Think Smart Solutions

WordPress is a dynamic, free blogging platform and content management system that has become enormously widespread. Today there are over 15 million blogs or websites using WordPress, including six million hosted on WordPress.com and nine million self-hosted installations.

WordPress as a Content Management System

A web content management system, or CMS, is an easy to use program that allows you to place, edit and publish content on the Internet without needing to know any complicated coding. Therefore, no experience with website design or construction is necessary in order to use WordPress. Instead you can quickly create your own content and easily add images or other features to the new page, while having it automatically fit into the theme or template you are using.

The flexible CMS functionality of WordPress is one of the chief reasons why it has become so popular and widespread. It allows users to create engaging, high-powered and feature-rich websites without needing any technical skills or experience.

Benefits and Features of WordPress

In addition to its role as a CMS, a main reason why WordPress is so widely used is because of the diverse feature set that it includes. The WordPress interface allows you to easily insert widgets, which are predefined pieces of coding with a specific function, into various designated areas on your site. Widgets include Recent Posts, Tag Clouds, a Blogroll and many others which can help you provide a more complete experience for your visitors.

WordPress also allows for immediate installation of a huge variety of plugins. Plugins are snippets of coding or small programs that can be installed onto your website separately. They differ from widgets because they are not preloaded into the WordPress system, you have to seek them out and add them on your own. Additionally, they are developed by third parties and are open source, meaning you can edit them or otherwise alter them to your liking.

The vast array of plugins allows you to do just about anything with your WordPress site. For example you can quickly add a contact form to your page or you can add a plugin designed to improve your site’s search engine optimization. Other popular plugins include ones which automatically create your page’s sitemap and a spam comment protector known as Akismet which comes installed with the WordPress setup.

Another benefit to the WordPress platform is the great variety of themes or templates that you have to choose from. Also developed independently by third parties, you can install a theme to make your website as simple or complex as you desire. There is a huge selection of free templates available for download and installation, and there are also many premium templates available for purchase from third party developers.

Using WordPress you can create both “posts” and “pages”, and you can always go back to edit them at a later point in time. Posts come with the ability to be grouped into categories and have tags added to them. In addition, you can store and access pictures, videos and other media files in your Media directory and you can add links for your Blogroll in the Links section.

Comments can be approved, replied to or marked as spam, and individual posts can even have comments turned off. You can designate additional users to have administrative access to your blog and you have control over a wide range of settings related to how your content appears, how people interact with your website and much more.

One particular control setting that adds a great deal of value to the WordPress platform is the direct control over your site’s permalinks. A permalink is essentially a page’s permanent web address, and you can use several different options or create a custom structure. The standard URL structure isn’t very search engine friendly, however you can switch to a structure based off the title of the page or post, thereby including relevant keywords into your page address. This allows for direct control over – and easy improvement of – your site’s search engine optimization.

Overall, WordPress is an amazingly rich and detailed web content management system and blogging platform. You can create fully functioning, diverse websites or more standard blogs. WordPress is entirely free, and allows you to quickly install additional codes, programs and themes. The simplicity of the interface, the wide range of settings and control options and the infinite number of features makes WordPress one of the most beloved and widely used website creation platforms in the world.