WordPress

A Brief History of WordPress

WordPress was originally a single piece of code designed to enhance the visual layouts of written documents as recently as 2003.  Since then WordPress has developed through a system of blogging through to a sophisticated website platform capable of virtually anything.

When you first set up a WordPress site you choose/download a theme which contains all the files to set up, configure and control the site and also define the site layout (what it looks like on-screen), including colours, the use of sliding headers, number of boxes or columns in the layout etc.

You often get different options for layouts of different site sections. For example, on a website theme there might be a different layout for the home page, the main section and finally a third version for a contact form. Websites will also contain a blog feature which you can opt to use or not use as required.  The theme for a blog will work along similar lines as the site theme but will be optimised for a blog layout.

One of the key reasons for the success of WordPress has been the input of thousands of independent developers worldwide who have helped develop the system into a fully fledged content management system (CMS). This ongoing development  of a system is described as an open source project which brings certain benefits to the user.

Firstly, the WordPress system is free to download and use (no licence fees etc.) and there are literally thousands of additional plugins available to use for free as well. New plugins are constantly being released and existing ones improved. The plugins are additional files that contain code to add functions and features to your WordPress website and can be installed by anyone. WordPress Plugins can either be used as they are or they can be edited or added to by a WordPress developer such as Dzined to perform the precise functions you need.

The website you are reading right now is a WordPress based site but this one has been modified and coded by our in-house development team. As WordPress is built using PHP & MySQL our team can be called on when you need some custom programming or WordPress modifications done.

WordPress.com and WordPress.org

Currently there are two “divisions” of WordPress that you might see if you search online. These are WordPress.com and WordPress.org and there are some key differences between them which are outlined below.

WordPress.com

WordPress.com is the system that concentrates on the “free” WordPress blogs and features some “premium” features which are paid for (subscribed) services. So although the system is correctly described as free, you may see many examples of really nice blogs that have paid elements added to them.

One key exception is that you cannot use the vast range Plugins for a WordPress.com blog so if you are planning to customise a blog, you will need to consider a WordPress.org version.

Benefits include:

• Free hosting
• Supplied Blog domain name
• Very quick to set up
• Fully customisable
• CMS provided
• Free Anti Spam Service included

Key WordPress.com features

WordPress.com premium features include the use of your own domain name like www.dzined.co.uk (as standard you get a sub domain of the WordPress.com domain- like http://dzinedwebsites.wordpress.com), extra storage for your data once your blog gets large enough, any extra design, Video (using Video Press), removal of the adverts run on your blog, unlimited private users (if you have a members section on your blog) and the use of a Premium Theme.

These features will change from time to time so see the WordPress.com features section for the most up to date information

WordPress.org

This type of WordPress site is a self hosted version which means that you will need to register a domain name of your own (e.g. www.dzined.co.uk) to build the site around, there will then be hosting costs (these should only be a few pounds a month but will vary with the type of site you have).