WordPress Guide for Beginners

What is WordPress? If you’ve ever heard someone talk about how to create a website, chances are you’ve come across WordPress. In this article, Mamang discusses the WordPress Guide for Beginners.

Launched in 2003, WordPress has become the world’s most popular CMS, now powering over 60 million websites worldwide.

Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced web developer, WordPress can help you create a professional-looking website quickly and easily.

In this WordPress Guide for Beginners, we’ll take a closer look at what WordPress is, how it works, and how you can use it to build your own website or blog.

WordPress is an open-source Content Management System (CMS). It is widely used by individuals with no coding experience to create websites and blogs. The software is completely free—anyone can install, use, and modify it at no cost.

Initially, WordPress was used to create blogs. However, the WordPress software has now been enhanced, allowing you to build any type of website you want.

You can create a hobby or lifestyle blog, a professional portfolio, a business website, an e-commerce store, a mobile app, a membership site, and many other types of websites.

Hobby or Lifestyle Blog

Since WordPress was originally designed for blogging, its features are well-suited for this purpose, including :

• The ability to differentiate between posts and pages
• A powerful WYSIWYG editor for easy post creation
• Posts, tags, and categories for an organized content structure
• Options for users to leave comments, which you can easily moderate

After installing WordPress, the first thing you should do is choose a theme that suits your vision for the blog. There are themes for news, magazines, and more.

Next, you can add plugins for additional functionality, such as social media sharing buttons or a “Click to Tweet” feature.

Professional Portfolio

WordPress also offers various themes tailored for professional portfolios, making it an excellent choice for showcasing your personal brand. The Pages functionality can be used for your homepage, About page, contact page, etc.

The Posts functionality can highlight specific content in different formats, such as images, text, audio, or video.

You can choose a theme with a built-in gallery or install plugins for portfolio carousels or sliders.

Business Website

WordPress is a great choice for business websites. Many business sites require more pages and posts than a typical blog and may need additional features.

Thanks to its robust CMS capabilities and strong open-source community, WordPress is highly effective in meeting these demands.

You can select a website theme that aligns with your goals and customize it to match your brand. Page builders like Elementor and Divi make website layout design much easier.

With plugins for SEO, lead generation, analytics, and more, you can seamlessly integrate and grow your business using WordPress.

E-commerce Store

WordPress is an excellent platform for building online stores. Using e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce, you can manage products, payments, and shipping on the backend while providing customers with a smooth shopping experience on the frontend.

Mobile Apps

Some users may prefer accessing your site’s features through a mobile app rather than a web browser. Developing an app can be expensive, but WordPress plugins can convert your site into an app with ease.

Membership Sites

If you want to monetize your content by restricting premium content to members, WordPress supports plugins for building membership sites. These plugins allow you to manage payments, set up membership tiers, and track user registrations.

WordPress is a favorite platform for many bloggers and businesses. In fact, over 40% of websites online use WordPress. Here are some reasons why WordPress is so popular :

1. WordPress is Open Source

WordPress is an open-source platform. This means anyone can modify the source code and redistribute the software. The system is designed to allow people to contribute their ideas to improve the platform. There is a strong community dedicated to making WordPress better.

2. WordPress is Beginner-Friendly

WordPress does not require manual coding. This CMS is actually designed for non-technical users. Its user interface is intuitive and user-friendly. To add a new design to your website, you simply download a theme.

If you need to add new functionalities, such as a contact form, you just install a plugin. Web development tasks that usually take hours can be completed in minutes.

3. WordPress is SEO-Friendly

Building a WordPress site alone is not enough—you want people to find and visit your website through search engine optimization (SEO). With SEO plugins like Yoast SEO, you can improve your rankings with internal link suggestions and meta description templates.

4. WordPress Supports All Media Types

WordPress does not restrict any major media types. You can use a combination of text, images, and videos on your website. This makes WordPress highly engaging, giving you creative freedom to design your site as you wish.

5. WordPress is Secure

Security is a major concern in any business. With so many data breaches occurring every year, you want to ensure your customers’ data is protected. As long as you keep your plugins updated and maintain strong passwords, WordPress is one of the safest and most secure CMS platforms.

It offers several features to protect your website, such as logging out inactive users and adding two-factor authentication.

6. WordPress is Free to Use

WordPress is completely free. You don’t have to pay anything to use the software. However, you do need to pay for a third-party hosting provider to make your website accessible online.

In 2003, WordPress was created by Matt Mullenweg, who was a college student at the time. The platform was originally built by Michel Valdrighi and launched under the name b2/cafelog. Later, Matt saw an opportunity to enhance website functionality without altering its core source code.

The Importance of WordPress 1.0

Matt developed a new branch of b2 on SourceForge, integrating the original concept. With the help of his friends, he created another version and named it WordPress.

Some time later, WordPress 1.0 was released to the public in 2004. Its codename was “Davis”, as Matt admired jazz artists like Miles Davis. Similar to today’s platform, this version included multiple categories for organizing website content and comment moderation features.

The Rise of WordPress

WordPress gained traction after a competitor changed its pricing structure. Users started searching for alternative solutions, such as WordPress.

After leaving his job, Matt founded his own company, Automattic. He raised $1.10 million in Series A funding from several investors, including True Ventures, Radar Partners, and Polaris Ventures.

WordPress Today

WordPress has now grown into a thriving community of developers, designers, and bloggers. In 2017, WordPress redesigned its user experience with a new editor called Gutenberg. The latest version, WordPress 5.0, includes an improved and more modern default theme.

As a beginner, you might feel overwhelmed by the process of building a website. Additionally, there are so many options when it comes to hosting providers, page builders, and plugins. But don’t worry—Mamang has listed some essential resources for you.

WP Engine

Provides managed WordPress hosting for your website. Built for agencies, enterprises, and small businesses, this company offers secure and reliable services.

WPMU Dev

A complete WordPress platform that includes everything from hosting and security protection to marketing tools to help you run a successful website.

All in One SEO

A comprehensive SEO plugin and toolkit for WordPress. With TruSEO scores and actionable checklists, you can easily optimize every page and post on your website for higher search engine rankings.

WooCommerce

Helps you build an online business with ease. This e-commerce platform offers unlimited customization and a built-in blog to help grow your business.

Elementor

Used by over 3 million websites, this WordPress page builder allows you to design stunning web pages without technical expertise using ready-made templates.

Gravity Forms

Enables you to create advanced forms with its visual editor. Convert more visitors with conditional logic features that configure your forms to show or hide fields based on visitor choices.

WP Beginner

A free WordPress resource for beginners. Their blog provides helpful tips and advice on improving your website.

The Events Calendar Suite

Offers both free and premium options for calendars, RSVP & ticketing, and full event management for your WordPress site.

Don’t be intimidated by the website-building process. While there are many website tools available, WordPress provides the flexibility to create an outstanding online presence for your business.

That’s the explanation of WordPress Guide for Beginners that Mangcoding can share. Hopefully, this article is useful and provides new insights for you. If you have constructive feedback or suggestions, feel free to leave a comment or contact us via email and Mangcoding’s social media.

Source : blog.hubspot.com