Need of WordPress
Sometimes people think that is it possible to make a website using WordPress because they think that word press is only to create blogs or articles. In this article, we will discuss it in depth.
Web developer, HTML, PHP etc.In these ways you will have to pay huge money, Once your website goes live you will have to repay for any change in the future. Think if you are not a web developer, And you want to have your own website. Is this possible?
Yes, it is possible now. The answer is WordPress.You can make any website using WordPress at a very low cost. So before going into depth, first we have to know, What is WordPress?
WordPress
WordPress is an open-source Web-app developing CMS/Framework. You can make a website using WordPress for blogging, portfolio, e-commerce, discussion forums & news portal. There are many websites that are designed using WordPress. For example- https://www.bbcamerica.com, https://www.nytco.com, https://thewaltdisneycompany.com
About 39% of the websites worldwide are running over WordPress CMS.
History of WordPress
- WordPress was created on May 27, 2003; 18 years ago created by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little.
- This basic WordPress had a texturized engine. Linked manager, XHTML 1.1 compliant templates, a new administration interface, etc.
- It was first introduced in 2003.In those days It was not so easy to design a website using WordPress. WordPress has been introduced with components like plugins, hierarchically category support, OPML import and export, and introductory language support.
- In 2006 they introduced a new User Interface (UI), auto save spell check, and other new features enhancements added the ability to switch between content and code editor, setting pages like the front page, adding no-indexing to the entire site for search engine privacy.
- 2010 was a major release of WordPress. Introduced with custom post types, simpler customization, custom menu management, new API for a custom header, and custom backgrounds.
- Also introduced a new default theme called “Twenty Ten” and merged former WordPress MU (allowing to manage multiple sites) to be part of WordPress Core and renamed to Multisite.
- After that, a few changes are being seen in WordPress.
WordPress dashboard in 2003
Advantages to make a website using WordPress.
- Easy to Use
- No need for Coding Language
- User Interface
- Add Ons
- Plugins
Why Should We use WordPress?
The answer is simple. Anybody can use it, the user interface is very simple to understand, and the user experience is very good. We found this in our research-based on WordPress users.
But if you want to develop any website by the use of any language which requires coding like React JS, PHP or Java, first you need a deep knowledge of coding. What will you do in such a situation?
Now you have the dashboard of WordPress Vs PHP. You can find on very first look, which one is simple.
Components at WordPress Dashboard
You can use WordPress to create journals and news posts, pages, blogs & E-commerce websites that are highly secure. In this article, you will learn how to design a website using WordPress.
WordPress has 10 components, each of which has a design for a particular task.
- Dashboard
- Post
- Pages
- Media
- Appearance
- Plugins
- Tools
- Users
- Setting
Dashboard
The dashboard is the first component in WordPress. This component has basically two subcomponents.
- Home
- Updates
Home
Home is used to show the status of a website. It shows how many posts are on the website. How is your website, is there any issue with the website? Information about any recent post.
Updates
Here you can find information about updates, set auto-updates, and see what plugins or themes need updating. It also shows how many Plugins and Themes currently running in WordPress need to be updated.
Post
Post is generally used to create new articles. In the screenshot, you can see how you can add the author name, category (in which you are making the post), and the keyword, especially for SEO purposes. The keyword you will use in the post will rank your website.
Using the post component you can see the list of posts you created. The search function helps you to search any post instantly. In this component, you can see how many posts you have published and how many posts you have deleted/Trashed. Post has four sub-components.
- All Post
- Add New
- Category
- Tags
All Post
In this, you can find how many articles you have published. In this, you can see the date of any article when it was published. You can see any post either ascending or descending order of date.
New Post
New Post is used to add new posts to the website/blog. Add title section makes it easy to write the title. By clicking this you will reach the page where you can add the title to the post and write the post in the body part. In this, you can add feature images, links, etc. You can change the setting of the post by clicking the setting in the top right corner of WordPress.
Category
This sub-component is used to add the category of the post. The category name is how it shows on your website. In the category section, you can see the category of the article. This shows which category is your content related to.
Tags
Tags are internal links used to find particular pages in an article or blog. This helps in a quick search. We can use more than one tag. It will highlight when the website/blog goes live.
Media
Media is the third Component in WordPress. In this component you can easily add any kind of file like Image, Audio, Video, Doc., Spreadsheet, etc. This option allows you to add many images. Some themes allow you to add images from Pixabay (a free images downloading website). Media has Two subcomponents. These are
- Library
- Add New
Library
Any image which you will add to your website page will be collected into the library subcomponent. This will be arranged date-wise. To use multiple images you can select more than one image and upload it to the website.
Add New
Using the subcomponent you can add a new media file. You can use any file like audio, video, or image. Another way to upload the file is by drag and drop way or select from the device option. Even After Uploading the file, you can even customize it. The largest size of any file should not be greater than 768 MB.
Pages
This is the most important Component in WordPress. You can say that Soul of WordPress. In this, you can create, edit or add new pages. While making a website using WordPress this Component can help you a lot i.e. Elementor (a plugin) which allows you to explore more. This component allows you to set a keyword so that you can rank your website. You can use a link to the pages. Pages have two sub-components. These are
- Add New
- All Pages
Add New
This sub-component helps you to create a new page for your website. You can give titles to pages, add Images & Audio, Video files. Creating a page with Elementor (Page Builder) is much better because it becomes easy to create a page with additional functionality.
All Pages
On the all pages subcomponent you can see the list of all pages on the website. You can see the data on which the page was published and the author’s name. If anyone comments on your page it also shows that comment on all pages.
Comments
In this component, you can read/see comments on your post. If you think a comment is suitable for your audience you can approve it. If you think the comment is not public then you can stop it right from the first time. Comment Component in WordPress gives you the freedom to make it stop/moderate. As you can see in the comment section you have different options – Mine, Approved, Spam, Trash, and Pending.
These all options let you think that if you don’t want to allow a comment to someone you can add him in the spam category.
The trash option allows you to see the deleted comments.
This also gives you information about the submission on which date. This also informs If it is submitted in response to any comment.
Appearance
This Component allows you to give the appearance to the web that how the web page will look like. We can divide appearance into two parts. The first part has sub-components Theme, Customize, Widgets, Menus, and the second part has a sub-component Theme Editor. In this, you need to use the option “Theme” then install the theme you want to make a page in. Appearance gives you the advantage to edit your theme. The appearance component has basically 5 sub-components. These are
- Themes
- Customize
- Widgets
- Menus
- Theme editor
Theme
The theme subcomponent is basically a layout of your website. The theme helps you to create a website in well-designed architecture for example we are using Astra Theme. Every theme has its own layout. Astra is one of the most usable themes in WordPress. Some themes are designed for particular purposes only. For example- a business theme is designed to make a business website and an article theme is designed to make an article website. Every year WordPress launched its own theme named as the year name for example in 2021 the theme name was twenty twenty-one and in 2020 it was twenty-twenty.
Customize
Customize subcomponent is very useful. Basically, this is an editor of the website.
Using this sub-component you can add a header and footer to a website. To add a menu in the header of the website you can use this sub-component. Any kind of change in the website is possible using this sub-component.
Widget
Widgets are basically sections in a website. These are the main sidebar. Widgets are short news/suggestions in an article/blog. These are additional “add”.
Menus
This subcomponent is used to create new menus and add them as primary or secondary. Menus sub-component helps you to add menus in the header. This also helps to create menus in menus. Some websites keep their menus in the footer as well this can be done using this subcomponent. To add menus in the footer you have to go to the location of the menus and select the footer.
2nd part of Appearance
Theme Editor
As we discussed at the start of the article while making a website using WordPress Theme is very important WordPress allows us to edit the theme which is a very important thing. The last sub-component of Appearance is the Theme Editor. This sub-component is a little technical. This is actually the coding of the theme. This is used to edit your theme. Some minor changes you can do with the help of a theme editor. To edit the theme you must know HTML, CSS.
Plugins
What if you want a creative Look on your website that is not present in the theme?
The plugin helps you while making a website using WordPress. There are a lot of plugins available in WordPress. The plugin enables you to explore more in WordPress. There are plugins available for almost everything.
Plugins help to build a website without using the pro version of the theme. It saves your money. For example, if you want to add forms to your website you will have to use the pro version of the theme, you can use “WP forms Plugin” instead. The plugin has three subcomponents. These are
- Installed Plugins
- Add New
- Plugin Editor
Installed Plugins
In this subcomponent, you can see the plugins installed in your theme. You can see the description of that plugin. If you want to keep it updated you can set its auto-update by clicking enable auto-update using the right side menu auto-update. It shows every plugin whether it is active or not. It shows active and inactive recently update.
Add New
You can add a new plugin using this sub-component. It shows everything popular, recommended favorite, etc. You should choose the plugin by comparing the rating and downloading of that plugin.
Plugin Editor
The plugin editor is the same as that of the theme editor. Using the subcomponent you can edit your plugin. This is also a little technical. You should know coding to use this.
Read More: How to stop and prevent a DDoS attack on WordPress?
User
When we design a website using WordPress this allows us to add many users. The user component tells us the username, email id, and its role in WordPress. It also shows which user posted how many posts. The user has a further three menus. These are
- All User
- Add New
- Profile
All User
In all user subcomponents, we can see all users who use this WordPress. Everything about the user can be seen right from there. It shows which user posted how many posts.
Add New
Using this subcomponent we can add a new user. This will ask you to fill in the details of the user for example- username, email id, website, first and last name. After filling this it will suggest an auto-generated password which you can change as per your comfort. Here administrator will add the new user as he wants for example- subscriber, editor, etc.
Profile
In the sub-component, you can use the different profiles i.e. how your WordPress will look like. Here you have to fill in your name, email, contact info, profile picture, and your website. Here you can add your biographical information.
Tools
As the name tool, it is easy to understand why we need tools. In any machine tool used to get it repaired if any kind of issue is found. Usually, this component is used to change your web hosting service. The tool component has 6 subcomponents. These are
- Available tools
- Import
- Export
- Site Health
- Export Personal Data
- Erase Personal Data
Available tools
If you want to convert your categories to tags (or vice versa), use the category and tags converter available from the Import screen.
Import
When you change your web hosting server you will take all your data and Import your data file from there to the new one.
Export
When you change your hosting server you need all data of your website then you will export data to another web host. This allows you either complete data or some particular data to transfer, for example- Post only, Page only, or Media only.
Site Health
Site health is the important function of this component which tells about the status of your website. In the screenshot given below that if any kind of issue is found on the website it will show that issue in the improvement category. If not it will show in the no issue category.
Export Personal Data
This tool helps site owners comply with local laws and regulations by exporting known data for a given user in a zip file.
Erase Personal Data
This tool helps site owners comply with local laws and regulations by deleting or anonymizing known data for a given user.
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Setting
In general, setting means how you want to use your device. You make all the settings as per your comfort. For example- you will set the date and time, language, font, and who can use your device. All these things are applicable in WordPress too. The setting has basically 7 subcomponents. These are
- General
- Writing
- Reading
- Discussion
- Media
- Permalinks
- Privacy
General
It allows you to give website title, tagline, date & time, language & day to your website. In this, you will find your website URL and WordPress URL.
Writing
It is also used to read, write and customize posts. You can post to WordPress with the use of your mail. This allows you to put any post directly through the mail. you just need to add your mail id, password, and username.
Reading
The reading part allows you to set no. of posts you can put on your page and on which page you want to keep your post. This lets you think about how many posts you want to show on your page and either you want it full text or just a summary. All kinds of such settings are available in the reading section.
Discussion
Now let’s talk about the discussion section. This section allows you, in which category you want to write your post. Is it suitable for everyone or any least age required?
Next for the comment section if you want to allow comments for all or want comments for moderation. If any viewer puts any links only a limited no. of links, he/she can put. You can even use your avatars provided by WordPress instead of your image or no image.
Media and permalinks
Media used for what should be the largest size of images you inserted in the website. Permalinks are used for the style of your website address. It makes easy to remember website address. You can use any one of the given formats for example plain, date and time, day-wise, etc.
Privacy
As a website owner, you may need to follow national or intonational privacy laws. For example, if you don’t allow to use of images or any media use for anyone for personal use you can take legal action against him.
Final words
Hope that you are able to work in WordPress. Do the use of WordPress for more. If you have any doubt or suggestions you may write in the comment section given below.