WordPress Website Development

As you may have read on my Web Development page, WordPress has become my go-to platform for the majority of Websites I develop.  Here is some information about WordPress in general, why I’ve grown to adopt it, and some important things to consider when using WordPress.

*WordPress,  started in 2003 with a single bit of code, has grown to be the largest Website development and CMS (Content Management System), and self-hosted blogging tool in the world, used on millions of sites and seen by tens of millions of people every day.  In addition, WordPress is an Open Source project, which means there are hundreds of people all over the world working on it. (More than most commercial platforms.)

Here are some of the main reasons I develop in WordPress:

• Themes –  Themes are the overall skin, or overlay that determines what a WordPress site looks and feels like.
  • There are many, many free and premium themes available on the internet.  Researching and implementing them is one of the challenges of working with WordPress.
• Plugins – Plugins are small applets, or programs that people develop that work within the WP framework and vastly expand its functionality.
  • Plugins can do things such as display videos, let people sign up for your newsletter,  show your most recent tweets, give your clients the most up to date mortgage rates or your Chef’s nighttime specials!  Almost any Website related function a client could want, and a lot more they are probably unaware of, can be accomplished through a plugin!
• Support – As mentioned above, a large number of themes and plugins are offered by their developers free of charge, or open source.  The willingness of these developers and other WordPress enthusiasts to help other developers troubleshoot a formatting  or functionality problem, is an invaluable resource.