Whether you’re setting up a personal blog, corporate website or ecommerce store, the age of hand-coded websites built on static HTML and CSS is over.
Nowadays, you can install a Content Management System (CMS) within minutes to publish a sleek looking, fully functional website that takes care of all of your online needs. This includes news sites, photo galleries, video sites and ecommerce.
What is a CMS?
A Content Management System (CMS) is a computer program that allows publishing, editing and modifying content for a site. The CMS is essentially the “backend” of a website. It’s where you can edit content, publish articles and change the appearance or settings of your site. All major websites require a CMS where employees are able to change and organise the content of the site.
Wikipedia.com is an example of a “wiki” CMS that enables the public to add, edit and contribute content to the site.
Why Choose WordPress as your CMS?
WordPress (often abbreviated to WP) is by far the most popular CMS and the best choice for beginners. Its simplicity, easiness to install and the wealth of free plugins, add-ons and support make it a great choice for your site.
More than 20% of websites are powered by WordPress (more than 77 million) including well-known sites such as TechCrunch.com, CNN.com and TED.com.
1. Quick and Easy to Install
Once you’ve chosen your domain and hosting, you can install WordPress and have a site up and running within a matter of minutes. The biggest domain and hosting registrars such as Godaddy.com, NameCheap.com and BlueHost.com all provide one-click installation for WordPress, which shows how easy it is to install.
To see how easy it is to install wordpress, you can view our tutorial: how to install WordPress on your site.
2. User Friendly
WordPress has a user-friendly, simple interface that only takes 20-30 minutes to get used to. The interface is built for beginners. You don’t need to have knowledge of programming or using a CMS before in order to get to grips with it.
For instance, rudimentary tasks such as adding new pages, editing posts, installing new theme designs or changing the menu items can be done within just a few clicks. The following image shows the backend of WikiWeb.com, specifically this article being edited:
3. Free Open Source Software with Unlimited Support, Themes and Plugins
WordPress has almost unlimited plugins, features and support to help you build your perfect site.
For example, sites such as ThemeForest.net have thousands of free WP themes to choose, Elance.com has thousands of professional coders with experience working on WP, and the WordPress.org site has 10,000’s of free plugins you can install to make your site perform the way you want.
Examples of plugins that you can install on your site include the Woocommerce Plugin (allows you to build a fully functional ecommerce site on), Yoast SEO (the comprehensive solution to on-page SEO for your site), WASSUP (free analytics report tool) and more.
4. Flexibility – Suitable for News, Blogs, Reviews, Membership, Games and eCommerce Websites
Once you’ve installed WordPress, you can customize your site’s functionality and design to meet any of your business needs.
For example, you can install WP themes and plugins that turn your site into a corporate agency site, ecommerce store, membership site, education, news site or personal blog. You can even power comparison sites, forums and educational communities on the WordPress CMS.
5. SEO Friendly
WordPress is 100% SEO-friendly and has a number of really useful plugins to improve your SEO. This ranges from SEO friendly themes, Yoast SEO and breadcrumbs to plugins that help reduce your site loading speed and improve your internal link structure. For more information, read our article “best SEO plugins for wordpress”.