WordPress is web software used to create a website or blog. It is licence free and ‘open source’; this means the source code is yours to own, alter and customise as you please. Open source technology involves a large community of users and developers in the constant improvement and debugging.
WordPress software can be employed as a Content Management System (CMS) allowing users to update content on their website through a simple, user-friendly administration interface. Thus, the user does not need to possess coding knowledge.
There is a substantial marketplace of third-party products, such as plug-ins and designer themes, available for WordPress users. For example, if your site needs ‘e-commerce’ capability, a plug-in already exists for WordPress. This large amount of support and resources, along with no licence fees, is what makes WordPress an affordable option both in terms of money and in time spent creating, maintaining and expanding your website.
Misconceptions
”WordPress is only a blogging system and is not good enough for our website”.
This misconception comes from the humble beginnings of WordPress in 2003. WordPress has come a long way since then.
In fact, there are two entry points available for WordPress:
• WordPress.com is the basic blogging system and host enabling the rapid creation of a blog based on standardised tools; whereas
• WordPress.org is the site used by those with an understanding of ‘source code’. If you belong to this group you will understand and be able to manipulate coding tools such as PHP, HTML and CSS, and have access to and knowledge of hosting servers and databases. This is the tool that serious developing houses use as a CMS solution for their clients, it is far more than a blogging system. Below is a list of some of the big names who use WordPress.
Who's using WordPress?
We’re seeing extremely interesting cases of WordPress websites, full of functionality, no longer small to medium brochure-ware websites. Technology innovators and web developers are choosing WordPress for their own websites, which is testament to its robustness and capability. The following are some of the websites built on the WordPress platform:
| The New York Times Company |
Mercedes-Benz |
| The Walt Disney Company | Sony Music |
| BBC America | Coca Cola France |
| Quartz | Microsoft News Center |
| Facebook Newsroom |
Ideal use for WordPress
WordPress websites are ideally suited to brochure-ware websites for businesses of all sizes with a capability of handling medium-sized taxonomy websites.
Alternatives to WordPress
We would not recommend WordPress if it is not the optimal tool for your needs. If your website requires client login capability and high-security applications, for example, you may look at alternatives. Sometimes a Custom CMS can be built if your website has very specific requirements. WordPress does have some open source competitors — Joomla, Drupal and Umbraco — to name a few. WordPress is the most popular and the fastest growing system for website CMS.