What is WordPress?

To get started, WordPress is a program. In other words, a software, an application. But just as Microsoft Word is a word processor, WordPress is a web content manager. To add synonyms we can note that WordPress is an administrator, a platform to create internet sites and work on them over time; and it has virtually no limits on what it allows you to do, but let's take it one step at a time.

cms

You will read a lot that WordPress is one of the best CMS, and free on top. But what is CMS? CMS means exactly what we have been pointing out: an administrator program; for its acronym in English, Content Management System, in Spanish it is literally Content Management System.

Contents

Y what is content? Well, content is everything you see on a website: text, images, video, sound, animations, alerts, buttons, pop-up windows and anything else you come across while browsing the internet. On Facebook, the content is the photos uploaded by its users, the profiles, the comments, etc. On YouTube, the content is mostly video files. In MercadoLibre, the content is the items and services for sale with their photos, descriptions, etc.

Therefore, we have that WordPress is a program of the CMS genre: a tool that allows us —previously counting on a domain and a hosting service— develop, create and manage content on a website. “Domain…? doHosting?”. The domain is the popularized way in which we call the name (or address) from a site (ex: Google.com), and what is hosting We explain it in depth already, being one of the services that we offer as an intrinsic part of the creation of any website.

WordPress is a CMS that allows you to create any type of website

WordPress is a site factory that enables the creation of any type of content and in the most intuitive way possible. It is so powerful and easy, safe and fast that today it is the platform behind a third of all the sites that exist in the world. Google tells us that there are 1,500,000,000 million web pages on the internet, so 500,000,000 are made with WordPress. And it will be for a reason.

Among them, in this ready World-renowned sites may surprise you.

It is interesting to note that WordPress is a product supported by a non-profit foundation: the wordpress foundation, created and maintained by the very father of this CMS, Matt Mullenweg.

Dissecting WordPress

How does WordPress work?

As we said, WordPress is software, and like all software, it is written in some programming language. In this case, WordPress is written in language PHP and for an excellent reason: PHP was conceived to create dynamic sites and, like WordPress, its code is open (meaning that anyone - including you, dear reader - can download a copy to take a look at its programming lines). ; just to satisfy some curiosity of some avid intrigued, the links are East for PHP code, and East for the WordPress one).

What is a dynamic site?

Well today I dare to say that they all are, so it is easier to start with what a dynamic site is NOT: static. A static site implies that its content exists as we see it on the screen. We can think of static content as a Word file. The Word file opens and shows that it has text, photos and tables inside. Meanwhile, a dynamic site, as built by WordPress, collects the visible information from different files, “creating” the content that a user needs at the moment he needs it. Example: If you do a search on YouTube for the word “cat”, YouTube will present you with a page with all the videos related to cats, including a band called Gato, a movie, a username, etc. All that content ordered by "cat" (thumbnails, titles, descriptions, playlists) does not exist in a single place, but rather are pieces of information that the platform behind YouTube collects in the instant after the command of your search in order to to be able to present it to you on the screen.

Another example: when you enter Facebook, you will see the recent posts of your friends, the news of the pages you follow, the stories and even personalized advertising according to your affinities; all that is generated at the moment for you. What you see on the screen are pieces of things that exist scattered on the server, compiled and updated at the moment of your access. All this is “dynamic” content, that is, something that is always changing, always in motion.. As we can see, it is very different from static content, exemplified above by opening a Word file (however, it is worth clarifying that WordPress also allows you to create static-style content, for example showrooms, online catalogs, portfolios, etc.).

Versatility: does WordPress have limits?

Reviewing, we have that WordPress is a free open source software based on PHP that allows you to create dynamic content sites without limits of any kind. Do you want to create a news blog? It can! Do you need an online store? WordPress makes it easy for you. Do you want to manage your restaurant or hotel reservations with WordPress? The same. Do you have a travel agency? WordPress. Do you give online courses? Use WordPress. Do you want to create a personal site with information about your life, your hobbies, your activities or special services? You already know the answer. Then, we can affirm that, except very (very) rare exceptions, WordPress has no limits as to the nature of sites it is capable of creating.

Themes & Plugins

About Themes and Components

A fundamental part of this "site factory" that is WordPress are the themes and plugins. Themes are your best allies, but they are also an inseparable part of this CMS. WordPress doesn't work without a Theme, and the best way to understand it is thinking about clothing. Would you go outside without clothes? Understanding that the normative answer is no, the same thing happens with WordPress: you need clothes to go online.

And themes, like clothes, “dress” WordPress; they give it a face, a hairstyle, a color palette. The theme allows your content to be presented in the most strategic way for your audience. It can be formal, informal, sober, colourful, vital or minimalist. The theme is, in short, the visual way in which WordPress will present your content, and, like all clothing, you can change it (or alter it) whenever you want.

What is a WordPress theme?

So, a theme —also called a 'template'— is the way in which WordPress allows you to condition your site and give it a personality, thus being able to differentiate itself from other sites but mainly by giving it the optimal visual character according to the nature of its content. Because a restaurant site will not be the same as a dog supply store, nor will a life insurance site be compared to the blog of a rock band. You get the idea, right?

WordPress is installed from the factory with several own themes (and free) so you can try, and let's immediately understand that a theme is changed with a mouse click. In other words, and continuing with the example, it takes a person much, much longer to change clothes than WordPress takes to change a theme; having the theme we want to use installed, it happens in microseconds (we explain this in how to change a wordpress theme).

If the themes that WordPress gives you don't convince you, there are thousands of free themes to download and try, and many more that can be purchased in a wide range of prices (from USD5 to USD60). In reality, the theme of your WordPress site will depend on your needs, personal tastes, the time you spend searching for “the perfect theme” and, ultimately, your willingness or preference to invest money in it (at Duplika we create your site customizing and optimizing it by professional web designers so that you never have to worry about any of these aspects).

Summarizing, WordPress uses a theme to condition and give your site the institutional character you want or need for your particular business.

What is a WordPress plugin?

We have mentioned something called a plugin. Here things get even more interesting: plugins are small programs that add specific functionality to a WordPress site. What a plugin can do is practically magic: there are some that speed up your site so that the user experience becomes more immediate, others automatically delete aggressive comments or SPAM, others give you complete statistics about your users, and still others greatly increase the possibilities of personalizing and giving defined aesthetics to your content. Do you need to create custom forms, multiple-choice, dropdown information? There are plugins for that. Do you intend a discussion forum for registered users? It is solved with a plugin. Do you want to display an online calendar for a client to mark the date and time of an interview or book your services? Install some plugin for that. And so.

When it comes to online stores, the number one most used plugin in the web world is, without a doubt, WooCommerce.

The vast majority of plugins are free (in fact, 50,000 are free), although many of them reserve certain premium features for a minimum purchase cost. But again, in general, a WordPress site will not require more than three recommended plugins to increase or improve its capabilities, and, with specific exceptions, you will not have to pay a dime.

The concept of adding functionality through plugins is perfect: why would we want a site whose code includes support for making reservations if we don't offer services or anything like that? Or why do I have an empty online store if my page is a blog about ancient cultures? The idea is that the site is as light as possible, and, therefore, we will only incorporate functionalities that are strictly necessary for our mission or activity.

Looking back, we can say that WordPress bases part of its benefits on the availability of themes (which allow you to modify the way in which you present your information) and plugins (giving virtually unlimited flexibility to what a WordPress site is capable of).

And, nevertheless, we can add another strategic component that has its particular benefits: the 'widgets'.

wordpress widgets

What are Widgets?

Widgets can be thought of as manageable gadgets that we place by dragging and dropping on the relevant area. Each Widget fulfills a specific function: for example, presenting a telephone icon to be called from the site via mobile, or allowing a quick Newsletter subscription form. We usually find Widgets in the sidebars and footer area of a WordPress site, but depending on the theme or plugin, it is possible to use them in other less common sectors.

WordPress comes with some Widgets “out of the box”, such as Categories, Tag Cloud, Navigation Menu, Calendar, Search Bar, and Recent Posts. Many themes bring their own widgets, and, in addition, there are free plugins, such as “Google Maps” or “Random famous phrases”, which add their Widget to your WordPress repertoire.

As we can deduce from this, Widgets are an additional tool that allows us to add useful features to our site without requiring any programming knowledge.

Good Examples of Widgets, to better clarify the idea, are: Weather Widgets (we recommend East), Widget of Google Maps, Customer Reviews Widgets (East is very good), Widgets to publish a table of contents (here), Widgets to publish a calendar of events (East), Navigation widgets (to create a personalized menu by placing links according to your preference; here there is one of the best), and an almost infinite etcetera.

User Profiles: Admins, Editors and Collaborators

Another of the benefits that WordPress has is the ability to create users to assign them various tasks (with specific permissions) within the site. There will always be at least one user, the administrator general (probably you), but then you can generate, and when you need it, an unlimited number of staff members for your WordPress site. These users will have access to what administrators call back end, that is, the virtual office of your site. It is precisely in the back end the place from where content is generated. In other words, the headquarters or heart of the factory.

However, and with good reason, WordPress has the virtue and precaution of putting at your disposal different lessons of users. For example, whoever installs WordPress and starts customizing it will have the role of Administrator. Being an Administrator is just one kind of user; the rest are Editor, Author, Collaborator Y Subscriber. If you create a user for a natural person within your WordPress site under the class Editor, that person will be able to create content, content categories and tags, but not manage themes or plugins. The Editor can modify the content of others editors, Authors Y Collaborators. However, you may not take any action that interferes with the "health" of the site (meaning you do not have access to any theme, plugin or widget settings).

At the next level we have the case of Authors, which can create Posts (blog articles - we'll clarify that later) but not modify what other users have created within your site. One "step below" we find the Collaborators: they can create their content but in a “private” way, that is to say that they can't post (for this they require the approval of any higher category user). Finally, there is the class of Subscribers, who can log in from your website and alter their own profile information; This class can see content on your site that requires, precisely, registered users, but they do not have permission to modify anything (it is one more user who only identifies himself by logging in).

As we have seen, WordPress anticipates and encourages many people with different roles to work on the same site. Also, without colliding with each other, given that in the event that a user is working on a particular content, the rest of the staff can know it within the area that lists all the existing content (and if a person tries to edit a content that is being edited by another, they will receive a warning, and with the correct user rights you can even take control).

Drafting and Designing

How is the content created?

In WordPress there are two variants to add content to the site: the pages and the Tickets.

When WordPress was born, and since it was originally created with the sole purpose of being a “Blog Factory” —versus the current “Any-site-type Factory”—, the only thing a user or administrator could create were Tickets (ie articles). The word 'blog' is a neologism between 'log' Y 'Web‘ (wlog, which due to its sound was derived to a friendlier 'blog'). Log in english it means binnacle, either Registration. In short, we obtain that a Blog is a website where articles are written (Tickets) under a common perspective or gender; a personal, opinion blog; a blog where politics is discussed, home gardening is taught or tips on different pets are provided.

Following this logic, the Tickets they differ from the pages for containing a date of creation (visible), belonging to a Category (of content) and use tags. In a blog about politics, a Entry could belong to Category "geopolitics" and its tags note that the main topics of said note are "Borders" and "Treaties."

post a Entry automatically makes WordPress add it to your rss feed so that subscribers of a site are notified of the existence of new content (feed is an online file that records these events, while sending mail to interested users).

The popularity, but mainly the ease of use and the intrinsic security of WordPress led it in a short time to embrace a second type of content: the pages. The pages, unlike an article (Entry), can be considered more “institutional” supports. typical examples of Page in WordPress are “About Us”, “Site Use Policies”, the Page “Contact” (where we usually find a form), and, of course, the home. Yes sir, in WordPress the homepage is exactly one Page.

To add an example, in Duplika the section where we discuss the advantages of our WordPress plans is a Page. As we mentioned, the pages serve more formal or institutional purposes, and are associated with 'imperishable' content (vs. Tickets, whose writing may be—although not necessarily—more occasional or limited to a particular event or setting, such as a launch, a fair or exhibition, a crisis, or the holidays).

Incidentally, the pages they do not show the date of their creation, they do not contain tags nor are they subject to any Category. The pages They also don't show sidebars (although WordPress allows you to add them in alternative ways).

As we always comment, the intention at Duplika is to be as clear and transparent as possible. Therefore, if having your own WordPress site sounds like something close to studying Mandarin, don't forget to evaluate our service. full WordPress administration. We are here to help you.

How to install WordPress?

WordPress is free and is downloaded from here. We have told you that it is a program, and like any program it must be installed on a computer; in this case, in a server (a computer prepared to maintain and make web pages available to the Internet 24 hours a day, all year round. Read more about this here). Therefore, once you have downloaded the WordPress installation files, you must upload them via a ftp-program to your server.

Downloading WordPress, uploading it to a server and executing the installation IS NOT NECESSARY if you have contracted Duplika hosting (see how to activate wordpress in duplika).

If you intend to attempt the installation yourself, we recommend that you follow the official installation guide at WordPress.org.

“Why do I see two official WordPress sites? WordPress.com and WordPress.org

WordPress has two official sites but their purposes are entirely different. In the place wordpress.com is offered the WordPress hosting service for you to build your website with them. By default, the domain of your site would be in the format YourSite.wordpress.com. Only if you spend money on wordpress.com It will be possible for you to have your own domain and use plugins, themes, and other services that in wordpress.org they are free.

On your side, wordpress.org is the site that offers the free WordPress platform allowing all the benefits that we have been commenting on here.

WordPress benefits

Why is Wordpress better to build your site?

It only remains for them to try it

In conclusion…

The site factory that is WordPress has become the number one CMS in the world and it is well earned. It allows you to build from an opinion blog to an eCommerce store, a hotel site, an online teaching center or whatever you want to create.

If this note has awakened your desire and interest in having your own WordPress site now, you have two ways: download and install WordPress on your server by accessing wordpress.org, O well sending us a message so that we can advise you at no cost. Do not forget: we want to help you.

Success to all, and thanks for reading.