Welcome to the first installment of this WordPress How To series.
So why would you choose WordPress as content management system? Because it’s one of the most versatile and supported open source content management systems available today.
WordPress traces its history to 2003 as a replacement for a now defunct blogging platform know as b2. So I know what your thinking, “Blogging platform? I don’t want a blog, I want a website to tell people about my business. I also want a storefront to sell items.” See I told you I knew what you were thinking. Bear with me.
Although the roots of WordPress are founded in a blogging platform (and it still is the best platform for blogging out there) it’s also evolved into so much more. The modern WordPress is a full fledged site management system with a list of over 8,488 plugins available to help you add functionality to your site. And if for some reason you can’t find the exact functionality you want, WordPress has a built in API so any one of a large stable of independent developers can build that functionality for you.
“But I know what a WordPress site looks like, and they look like blogs.” Are you sure? Does this look like a WordPress site to you? How about this one? Did you notice each one also had ecommerce functionality built in? Certainly a WordPress site can look like a blog, it can also look like a store, or a landing page, or any other type of site you can think of.
This is accomplished by themes. You can think of a theme as what the world sees when they visit your website. The window to your content. Their are theme showcases for you to browse, and several theme repositories with a nice selection of premade selections for you. Oh, and a WordPress developer can make a theme from any design your own designer may come up with.
Need more convincing? Ask and you shall receive. Leave a comment and I’ll be sure to answer any question you may have.
Join us next week for part II: How To Install WordPress.
