What is WordPress? A Simple Guide for Beginners
Have you heard of WordPress but still aren't quite sure what it is or how it works? This article will help you understand the basics of WordPress — in plain language and step by step.
What is WordPress?
At its core, WordPress is the simplest and most popular way to build your own website or blog. In fact, more than 43.6% of all websites on the internet are built on WordPress. Yes — more than one in three of the websites you visit is most likely running on WordPress.
On a slightly more technical level, WordPress is an open-source content management system licensed under GPLv2, which means anyone can use or modify the WordPress software for free.
A content management system is essentially a tool that lets you easily manage important aspects of your site, such as content, without knowing anything about programming. The end result is that WordPress makes building a website accessible to everyone — even people who aren't developers.
What kinds of websites can you build with WordPress?
Many years ago, WordPress was mainly a tool for building a blog rather than a more traditional website. That hasn't been true for a long time now, though. Today, thanks to changes to the core code as well as WordPress's massive ecosystem of plugins and themes, you can build any kind of website with WordPress — a business website, a blog, an e-commerce store (for example with WooCommerce), a portfolio page, a forum, a CV page, a membership site, and anything else you can imagine.
WordPress.org vs. WordPress.com
Most of the time, when people say "WordPress," they mean self-hosted WordPress.org. If you want to truly own your site, self-hosted WordPress.org is almost always the better choice. All you need to do to get started is get a hosting service and a domain name.
Popular websites built with WordPress
WordPress is used by individuals, large companies, and everyone in between — and it's worth noting upfront that we use WordPress too! In fact, the very site you're looking at right now runs on WordPress. Here are a few of our favorite examples.
Runs its official blog and separate product blogs — Windows and Skype.
Publishes game release announcements, updates, and developer interviews without writing complex code.
Uses WordPress for easy content management, customizable design, SEO optimization and security — so it can focus on its mission: spreading ideas.
Why should you use WordPress?
More than 43.6% of all websites on the internet use WordPress, including well-known organizations like the White House and Microsoft. But why should you use WordPress? Here are the five biggest reasons.
Free and open-source
You'll never have to pay just to use the WordPress software, unlike alternatives such as Squarespace.
Countless plugins
More than 50,000 free plugins and 5,000 free themes — plus plenty of paid options.
Easy to install
Most hosting providers offer pre-installed WordPress or a few-click installation.
Flexible and scalable
Suitable for small personal sites as well as large enterprise platforms with high traffic and multilingual support.
Installing WordPress, for example in the Hostinger panel
Clients create a new WordPress site Hostinger panel by selecting "Website list" in the sidebar menu and then clicking Add Website in the top-right corner. In the dropdown menu, you can choose to create a new site or start migrating an existing one.
So, what is WordPress? It's the best way to build a website!
WordPress is the most popular way to build a site, for good reason. If you want to build any kind of site, from a blog to an e-commerce store, WordPress is a great choice.
Just remember that self-hosted WordPress.org and WordPress.com are not the same thing. And in most cases, it's self-hosted WordPress.org that you'll want to build on — it gives you more ownership, as well as access to all the benefits of the WordPress community.
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