WordPress for an Easy Website
Chances are that you have already heard of WordPress. But what is WordPress? Simply put, WordPress is web software that you can use to create your own website or blog. Since it was released in 2003, WordPress has become one of the most popular web publishing platforms, and today it powers more than 70 million websites. Because it is built on industry standard php and mySQL, the WordPress hosting platform can run on just about any modern server.
But what many people do not realize, WordPress is not just a blogging tool. It is also a highly flexible content management system CMS which gives you the opportunity to build and manage your own full features website using only your web browser. Best of all, it is completely free. It is constantly improving and evolving. That’s because WordPress is an open-source project which means that hundreds of volunteers from all around the world are constantly creating and improving the code for WordPress software. And there are thousands of plug-in, widgets, and themes that enable you to build a completely custom website for just about anything that you can imagine.
How does WordPress work?
Since the early days of the Internet, websites have been created in HTML, a programming language that utilizes complex instructions called tags to format text, images, page-layouts and so on. Your web browser then reads the HTML code interpreting the tags to render and display the content of a particular page. These days, you can install WordPress on your own web hosting account in a few minutes. And once installed, it enables you to use a simple, web-based editor to create web pages without having to learn HTML. There is even a hosted version at WordPress.com, that allows you to create a new WordPress website in just a few seconds. The down-side to this method is that you do not have your own domain name, but instead you are using a sub-domain. Most Internet professionals agree that registering and building upon your own domain name and website is more valuable in the long run than spending the same amount of time to build a website using someone else’s domain name. This is why it is recommended that you get a shared web hosting account and install WordPress on your hosting account. Many shared hosting accounts include an easy click-to-install feature that makes installing WordPress on your own hosting account using your own domain name a snap.
- johnday.WordPress.com
- johnday.com
With your own domain name and your own web hosting account with WordPress installed, you are in control of your own content and your own website.
WordPress is a great choice for your website or blog:
- It’s open source, which also means it is free for commercial or private use. Hundreds of people working on it, WordPress is constantly improving and evolving.
- It is user-friendly. Rather than having to hire a web designer or contact your webmaster when every you want to make a small change to your website, you can easily manage and update your own content all without having to learn HTML. If you know how to use the basic formatting tools in Microsoft Word, you can edit your site.
- It’s flexible and extensible. There are literally thousands of plug-ins and themes, both commercial and free that enable you to easily change the entire look of your website or blog or even add new features like polls or contact forms with just a few clicks.
- It is easy to find support. So if you want to add highly customized features, its easy to find support or hire someone to help you. The official WordPress forum that is very helpful to find answers to all your WordPress questions. Other support options include the WordPress Stack Exchange or WP Questions that offer answers to your questions. There are thousands of developers who can help you as well.
- WordPress is SEO friendly. WordPress is standards compliant and includes everything you need to ensure that your content is optimized for search engines which is critical to your websites’ success and visibility in search engines. In short, WordPress is made to do SEO well.
- Fully compliant with W3C standards
- Built in support for RSS and Ping-O-Matic
- Clean, search engine friendly code
- You will be in control of your own content. Some other publishing platforms limit what you can or can not do on your own website. And your locked into that service, so if it ever shuts down you could easily lose all your content. With WordPress you can import your data from other systems like blogger or tumbler. And you can easily export your data to move away from WordPress, should you choose. You are in control of your website and your content.
Design a website with WordPress and a Web Hosting account:
The following steps outline the process you will go through when setting up a WordPress website on your web hosting account.
- Buy domain name and web hosting
- Install WordPress from cPanel
- Change settings and permalinks structure
- Add essential plug-ins
- Better WP Security – secure your WordPress website
- WP Super Cache – speed up and improve the performance of your site
- WordPress SEO by Yoast/All in One SEO Pack -optimize your site’s posts and pages for search engines
- Contact form – add a simple contact form to a page on your website
- Google XML sitemaps – create and submit your XML sitemap to Google for better indexing
- Install theme
- Add content
Web hosting account and WordPress
WordPress allows you to focus on your content – as opposed to countless hours of working the design and workflow – you will more likely than not enjoy running your site on this CMS. So if you are looking for an easy tool to build your own blog or website without having to learn complicated HTML, no other system makes it this easy. And you will find that WordPress is incredibly flexible with thousands of themes, plug-ins and support options to ensure that your site will continue to grow with you in the future. Most web hosting comes with WordPress ready to install with just a few clicks and the support staff at your web host are most likely very familiar with WordPress for your assistance.
