WordPress is a commonly used content management system/blogging platform. It is currently the most popular CMS in the world, powering almost 25% of all new websites being built. WordPress is a great choice for anyone who is new to building or running a website. WordPress has a rare combination of great functionality, ease of use and a very reasonable cost.

Let’s talk about cost right off the bat. It is a pretty easy subject to cover actually. WordPress is a whopping $0. That’s right, WordPress is totally free and released under the GPL license. On top of that, you can also choose to use WordPress.com for your hosting solution. With WordPress.com you can build your website using WordPress and it is hosted on their powerful serversÉall for free! For maximum flexibility though, most users will want a self hosted solution. This is still relatively cost effective. Basic users will be able to run their WordPress site on a $10/month budget host like Bluehost. All you need besides that is a $10 a year domain name. For that relatively low cost, you can run your own self hosted WordPress blog. Continue reading →

It’s a fair statement to say that most people think of WordPress (commonly abbreviated as WP) as being primarily a blogging platform. And while it is true that it works quite well for that; understanding WordPress means having a better idea of all it can do. Here are a few things that make it an ideal choice for many different types of sites.

Flexibility is one of the most attractive features of the WordPress platform. You can set up WP as a blog, to share content, as a membership site, or to sell products and services. Because it was originally set up for blogging, it’s really easy to allow your customers to share comments with you; however, you can just as easily turn this feature off if you like. The amount of customizing that can be done is nearly endless. Beginners can quickly make some basic changes to make their site unique, but WordPress is also robust enough to allow advanced users to make even more changes. Much of this can be done through the dashboard, but more intricate changes will require changing the code; which brings us to the next point… Continue reading →