WordPress Blog and CMS

WordPress is a Content Management System and but it is better known as a Blogging platform. It’s actually far more powerful than that.

With WordPress you can build a complete website with hundreds of static (stand-alone) pages. You can also build a site that provides basic blogging capability if you want. You can build sites using simple tools that anyone can use or you can get under the hood and get complete control of the site if you have the skills.

WordPress is Open Source

The unique thing about WordPress is that it is an Open Source program. This means that it is free and developers provide components and add-ons to the system free of charge.

For a software program to be open source, it has to meet two basic qualifications

  1. The author has to provide full access to its source code
  2. The software has to be accompanied by a license that protects the contributions and rights of the community.

Here’s what WordPress says on its website…

WordPress started in 2003 with a single bit of code to enhance the typography of everyday writing and with fewer users than you can count on your fingers and toes. Since then it has grown to be the largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world, used on millions of sites and seen by tens of millions of people every day.

Everything you see here, from the documentation to the code itself, was created by and for the community. WordPress is an Open Source project, which means there are hundreds of people all over the world working on it. (More than most commercial platforms.) It also means you are free to use it for anything from your cat’s home page to a Fortune 500 web site without paying anyone a license fee and a number of other important freedoms.

This is all very nice… but does it work?

The answer is yes!,

The software and the interface work extremely well. In fact this website was built using WordPress. It clearly offers a very easy-to-use platform for building a website. However, to actually turn that website into a complete, successful online business you’ll need to not only understand some basics of online marketing, but you’ll also need some more tools and enhancements to your WordPress site.

Enhancing Your WordPress Site

Because a WordPress site is “extensible” you can easily add functionality to your site. Through Plugins you can add such things as contact forms, RSS feed enhancement, advertising services, search engine optimization, and much more.

You can even change the look and feel of your site with a click of a button using the Appearance feature that lets you choose how your site will look from thousand of free templates. You can also buy professionally designed “themes” from developers if you don’t find a free one you like. Chances are you will.

What WordPress Does Not Include

“Out of the box” WordPress includes everything you need to build the website. But as we’ve said many times, building the actual site is only part of the process. You’ll also need…

  • Keyword Research Tools
  • Search Engine Optimization
  • Site Promotional Tools and Tactics
  • An Autoresponder (if you want to develop a customer list and send emails to them)
  • A Monetization Strategy

So to actually have a successful online business you’ll need to know how to shape your WordPress site into a full online business. WordPress does not come with the instruction or tools for how to do this. This is where WordPress is very different than Site Build It.

This is not to say that you can’t find those tools on the Internet. They are there. But if you don’t know you need them how can you understand how to find them.

For example…

WordPress has very limited Search Engine Optimization tools built into it. Of course, there are Plugins available that add most everything you need to create a fully-optimized site, but unless you understand a little about SEO then you won’t know to add that plugin and may not know how to set it up correctly. The more you already understand about online marketing and the correct way to build a website the better you can use the WordPress sitebuilding tool.

So Is WordPress Right For Me?

If you already understand a bit about online marketing and the correct way to build a website then you may be ready to build a WordPress site. If you pick up a book like WordPress for Dummies you can probably learn everything you need to know there. I used that book myself when I first decided to build a WordPress site. It’s really quite good inspite of the “Dummies” designation. If you’ve used any of the “Dummy” books you know they are actually quite good.

WordPress.org Versus WordPress.com

You actually have two choices for how to build a WordPress site.

WordPress.com

WordPress offers a “hosted” version of their system. By that it means your site would be hosted on WordPress.com. You would actually be given a “subdomain” of their site which means you’d end up with a http://yourdomain.wordpress.com type of domain name. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Those types of site still do get traffic when built correctly. The only limitation of this approach is you won’t get the full range of Plugins and Themes you’d be able to find with WordPress.org.

Again this is entirely free. You don’t pay for the domain and you pay no hosting fees. This is a great way to learn about blogging and how to use a CMS.

WordPress.org

With the WordPress.org you install the WordPress software on your own domain that you have hosted wherever you want. This gives you complete control of site enhancements and choosing domain names so you’ll have a much more professional web presence in Google’s eyes. Most good web hosts, like BlueHost, offer a very simple “one click” install of WP once you’ve registered a domain and created an “Addon Domain” on the host. If you are serious about building an online business this is the better way to go.

By the way, the WordPress software you install on your site is entirely free. You only pay for your hosting and for domain registration (usually less than $10).