WordPress needs no introduction. It is the big daddy of all the site builders. More than 80 million websites use WordPress. This number itself is huge. And WordPress reigns as the most popular website management system. WordPress was released in the year 2003, on 23rd May.
There are two different platforms in WordPress. WordPress.org and WordPress.com.
WordPress.org is the name that strikes us when we say blogging. That’s not all. Business, portfolio, photography websites and more can also be created using WordPress. It is the most powerful Content Management System in existence today. About 30% of websites on internet use WordPress according to a report by W3Techs.
Compared to WordPress.com, WordPress.org is the more widely used platform, particularly among those who want more control over their website and its features. While WordPress.com offers a simpler, hosted solution, WordPress.org, the self-hosted version, is favored for its flexibility, customization options, and ability to scale. Let’s check why WordPress.org is one of the most used top website building platforms.
What makes WordPress.org special?
Instead of calling WordPress.org special by pointing out some specific features, I’d rather say WordPress is a whole package that is special. Because you get everything you’d need to build a professional website in this package. Following are the important features that make WordPress.org amazing, as a package.
Open Code Access:
WordPress gives the privilege to access the codes that it runs on. This feature lets anyone with a bit of coding knowledge bend the code a bit and add additional features or modify existing features according to their needs in their website.
A huge collection of plugins:
Plug-ins make life easier. WordPress supports a humungous number of plugins. The open code access of WordPress is hugely beneficial for develops who can create some tools. The ever-growing WordPress plugin library is one of the largest plugin libraries of any website builder in the world. All you’ve got to do is search. And the plug-ins according to our search will be displayed and can be installed on your website.
Themes:
And themes make building a website, just a matter of minutes. You can find several free themes right in WordPress theme window. And you can also install themes that you have downloaded from other sources.
The popularity of WordPress has affected the number and variety of themes too. There are many theme providers that provide both Free and Premium themes. But the thing that has to be remembered is that you will not get 100% customization option in the themes. And some of the features provided by WordPress may be restricted by the theme that you use. Nonetheless, themes save lot of time and efforts
A large professional community:
The popularity of WordPress is such that you can easily find a developer to create manage your website very easily as there are a lot of WordPress developers and in case if you opt to do it yourself, you can find thousands of tutorials online and numerous forums to discuss if there is any hiccup regarding your website.
Mobile Friendly:
The websites created in WordPress are not only mobile friendly for visitors but also for the website owners to manage it. You can access the admin panel from your phone and do all the things that you’d do with your website on your PC. You can post update new posts, you can reply to comments and what not. You can also view stats of your website from your phone.
SEO-friendly:
WordPress is very SEO friendly where you can specify permalinks, assign multiple categories to a post, and you can include tags in your post. Not only this. Adding more power to this feature are the Plug-ins that are very helpful in making your website SEO-friendly.
Multiuser and Multisite Support:
WordPress supports multiple users. Administrator, Editor, Author, Contributor, Subscriber is the default set of user roles. Admin being the most powerful can add new posts, edit any posts by any users on the site, and even delete those posts. He is the one with the power to install themes, plugins, give user permissions etc.
The editor only has control over the content section of the website. An editor has the privilege to add, edit, publish, and delete any posts on a WordPress site including the ones written by others. An editor can moderate, edit, and delete comments too.
An author can only create, update, delete only their posts. Contributors can only add new posts but cannot publish them. Users with the subscriber user role can log in to your WordPress site and update their user profiles. Subscriber’s role is present only if some actions to be made by any visitor require him to log in first..
WordPress.Org v/s. WordPress.Com:
WordPress.Org is the self-hosted variant of the two and you need Web Hosting from a third-party web hosting provider to host the websites created in WordPress. This version is not fully managed by WordPress and you get the ultimate control over it. But ease of use can be an issue. Getting WordPress installed and hosting it is at your hands and it may not always an easy job if you’re a noob.
Read: How to Create a WordPress Website or Blog (Beginner’s Guide)
WordPress.Com is a fully managed version of WordPress and you get the hosting also covered by WordPress. All you have to do is create your website and choose a WordPress hosting plan. Rest everything is taken care of by WordPress. This saves you from doing all the researches to find the perfect hosting partner for you, and the technical stuff may seem a lot more intimidating if you’re a non-techie. Therefore, WordPress.Com is the solution if you are one of those who want everything done with ease.
WordPress.Com Pricing:
The packages are divided into three different plans. Personal is what the first plan is named as, and it costs ₹250/mo. You get a free domain for a year with this plan. And you have to renew it at the regular price after a year. The catch here is that free domains are not given for free. You get Jetpack Essential Features, Email & Live Chat Support, 6GB Storage Space. And you are free from WordPress.com Ads with this plan.
Next up is the Premium plan that is a slight upgrade over the Personal plan. This plan costs you ₹350/mo. The huge upgrade here is that, you can sell on your website with payments made easier with a simple PayPal button. You can also monetize your website through their AdWords program and make money. You also get VideoPress support, using which you can upload videos to your website and display them using a fast, unbranded, customizable player with rich stats.
Then there is the most advanced plan of the three, which also is the costliest at ₹800/mo. In addition to all the features provided in the other two plans, you get plenty of more features for the extra bucks that you shell out. For an advanced and faster sitewide search, you get JetPack search. You also get plenty of SEO tools to up your SEO game.
And now let’s discuss the elephant in the room. That is, you don’t get the option to install any third-party theme or plugins if you’re having a Personal or Premium plan. That feature is made available only in the Business plan. You can install third party themes and custom plug-ins only if you spend ₹800/mo. And to track your website’s performance and behavior, you get Google analytics integrated with your website.
Read– WordPress.com vs WordPress.org: Which is Better? to know more detailed about the differences between the two platforms.
Conclusion:
WordPress is the most flexible website builder out there. It can be used to build any kind of website based on the themes and the plugins that you select. It is fully loaded with all the necessary features. But the drawback here is, beginners may find the setup process bit hard and pricing could’ve been more value for money.
For more detailed WordPress review, click here.
Priyanka Sharma