WordPress

WordPress is blogging software that allows a person to quickly and easily setup a website using a simple script that provides a framework to input and publish content on the internet.  WordPress became popular because of its ease of use and search engine optimization right out of the box plus it is regularly updated and now there are thousands of developers continually releasing new themes and plugins to make the basic wordpress blog into a robust fully functional website.  WordPress can be used from everything from basic blogging to ecommerce and entertainment websites.  The functionality and options available to a person using wordpress as their websites backend is very nearly limitless and always expanding.  Another big reason wordpress became popular is that the basic blog script is free and there is the option of either having a blog hosted on WordPress.com or downloading and self hosting the script on your own server allowing for a great deal of freedom.

While you can use the hosted WordPress and not worry about the technical aspects you do lose a bit of control so many people download and install the script on their own hosting.  To do that WordPress requires PHP and MySQL though once you have the script installed you do not need to have any php or mysql knowledge to design and build your website making web design much simplier and eliminating many of the problems people in the past had with building websites.  Now you can simply drag and drop ‘widgets’ into your design or download pre-made ‘themes’ or templates so creating a website becomes very simple and quick.  While you can use the built in editor to alter the websites code directly if you do know php or other web languages it is not necessary.  Another reason WordPress is so popular is that you can give other users limited or unlimited access to create content for your website eliminating another problem many websites run into which is running out of content, now your users or friends can be editors too!  Beyond that WordPress allows basics visitors to leave comments and that can create even more content as well as provide more web 2.0 benefits.

One problem with using blogging scripts including WordPress is that they can pose a security risk to your server.  Especially WordPress because of its popularity it can be a focus of hackers that can cause problems for your website if they gain access.  Even if you don’t get hacked the comment option on wordpress can lead your site to being filled with spam if you don’t utilize the built in protections and monitor your website.  So while building your website with a WordPress script is both quick and easy providing a great deal of benefits there are potential problems that you need to monitor and address though with the rapid development and upgrades of the script most problems can be managed without much more work.  Still it is important to realize that there are limits to all scripts like WordPress and keep regular backup copies of your website in case of problems.