WordPress is a Web-based software program that can used to build and maintain a website or blog. It was originally intended as an easy way to set up a blog. But, thanks to the efforts of a large "open source" community of WordPress programmers working to extend and improve its capabilities, WordPress has become much more than just a tool for bloggers.WordPress is used by over 14% of the 1,000,000 biggest websites.
WordPress has a web template system using a template processor. Users can re-arrange widgets without editing PHP or HTML code; they can also install and switch between themes. The PHP and HTML code in themes can also be edited for more advanced customizations. WordPress also features integrated link management; a search engine-friendly, clean permalink structure; the ability to assign nested, multiple categories to articles; and support for tagging of posts and articles. Automatic filters are also included, providing standardized formatting and styling of text in articles (for example, converting regular quotes to smart quotes). WordPress also supports the Trackback and Pingback standards for displaying links to other sites that have themselves linked to a post or article. Finally, WordPress has a rich plugin architecture which allows users and developers to extend its functionality beyond the features that come as part of the base install.
Currently WordPress is one of the most popular web blogging software. It is the most common choice for blog users because it provides:
Today's WordPress is really a Content Management System (CMS), which means that it can be used to run full-sized, social media-rich business websites.
WordPress designs are based on "Themes":Themes are composed of images and cascading style sheet (CSS) webpage layouts, and this makes it very easy for us to customize the look and feel of a WordPress site using a pre-existing Theme and a new page layout created in Photoshop (or a layout imported into Photoshop from a QuarkXPress PDF, an Acrobat PDF, InDesign PDF, etc.). On the low-end of the design scale, you can basically drop a company's logo into the top corner of the page and you are good to go!
WordPress software allows anyone to create and edit new web pages and blog "posts" using only a web browser:No knowledge of HTML or other code is required. The WordPress editing interface is very easy to use. It works a lot like simple word-processing software. And, the site administrator can grant various levels of access to others, allowing them to contribute to the website/blog. Because the interface is web-based, creating and editing pages can be done from anywhere with an Internet connection.
The blogging features in WordPress allow you to update your website/blog frequently, to receive and respond to comments from your readers, and to allow others to subscribe to your site content using RSS:This is great for your human customers and potential customers. It is also great for search engines, because search engines love fresh content.
Search engine optimization and Social media:There are many more features of a WordPress website or blog that make it much, much better than a traditional "static", "brochure-style" website (i.e., built once and never updated after that) when it comes to search engine optimization and social media. And many of these features are taken care of automatically, requiring little or no effort (or programming skill) on your part.
WordPress layouts and site presentations are done with themes that make it very easy to change the way your website looks. There are several designs available on the themes site of WordPress.org, all of which are free to download and use.
There are some websites out there that sell great themes. I suggest you check the template code to get an understanding of how they work. If you buy a commercial theme, you will get access to tutorials that show you how to get the most out of your purchase. And for a website like this one, you will need to change some items in the theme.
Plugins are extensions for the WordPress software that can help overcome some limitations of the blogging software by helping extend it's possibilities.
Obviously, there are some plugins needed to optimize your website for search engines
Or, if you just want your own private website, I recommend you install Xampp on your local PC and run everything from there� this will cost you nothing!