{"id":6421,"date":"2021-10-05T14:14:18","date_gmt":"2021-10-05T14:14:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elementor.com\/academy\/?p=6421"},"modified":"2024-05-15T08:46:57","modified_gmt":"2024-05-15T05:46:57","slug":"introduction-to-wordpress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elementor.com\/academy\/introduction-to-wordpress\/","title":{"rendered":"An Introduction to WordPress"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Almost <a href=\"https:\/\/elementor.com\/resources\/how-to\/create-business-website\/\">every business<\/a> has a website, and many users start their own personal blogs and sites too. <a href=\"https:\/\/elementor.com\/wordpress\/\">WordPress<\/a> is the leading platform for getting your site from your mind onto the web, with the least fuss. It has a huge market share (over 43% of the web), and is open-source \u2014 so anyone can use it freely as well as contribute to the platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this first lesson, you\u2019ll learn all about what WordPress is, why it exists, and the competition it faces. Let\u2019s Get Started!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What WordPress Is (And Some Misconceptions)&nbsp;<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/elementor.com\/wordpress\/\">WordPress<\/a> is a way to create websites in an open-source, modular ecosystem. It\u2019s known as a Content Management System (CMS), which means you get an intuitive way to create and manage your posts and pages of your website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"571\" src=\"https:\/\/elementor.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/f=auto,w=1024,h=1024\/academy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/wordpress-posts-1024x571.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6422\" srcset=\"https:\/\/elementor.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/f=auto,w=1024\/academy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/wordpress-posts-1024x571.png 1024w, https:\/\/elementor.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/f=auto,w=300\/academy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/wordpress-posts-300x167.png 300w, https:\/\/elementor.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/f=auto,w=768\/academy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/wordpress-posts-768x428.png 768w, https:\/\/elementor.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/f=auto,w=1536\/academy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/wordpress-posts-1536x857.png 1536w, https:\/\/elementor.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/f=auto,w=2048\/academy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/wordpress-posts-2048x1142.png 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>It comes full-featured out of the box, but is also extendable. There are two ways to do this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Themes &#8211;<\/strong> These dictate the look of your site, although some also provide extra functionality.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Plugins &#8211;<\/strong> This is how you extend the functionality of your site, and the plugin ecosystem is huge. You\u2019ll be able to find a plugin for any practical application and might need.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Since WordPress is an open-source platform, you\u2019re also able to develop your site using any coding skills you have. In other words, its full code is available to view and download for free, and contributors across the globe keep improving the offering. You\u2019re also able to use WordPress for any purpose \u2014 we\u2019ll talk about this in another lesson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Some Misconceptions of WordPress<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s worth taking a few moments to touch on what WordPress is <em>not<\/em>. This can help you understand how this CMS fits into the wider ecosystem and space:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>WordPress doesn\u2019t cost anything.<\/strong> This is a slight exaggeration. The core software is free forever, as are thousands of plugins and themes. Though, you\u2019ll still need to pay for hosting, a domain, premium themes and plugins if necessary, and a few other elements to run a website, including maintenance. This is something we\u2019ll get into in another lesson.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Every aspect of WordPress is easy to use.<\/strong> Yes, the basics of WordPress are easy to learn. Though, there are lots of deeper aspects of WordPress that require thought. It\u2019s not a <em>hard<\/em> platform to learn and use per se, but it\u2019s powerful with a codebase to match.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Self-hosted WordPress and WordPress.com are the same platform.<\/strong> This is a common misunderstanding. <a href=\"https:\/\/elementor.com\/blog\/what-is-wordpress\/\">WordPress.com<\/a> and WordPress.org (i.e. self-hosted WordPress) are not the same thing. The former is a commercial venture by Automattic. While there is lots of cross-over, the latter is an open-source solution with a wide-ranging community who helps to develop the platform.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>This final point gives us a good opportunity to talk about where WordPress has come from. Let\u2019s go over this in the next section.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A (Brief) History of WordPress<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>WordPress was first released in 2003. The goal for co-creators Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little was to provide a stable and well-maintained platform for publishing websites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So far, there have been five major \u2018point\u2019 versions released, with a slew of minor releases too. The major releases often push WordPress\u2019 evolution. For example, WordPress 3.0 brought custom menu management; Version 5.0 introduced the Block Editor. You can find these enhancements and feature upgrades all through WordPress\u2019 history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Over the years, WordPress has increased its scope and security. While the platform was simple at first, you\u2019re now able to achieve the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Use custom themes to \u2018skin\u2019 your site, for better look and feel or advanced functionality.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Add even greater functionality with plugins, than just text and images.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Use \u2018Custom Post Types\u2019 to create content with a specific focus, such as a restaurant menu, or a recipe post.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Organize and collate your content using a flexible \u2018taxonomy\u2019 system, comparable to labeling.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>There\u2019s much more in the WordPress box we can (and will!) unpack throughout this course and future ones. For now, we\u2019ll discuss why WordPress is here in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Benefits of Using WordPress<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>There are lots of positives in using the WordPress platform to publish your website. In the future, we\u2019ll go into more detail and these and other great elements of WordPress:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>You\u2019re able to publish your site fast, and without fuss.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>WordPress is secure, and continues to implement modern techniques and standards for publishing on the web.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The ecosystem is enormous, with thousands of themes and useful plugins available to download.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The community is also huge, and there are lots of developers on hand to help with almost all aspects of using the platform.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>You have almost unlimited scope for using WordPress and building your site. In other words, it\u2019s fully scalable for any sized project, and is used by some of the biggest enterprises in the world.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>You don\u2019t have to have any coding knowledge to use the platform, but you\u2019re still able to harness the full functionality when required.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>In short, WordPress is flexible, scalable, powerful, and cost-effective. Combined, you have the ultimate platform for creating a website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">WordPress Compared to Website Builder Platforms<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Of course, WordPress isn\u2019t the only platform on the market for publishing your website. There are also premium options to a self-hosted open-source CMS such as WordPress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Website builder platforms look to provide an all-in-one solution for getting a site online. They behave like WordPress in some ways, but you often lose some freedom along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example, with WordPress, your content remains yours. With some of the premium alternatives which are not open source, you\u2019re not able to export any of your site, which makes it difficult to take your site with you if you want to switch environments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Should I Use WordPress?&nbsp;<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>On the whole, WordPress is flexible, scalable, and extendable. It can provide a simplified blog content management experience or everything you need to build the most complex websites around &#8211; and you can do it by fully coding your project or visually editing it into life using available builders.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What\u2019s more, the open source platform lets you manage your data and content however you wish to. We think this makes it the best solution for publishing your site regardless of your goals, and why we want to teach you the ins and outs of the platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Wrapping Up<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Congratulations on beginning the Getting Started course! This first lesson talks about what WordPress is in a general sense, its functionality, some of the other aspects of the platform, and the competition. As we work through the upcoming lessons, you\u2019ll better understand some of these concepts, and gear towards launching your first website over WordPress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you have any questions about the concepts in this lesson, feel free to reach out. We\u2019ll see you in lesson two!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Almost every business has a website, and many users start their own personal blogs and sites too. WordPress is the leading platform for getting your site from your mind onto the web, with the least fuss. It has a huge market share (over 43% of the web), and is open-source \u2014 so anyone can use [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":6890,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-setting-up"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>An Introduction to WordPress: Elementor<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Almost every business has a website. In this lesson, you\u2019ll learn about what WordPress is, why it exists, and the competition it faces. Let\u2019s Get Started!\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/elementor.com\/academy\/introduction-to-wordpress\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"An Introduction to WordPress: Elementor\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Almost every business has a website. In this lesson, you\u2019ll learn about what WordPress is, why it exists, and the competition it faces. 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