What is WordPress?

1 May 2023

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WordPress is a so-called CMS (Content Management System) that allows you to easily create a website. You can write pages and news items, add images and publish them on the worldwide web with a few mouse clicks.

Note that we are talking about the version of WordPress.org that you can install yourself on a server.
* We are not talking here about the rental version of wordpress.com

The WordPress community

The large WordPress community, or the large number of users communicating on forums about the use and operation of WordPress is the great strength behind WordPress.
Common questions and even more complicated ones are answered.

The free themes & Plug-ins

The large number of free themes (the layout of the website) and plug-ins allow you to expand the WordPress website in any way you want.
From webshop to forum, from video site to corporate website…. everything is possible.

WordPress through the years

WordPress was developed in 2013 and has continued to evolve, initially WordPress was used as a weblog, for blogging. Several large companies started using WordPress and after it became known that WordPress is so good to use they more and more companies started using WordPress to realize the corporate website.

Interesting developments

Over the years, Automattic – the company that created WordPress – has added many interesting developments to WordPress.

1. A CSS Customizer
   This code editor allows you to make adjustments to the styling of your website and view them live while coding.
2. Custom Fields
   Custom Fields allow you to deploy text fields, checkboxes, dropdowns and more in posts and pages.
3. Youtube
   You can embed a link from Youtube in a post or page, wordpress will turn it into an embedded video itself. This also works with many other platforms.
4. Theme preview If you want a new design, a different look using a new theme you can preview it without actually having to install the theme.
   You can thus preview multiple themes without having to turn your website upside down each time.

Some popular plug-ins for WordPress

The large number of free plug-ins has made WordPress the most popular CMS system in the world. Here are some plug-ins that are widely used.

• WooCommerce – Transform your WordPress site into an online store with WooCommerce
• Yoast SEO – Control how your website shows up in google
• Contact form 7 – Add a contact form or quote form to your website.
• Mailchimp – Collect email addresses and create newsletters
• Loco translate – Translate your website for visitors

Securing your WordPress website

Your website can be seen from anywhere in the world, accessed as a person, hacker and with a hacking script.

Just as Windows has had several viruses over the years, so has WordPress (and especially its plugins), but squared as your website can be accessed OVERALL as mentioned, unlike a computer that can only be seen and used by you.

Therefore, it is important to secure your website with iThemes or WordFence.
Or another security plugin that can be found in the plugin list of WordPress Plugins.

The security of WordPress as a system

WordPress as a system is secure and is often provided with updates to ensure that security, and patches and security releases appear with great regularity. but as with Windows, the user and ignorance is the risk. And so WordPress security sometimes gets negative press.
Too many plugins, easily guessed passwords and failure to update in a timely manner create security problems.

Using WordPress as a webshop with the WooCommerce plugin

The WooCommerce plugin allows you to set up an excellent webshop. In fact, it’s pretty easy!

Tip: Read up before you get started, of course. Take the time to go through the installation steps.

WooCommerce is open source, free of charge. Several plugins or payment providers do cost monthly cents, by the way, but you decide which ones you want to use.

Creating a great business website with WordPress

There are technically little to no limits to using WordPress for large companies. You can effortlessly deploy hundreds of users, hundreds to thousands of pages, posts or products.

Just determine in advance exactly what you expect from the website when you set it up. Do research on what plug-ins you need. Check quietly that the code of different plug-ins does not clash.

Speed and SEO of WordPress

The speed of WordPress is good. WordPress runs on PHP and MySql, these are proven techniques that have been used more and more effectively over the years. Especially with php 7+, great advances have been made in website loading speed.

The code is light, and if needed you can even use 1 of the many caching plug-ins for an extra bit of speed. (Note: 1 caching plugin because multiple at once causes lag and problems)

For the SEO, you can use Yoast SEO. This allows you to set what meta description Google should show. If you do not use an SEO plugin, Google will take the title of a post and the first findable text of a page or post.

Conclusion WordPress

WordPress is versatile to use. But handle it properly. Secure your WordPress website against hackers and bots so you can enjoy it for a long time.