What is WordPress?

If you are reading this post, well congratulations you know what WordPress is! Was that the worst explanation ever? WordPress started out as an easy self-hosting blogging site, and today is one of the most popular content management systems that run on PHP. Since it is an open source platform, hundreds of people all over the world work on it, which allows it to be free to use without paying for a licensing fee [1].

What’s so great about WordPress?

I bet you have visited multiples sites in which you admired the site’s template and design (and ability to update content flawlessly) and thought wow their web design department is amazing! Well, hate to break it to you, but 22.5% of all websites are powered by WordPress [2]. I know for me, I never understood how organizations continually updated sections of code with posts, I kept thinking, “wow that html code has to be long”. Silly me, it was probably WordPress based, or created with some other type of CMS. But lets stick with WordPress as it allows for even the novice of users to turn their blog or any other type of website, and even mobile application, into a masterpiece. Which means you don’t have to be a programmer or know one to get an awesome website.

The best part is, most templates and plugins are free, and there are thousands to choose from. Love a theme but want to change the colors? No problem, WordPress is completely customizable which gives you the power to transform it into anything you want. Plus the plugins allow for you to take your website to the next level and will have all your friends thinking you’re a programming genius. (BONUS – WordPress is SEO friendly! [3] )

But most importantly, WordPress is easy to manage. By simply updating posts and entering your content, pre-made themes take the guessing work out of how to layout your site, and design decisions. If you are feeling adventurous and coding your theme from scratch like we are in this class, you can update your site through PHP markup (which at the base level is hardly much code).

What is PHP and do I need to know it to use WordPress?

If you are looking to build your own WordPress template from scratch, then the answer is YES! You need to understand PHP and it’s functions. Especially when it comes to the WordPress Loop otherwise good luck getting your posts to populate :).

Want to now more about PHP & WordPress’s relationship:

http://php.net/manual/en/intro-whatis.php
http://www.wpbeginner.com/glossary/php/

Can you name some of those organization’s sites that you mentioned were WordPress based?

From the WordPress Showcase page: The New York Times, The Walt Disney Company, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, The Clorox Company, Glad. Surely you’ve heard of at least some of those if not all of those companies? To view a complete list of their showcase: https://wordpress.org/showcase/archives/

P.S. Yes, this site is WordPress, coded from from scratch.

Sources:

[1] https://wordpress.org/about/

[2] http://www.wpbeginner.com/why-you-should-use-wordpress/

[3] http://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/properly-seo-functions-wordpress-posts/