Wordpress 2023 A Beginners Guide : Design Your Own Website With WordPress 2023

An Overview of History

In the early days, websites were hand-built using a code called Hypertext Markup Language, or HTML for short. To create good-looking websites, you needed to be something of a geek. Tools like Macromedia Dreamweaver (now owned by Adobe) and Microsoft FrontPage (discontinued in 2006) were developed to reduce the learning curve associated with building an HTML website, but these tools were expensive.

In May 2003, Matt Mullenweg & Mike Little released a tool that would change the face of website building forever. They called it WordPress. I have to admit I was a little reluctant to give up my copy of Dreamweaver, but in 2004 I started to experiment with the WordPress platform. At that time, WordPress was just starting to get interesting with the introduction of plugins. We’ll look at those later in the book, but for now, just understand that plugins are an easy and pain-free way of adding great new functionality to your website without needing any programming skills.

Fast-forward to today, and WordPress is now the site-building tool of choice for many professionals and enthusiasts alike. Home businesses run by moms & dads, school kids running blogs about their favorite bands, large corporations, and everyone in between have all turned to WordPress. It’s extremely powerful, flexible, produces very professional looking websites or blogs, is relatively easy to use, and perhaps best of all, it’s free. Sure, there is a learning curve, but that is where I come in.

With years of experience teaching technical stuff in an easy to understand manner, I am going to take you by the hand and guide you as you construct your very own professional looking website or blog, even if you know absolutely nothing about how to go about this. The only thing you need to know is how to use a web browser. If you have ever searched Google for something, you already have the skills necessary to follow this book.

I have made this book a step-by-step, visual guide to creating your website. Just follow along with the exercises, and in no time at all, you’ll be using WordPress like a pro. You’ll build a website you can be proud to show your family and friends. They will probably start asking YOU to help them build their website.

Excited? OK, let’s get on with it.

A Historical Overview

I do not recommend you just sit down and read this book. The problem is that a lot of this book describes processes you need to do on your computer. If you try to read without following along on your computer, you will get lost and not be too sure what I am talking about.

This book is a hands-on tutorial. To get the most out of it, I recommend that you sit at your computer with the book open in front of you and follow along as you work your way through.

I’ll use screenshots in the book that best demonstrate the point. These may be from a couple of my real sites or a demo site installed on my computer.

Whenever I do something on my demo site, you should try it on your site. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes; just have fun and experiment with WordPress. Mistakes can easily be undone or deleted, and anyway, most of us learn better by making a few blunders along the way.

By the end of this book, you will have a solid understanding of how WordPress works and how you can get it to do what YOU want it to do. If you decide to take your WordPress knowledge to the next level, you’ll have an excellent foundation to build on.

Towards the end of the book is a chapter called Building 3 Site Models. This section will highlight WordPress's flexibility as a site creation tool by showing you how to use WordPress to build a typical website, a business site, and a blog. I’ll provide you with links to videos showing demo site builds for these three types of websites using WordPress. Use these videos together with the content of this book to design the type of site you want.

WordPress updates and modifications?

When this book was written, the current version of WordPress was 5.6. However, the WordPress ecosystem changes a lot, and while most of these changes will be minor (you may not even notice them), some bigger changes can happen. After this book is published, there isn’t much I can do to notify you of these changes. Therefore, I have set up a page on my website for book owners so that updates, changes, and issues can be listed. If something in the book does not look right

Introduction

Without even any coding experience, WordPress is an Open Source System, a medium you could use to create and operate a website. You can tailor almost every part of your site with this platform.

Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little developed the first edition of WordPress in 2003. It started as a simple forum for individuals who wish to create simple blogs and launch it online. Fortunately, with time, it has evolved into a versatile, effective instrument for almost any sort of website to be developed.

With WordPress, you won't be disappointed if you want to create your own website. Over 37% of all websites in the world are powered by this versatile, efficient Content Management System (CMS), making it the biggest web hosting service provider network.

Nevertheless, it can be daunting at first sight, much like a transportation security officer. Surprisingly, it is so much simpler to comprehend than the today's security procedures in almost every part of the world. You'll easily find yourself equipped to build a great website in maybe ten minutes with perhaps a basic description. Plus, you can configure it to suit your exact specifications and objectives without having to take off your sneakers!

The first element about WordPress you have to realize is that it is an open-source software. If you are not aware of the term, it simply means that the site is not limited unless you are aware of it. It is not limited by patents or trademarks and is openly downloadable and modification by anybody under the GNU (General Public License). This ensures that a devoted group creates and retains the WordPress.

This is an exciting benefit for you as a potential user for a plethora of ways:

✓  The framework is, and it always will be free for using.

✓  Numerous free and low-cost instruments designed to be used with WordPress.

✓  WordPress has been developed to be user-friendly by it's own stakeholders and to provide the capabilities most desired by website developers.

✓  Anyhow, you want to use and communicate with the system, you have such a level of leeway and can customize it in any manner you would like using coding and other resources.

✓  The realization that WordPress is fully accessible has made it possible to build a powerful group of developers and fans who meet across the planet frequently at WordCamps.

Chapter one -  Introduction to WordPress

WordPress is the name of a known internet framework for building a brand. More aptly, it is a fully accessible and excellent platform for managing content. What are the concepts 'fully accessible' and 'content management'?

'Fully accessible' implies that any directory in the WordPress module can be modified and used as desired. A content management tool is designed to simplify content creation to standardize continuous integration with limited professional skill. In this instance, we speak about a website's content: blog posts, charts, photos, diagrams, templates, and many more. A CMS (Content management system) helps you to create your website and maintain it all at the same time. You will also develop web content and add content on the website via the WordPress applications without creating any code.

There are distinctions between WordPress.com and WordPress.org; The prior is a development environment where you can build a free site and manage it. At what it does, it's easy to use but also confined. WordPress.org is a much more powerful platform, we will talk more on the later in this guide.

It isn't a leap to think that WordPress is an extremely popular site, and that makes it a lot easier to really get assistance whenever you need it. You can find lots of documentations, discussion boards, forums based discussions, devoted tutorials and tools, and so much more on WordPress. No matter what you're aiming to do, it's likely that somebody else has already accomplished it and will assist you through.

WordPress isn't only for newbies, of course! The CMS's uniqueness is that it can measure along with its user groups. You'll be eligible to do even more with WordPress as you gain knowledge more about the system and obtain new creative skills and abilities. A basic blog can be developed and operate, but then you can still build huge, sophisticated lifetime–website for corporations and shopping sites. With WordPress, the sky is the beginning!

WordPress started out as a tiny forum focusing on blogging. This implies that it has a variety of contributors that adapt themselves to blogs; it's then maybe the easiest alternative platform you can explore. To create posts, detailed feedback features, and far more, there is an incredibly simple editing tools.

WordPress, nevertheless, is no doubt just for that personal blog or website of yours. You can actually use it to build any and every kind of site that you can envision. Below is only a quick overview of the varieties of sites that WordPress is useful for:

❖   Online valuations: It's simple to create a personal site with the appropriate WordPress theme to highlight your accomplishments and talents, demonstrate your progress and research studies, and most pertinently pull to you potential clients.

❖   Approved