What is WordPress?
This CMS is the intermediary between content publishers and website visitors. Wanting to publish articles is very easy with a CMS. Publishers no longer need to code or hire special web developers to publish. The cost to take care of this CMS is also low. There are many CMS. There is Joomla, Drupal, and WordPress. WordPress is the most popular CMS. It is said that almost 30% of the entire web uses WordPress. Now, anyone can produce content with small capital and minimum expertise.
Why Use WordPress to Create Blogs and Websites?
1) WordPress Isn't Just for Blogs
If we ask 10 people near Malaysia what is the use of WordPress, I think 7 out of 10 will answer to create a blog. Know that the answer is shallow, wrong, and incorrect. WordPress is very flexible. You can create various types of websites with WordPress. These include:
- Blog
- Portfolio
- Magazine
- E-commerce
- Forum
- Community
- Social network
- Website for business
2) WordPress is free
The WordPress program is developed by the open-source community and licensed under the GPL or GNU Public License. This means you can use customize or distribute WordPress for free. Even so, if you want to run this WordPress program, there is still a cost. You must have a domain name and hosting. The domain name is your website address like adrevolu.com. If a visitor types this address near the browser, the browser will access the server that you installed WordPress on. The company that makes the service for renting out this server is called hosting.
3) Easy to use
WordPress is also very easy to use. If you are faced with a problem or don't know how to use it, you can continue to refer to the forum or the WordPress manual itself. This is not to mention how many tutorials there are on the web. Near YouTube there is a guide about this WordPress. In just 5 minutes you can install the app and make the first post. If your WordPress program, theme, or plugin is updated, you don't need high IT skills to make those updates. Everything can be created in the WordPress dashboard.
4) Easy to customize
Most of these WordPress users are not IT experts or web builders. But if we use WordPress, we can produce a beautiful and professional website with just a few steps. WordPress has hundreds of thousands of themes that can change the design of your website, without you having to spend a lot of money. In addition, WordPress also has plugin features that can add website functions. Many of these themes and plugins are free. There are also paid ones with support from theme and plugin builders. With these themes and plugins, we can create various types of websites. Whether there are blogs, online shops, websites for commerce, forums and more.
5) WordPress is mobile-responsive
In today's world of technology, a web visitor no longer only uses a computer to browse the website. He may use the computer at home. Use the phone when it's trending to go to work. Use a laptop when in office. And use a tablet when it's time to pray. So, it is a necessity if we create a blog or website, our website exposure is friendly with all these types of tools. This is what we call mobile responsive. Good luck. Almost all these WordPress themes are very screen-friendly, regardless of budget. This includes the basic themes that come with WordPress itself.
Creating articles on your first blog
The first step is to log in to your WordPress. After logging into the WordPress admin area, you have two options to start creating articles on the blog:
- Click on the New button on the admin toolbar, then select Post
- Click Add New from the Post menu
Post Editor's Page
On a new installation of WordPress, the post editor screen will consist of several sections, you will usually see the following sections:
Post/article title box
Content box
Excerpt
Categories and Tags
Featured image
The title and content box area are the largest and first seen. You can write the title of the article in the title box. In making this title, you can make it after you have written the entire article so that you know the important parts to include in the title. This is so that later readers will know the gist of what they want to read when they see the title. Your blog title will also appear in search engines, such as Google, when someone searches for an article on the topic they want to read. This means that it is important that your title should be informative and catchy to capture the attention of your potential readers. Apart from that, there are many other components around the Title and content box section, which help you in creating articles on your blog. These components are like:
Permalink: to set the name of the article link. Create a link related to your article, don't just make it. Usually, WordPress by default creates a link from the title of your article. But if you often change titles when editing articles, consider whether the name of the article link is right or not with the title.
Add media: to add images and other media
Visual and text editor: for displaying content when you create articles
The number of words (word count): the number of words in the content of the article created
Autosave status: shows the last time your draft post was saved
Adding Images to Your Posts
To add images to your posts, WordPress makes it very easy. You can add photos, graphics, or videos. Click on the select files button to upload images or other media to your WordPress. Or if they're not on the media library page, you can easily add them by dragging them from your computer to the media library's browser screen.
Adding Categories and Tags
Categories and tags help you organize your content in an organized format that can make it easier to find for future readers. Not only does it make it easier for readers to find your content, these two things can also improve SEO. You can add a category by clicking add new category and filling in the box that appears with the category you want to add then clicking the add new category box below it.
Featured Images (Post Thumbnails)
Most WordPress themes support featured images or post thumbnails for an article. Usually this is the last box in the right-hand column on the screen in the post editor. Just click on “set featured image,” and the media uploader tab will appear just like in the add media that was previously on the main post editor screen.
Custom Field
You can use it to manually include the information you want in your posts. Custom Fields can be used to add metadata used in your WordPress theme.
