Lisa Sabin-Wilson - WordPress For Dummies

There used to be a program from Microsoft called FrontPage that was the first visual interface for creating websites that I saw. It worked like Word or Publisher, so with very little knowledge, I was able to hack together the worlds worst website in just a few hours without worrying about what was going on under the hood.

Years later when I look back at that website, I cringe, but at the time it was incredibly empowering. The software, though crude, helped me publish something anybody in the entire world could see. It opened up a world I had never imagined before.

Now, using software like WordPress, you can have a blog or website light years beyond my first one in both functionality and aesthetics. However, just as my first web experience whetted my appetite for more, I hope that your experience entices you to explore the thousands of free plugins, themes, and customizations possible with WordPress, many of which are explained inthis book.

WordPress is more than just software; it is a community, a rapidly evolving ecosystem, and a set of philosophies and opinions about how to create the best web experience. When you embrace it, youll be in good company. WordPress users include old media organizations such as CNN, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal, along with millions of personal bloggers like myself for whom a WordPress blog is a means of expression.

Matt Mullenweg
Cofounder of WordPress

Chapter 1

In This Chapter

Seeing how WordPress can benefit you

Participating in the WordPress community

Understanding the different versions of WordPress

In a world in which technology advances in the blink of an eye, WordPress is blogging made easy and free! How else can you get your message out to a potential audience of millions worldwide and spend exactly nothing? There may be no such thing as a free lunch in this world, but you can bet your bottom dollar that there are free blogs. WordPress serves them all up in one nifty package.

The softwares free price tag, its ease of use, and the speed at which you can get your blog up and running are great reasons to use WordPress to power your personal or business blog. An even greater reason is the incredibly supportive and passionate WordPress community. In this chapter, I introduce you to the WordPress software so that you can begin to discover how effective it is as a tool for creating your blog or website.

I work with first-time bloggers all the time folks who are new to the idea of publishing on the Internet. One of the questions Im most frequently asked is How can I run a blog? I dont even know how to code or create websites.

Enter WordPress. You no longer need to worry about knowing the code because the WordPress blogging software does the code part for you. When you log in to your blog, you have to do only two simple things to publish your thoughts and ideas:

1. Write your post.
2. Click a button to publish your post.

Thats it!

WordPress offers the following competitive advantages as the most popular blogging tool on the market:

• Diverse options: Two versions of WordPress are available to suit nearly every type of blogger:
  • WordPress.com: A hosted turnkey solution
  • WordPress.org: A self-hosted version to install on the web server of your choice

  I go into detail about each of these versions later in this chapter, in the section.

• Ease of use: WordPress setup is quick, and the software is easy to use.
• Extensibility: WordPress is extremely extensible, meaning that you can easily obtain plugins and tools that let you customize it to suit your purposes.
• Strong community of users: WordPress has a large and loyal members-helping-members community via public support forums, mailing lists, and blogs geared to the use of WordPress.