Using WordPress to Build a Website
Do you own a business? Well, it’s about time that you had a website to showcase and advertise what you do and how well you do it. When it comes to building a website, there are several options. Some of the work won’t be easy. There’s a learning curve. For the smallest learning curve and also fun during the process, we suggest building your website using WordPress.
What Is WordPress?
For those who don’t know, WordPress is open-source software that can be used to start a blog (WordPress.com, limited functionality), or a self-hosted website (WordPress.org, full functionality). We’ll be speaking about the self-hosted WordPress in this article. While there is some coding knowledge required, it can all be learned as you set up the website.
WordPress comes with everything you need. In fact, it is the most popular content management system around, with almost 60 percent of business websites using WordPress as their platform. Better still, a lot of the themes and the plugins are free to download.
The Advantages of Using WordPress
WordPress has been worked on by hundreds of designers and programmers for years to build a competent platform for anyone to use. It is versatile, expandable, flexible and can grow in any direction that your business wants to grow.
In today’s world of responsive design, WordPress makes it easy to kill two birds with one stone (figuratively speaking). Each website you create is mobile ready. You don’t have to adapt your website later.
The WordPress content management system makes it easy to upload, edit, share and schedule content for your website. Integrating needed plugins is also easier here. And, when you get stuck, there is a community of professionals and novices ready to help with their experiences.
So, What Are You Waiting For?
Before you can get started you will need a name. Your domain name is your address in cyberspace. The name needs to communicate something about your business and be relevant. Register that domain name with your web hosting company. Depending on the size of your website and what it will be used for, choose a hosting company with enough server space to accommodate you now and in the future.
Now it’s time to install WordPress. WordPress.org can walk you through the installation process step-by-step. And, support is always available at any time.
You are ready to begin creating that site. One important feature of WordPress is its plugins. Plugins are like performance enhancers. While frowned upon in sports, they are heavily recruited in website usage. Thousands of plugins can be found in the WordPress directory for download. Here are a few of the many available:
- Contact Form 7 – Easy form for use on your website
- Google XML Sitemaps – Generate a sitemap to help search engines index your site better
- Akismet – Check comments for spam
- Yoast SEO – Improve SEO of your content on the site
- Jetpack – Protect yourself from hackers, check stats and load your website faster
- WooCommerce – Add an e-commerce component to your site seamlessly
Using WordPress as your platform and CMS provides a lot of power and functionality in one place.
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