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WordPress is an online, open-source content management system. In much simpler words, it’s a software that allows you to create your own website.
Not by a long shot. There are multiple other software that can be used to create a website. However, WordPress is the most feature-rich and easy-to-use option for both beginners and experts alike.
Pretty much any kind of website you want. WordPress.org offers a lot of options for you to fine tune your site to function exactly like you want it.
About 30% of all the websites on the internet. The White House website is created with WordPress along with the New York Times and Yelp and TechCrunch and Etsy and BBC America and Sony and Beyonce and… a lot of other websites. Trust us, you’re in good company if you choose to use WordPress.
Not even a cent*.
Right. So there are two versions of WordPress, both of which are free in different ways. The first, WordPress.com offers a basic free option but you need to pay for the other plans. The second is WordPress.org, which is entirely free, but you still need to pay for web hosting and a domain name.
The .com version is hosted for you by WordPress whereas you have to host the .org version yourself. It’s why the former is known as hosted WordPress and the latter as self-hosted WordPress.
Web hosting is giving your website and all it’s content a home. It’s where every part of your website will be stored, ready to be displayed when someone visits your website. You will need to pay for web hosting services. There are number of trustworthy companies providing web hosting, but we suggest Bluehost.
A domain (also known as a URL) is your website’s address. It’ll ideally look something like this: www.yourwebsitename.com. You’re going to have to pay for a domain address.
Web hosting? Kind of, maybe. WordPress.com’s free hosts your website with up to 3 gigabytes of storage. Domain name? Yes. WordPress.com’s premium plans come with a free domain name and Bluehost also offers a free domain name when you buy web hosting from them.
Bluehost is WordPress’ official recommended hosting partner. They are a company that provides hosting services for your website with prices starting from $2.75/month.
Nope. Not even a little bit. You can get started with WordPress with absolutely no knowledge of coding whatsoever. WordPress is easy to use and has a host of easy-to-use, drag and drop plugins you can use to customize your website to your liking. That said, if you do know coding, you can put that to use with WordPress, too.
For the WordPress.com version, it’s a five minute process that starts at www.WordPress.com and for the WordPress.org version, it’s a bit more involved and starts with you choosing your web host. Most hosting provides also provide a one-click installation for WordPress.
SEO means “Search Engine Optimization”. It’s a process that you undertake to make your website rank better in search engines like Google, Bing or Yahoo Search. When building a website, especially with the intent to reach an audience, SEO is very important. There are multiple factors that contribute to your SEO ranking.
Yes it is, but it doesn’t do all the work for you. Your SEO will still need to be tweaked and prodded and modified to perform for you. WordPress is set up to make it easier for you to manage your and improve your SEO, but just putting your content in WordPress does nothing.
There are multiple ways, but a good place to start would be the Yoast SEO plugin. It offers options for titles and meta, social links, XML sitemaps and more.
Why not? Your website can be monetized in a number of ways. However, none of these methods are get-rich-quick schemes. They need you to spend some time and effort and then wait patiently for the money to start flowing in.
Like we said, there are a number of ways. A simple point to start would be to take advantage of your website traffic by offering advertising spots or recommending products you are affiliated with. You could also start your own store if you want.
Yup, you can. There is a number of eCommerce plugins that will help you with creating your own online store to sell your products. There are also plugins that allow you to run an auction, if that is the kind of thing you want to do.
Not one that is as in-depth as Facebook or Twitter is, obviously. But it is possible to implement social network features into your website with WordPress plugins. You can also build a website with a discussion board or a forum.
A plugin is a little piece of software that contains new functions that can be added to your WordPress site. They either extend your website’s functionality or add new features or both. They are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly into your WordPress site.
Depends on which version of WordPress we’re talking about. The hosted version – that is, WordPress.com – is not very customizable. Only Business Premium Plan allows plugins and even that is rather limited. The self-hosted version – WordPress.org – is very, very customizable. There are thousands of plugins and WordPress themes you can choose from and edit to make your website look and function exactly like you want.
Yes you can. You can export content from your old blog and then import it to your new WordPress blog.
