WordPress began as a simple blog making software but has grown to become a fully featured wesite platform that now runs approximately 40% of the worlds websites. It is a free and open source platform and as such has many contributors to its code and functionality.
What is WordPress?
WordPress is a fully featured and customisable wesite platform that provides the website admin with a user interface designed to assist with content creation, content management and website functionality. WordPress uses themes to control the look and feel of websites and plugins to add additional functionality.
Features include:
- User friendly user interface to assist with content management/creation.
- Theme orientated stlying with countless free and paid themes to choose from.
- An extensive range of plugins both free and subscription based to choose from when adding functionality.
- WordPress is well documented with many online tutorials to step you through common tasks.
What can WordPress do?
WordPress can accommodate just about any type of website you have in mind. From small branding sites through to large ecommerce sites.
- Branding sites
- Professional portfolios
- Ecommerce sites (integrates with WooCommerce)
- Booking sites
What can't WordPress do?
Due to WordPress being open source it can literally do just about anything however this doesn't mean that it does everything well. Sites that demand a high degree of control over their look/feel, user experience or have some very specific functionalities to perform may be best created with custom code.
Discuss your website needs with your Web Developer and they can advise what platform is best for you.
WordPress Pros
- Allows site admins to create and update website content with little knowledge of code.
- As WordPress sites are common they are familiar to use and navigate by most website viewers.
- A wide selection of themes and plugins is available ( custom themes and plugins can also be created by a Web Developer if they do not exist).
WordPress Cons
- Although WordPress provides a comprehensive user interface it is some what complicated and cumbersome. It can be overwelming and/or tedious for some and is not suitable for everyone.
- As WordPress is the most popular website platform in the world it is also popular with hackers and fraudsters. Frequent updates and security updates are required.
- As WordPress dynamically creates web pages upon request it is not the best at page loading speeds or search engine optimisation.