What is WordPress Content Management System (CMS)?

Even if you’ve never worked with WordPress, there’s a good chance you’ve heard about this content management system (CMS). Since its first baby steps in 2003, WordPress has rapidly gained popularity, and it became one of the best and most used software solutions when it comes to building and managing a website or blog. Today, WordPress caters to both beginners and professionals; it can help you with a hobby, a full-blown career, or something in between.

When you decide to build your first blog with WordPress, it’s important to know the differences between WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress (WordPress.org). In the following text, we’re going to focus on the self-hosted version of WP simply because it came before the WP.com version.

A brief history of WordPress

In its early beginnings, the developers imagined WordPress as a blogging tool written in PHP language that helps people to quickly build a blog by simply selecting a design, choosing a few widgets that would display text, images, or calendars, and by adding content. It was created to provide a user-friendly environment for writing new masterpieces (or writing about cats, what’s more likely). It took years before WordPress started attracting larger groups of people and before it became popular.

Version by version, hard-working individuals who have worked for free, developed a platform that outgrew its initial idea. A simple blogging tool has started to shape itself into a complete content management system (CMS). Although initially advertised and communicated as a “blogging tool” version by version it grew to a platform that supports e-commerce, news sites and basically any other type of site. That’s when it became attractive to a larger pool of web developers and really took off.

Because of that, practically every fourth website on the Internet uses a helping hand of WordPress to power itself up.

The number of users, sites, posts, and other WordPress content reaches numbers of tens and hundreds of millions. Can you even imagine those digits?

The power of open source

Chances are that WordPress wouldn’t be as popular if it wasn’t completely free. By being an open source platform, WordPress got its chance to attract more users than it would if it was a paid product. Also, having hundreds of highly skilled developers who work on new features for free allowed everyone to enjoy continuous support for WP. The best part is that you don’t even have to ask for it. Developers keep on fixing bugs and introducing new features on a regular basis.

Because of the open-source concept, WordPress is available in more than 50 languages! There are also dozens of translations that still need some work. You can also actively participate in translating the CMS into your own language.

The strength is in the numbers

In a world run by social media, a community is as strong as its people. And this is something where WordPress really stands out from the crowd. From its beginnings, WordPress has been kind to its users. It has been connecting people who worked on similar projects, and it has always been oriented towards the community. If you’re a complete beginner or a seasoned pro who makes money of a blog you’ll feel right at home with WP thanks to the vast numbers of various social groups dedicated to it.

There are numerous sites and forums (including the original WordPress forum) where you can learn new stuff, meet people and grow your website. WordPress even managed to bring people out of their houses; there are countless WordCamps – organized events that connect men and women who are interested in this particular content management system. No matter where you live, chances are that there’s an annual event going on somewhere in your neighborhood.

Create a site without coding

All those developers have made sure that users don’t have to write a single line of code if they don’t really want to. So if you’re just starting to learn about the web, just want to create a website, or simply learn something new WP is a great way to ease yourself into a world that might look scary and complicated at first.

You might have heard from your friends that you “must use WP” or that “WP is the best”. Those are obviously biased opinions that vary based on what you need out of a CMS or what kind of a site you’re building. However, regardless of what you need we guarantee that you should at least consider using and learning how to use WordPress. It’s easy to get into WP and start doing something but at the same time, after you learn a bit you’ll realize it has endless possibilities and it’s here to stay – WP is still gaining momentum and users, growing day by day. If you’re looking for a career think about WP too. And no, you don’t have to be a programmer. Writing, translating, managing, designing – those are all jobs that can be based on and around WP – you just need to start learning the basics.

Conclusion

WordPress has become the most popular platform for developing blogs and websites. There are many reasons for that, and we mentioned just a few of those in this article. Now that you got acquainted with WordPress, it’s your time to get to know it even better. If you decide to start your new website with WordPress, stay with us and we’ll help you with every step of your new adventure.