000 free plugins in the WordPress Plugin Directory. If your choice is for a premium plugin for the better support that these plugins enjoy, look within CodeCanyon. - WordPress is not as easy
You must have heard this numerous times that WordPress is easy. And it’s true, it is easy. Easy when compared to other tools and CMS. But WP is not as easy as simply downloading it, sitting back and expecting things to take shape magically.WordPress needs work to be done by you. The CMS makes it easy for someone to just follow the instructions and have skeleton website ready with fewer clicks and even fewer headaches. Since WP is free, you can install it locally and create any number of test sites and try out your knowledge freely.As a user one needs to be proactive in understanding and becoming familiar with it. There are times when one will have to take help from a WordPress development company or a WordPress developer who can help with some of the far-fetched and in-depth features of the CMS.Given the number of tutorials, courses, training videos, podcasts and blogs that can guide you through your WordPress journey, the process of developing a full-fledged website becomes a tad bit easier. - WordPress Security
Having website security is definitely a must-have if you are running a new website. It is shocking to know that even when a majority of people are heavily focused on security, a lot of sites still get hacked daily. And these are some of the legitimate businesses who still get hacked.Apart from making sure that your website has been coded efficiently and scanned on a regular basis,one should also download a security plugin/s. And WordPress has plenty. One such example you can find is iThemes Security, formerly known as Better WP Security. It is one of the most loved security plugins for WP.Some of the protection features are:- User action login
- 2-factor authentication
- Import/export settings
- Ability to protect multiple sites
- Hides any WordPress security vulnerabilities
- Bans troublesome users and bots
- Monitors your site
- Database backup
- WordPress Intranet
You will find literally thousands of plugins out there in the market which can help you extend WordPress’s functionality, however a very less number of people know that some of those plugins are perfect for back-end functionality that companies need.You can access customer relationship management software, Issue tracking, and even all-in-one intranets with WordPress. Self-hosting these kinds of apps without having to pay a service provider can save you money each year, especially if you can manage all those plugins yourself.
Conclusion
WordPress is the most popular way for building a website, and it is so for a reason. Be it any type of website, even a blog or an eCommerce store, WordPress is the best option.
One thing to remember here is that self-hosted WordPress.org and WordPress.com are not the same thing. And, in most situations, you will find that self-hosted WordPress.org is what you want to build a website. Self-hosted WordPress.org will give you more ownership as well as access to all the perks and benefits of the WordPress community.