WordPress Websites
WordPress websites are websites based on the WordPress blogging platform. WordPress is just a platform that offers database tools and functionality, and the ability to customize it virtually endlessly. You can use WordPress as a blog to supplement your website, or use WordPress as a CMS to form the entire basis of your website. Learning to design and manage WordPress websites creates new career opportunities.
WordPress as a Blogging Platform
WordPress as a blogging platform has some great tools available for managing a CMS or blog site, such as Akismet, one of the best anti-spam tools available for blogging platforms today. Bloggers can easily add posts, video and graphics, categorize posts, and create post tags for easy recall without having to learn HTML or other website specifics.
WordPress is also highly customizable, so you can create a WordPress blog that looks exactly like your website, and even integrate it seamlessly into your existing website. You can also use themes to change the overall look of your WordPress page without having to style each element individually.
Many businesses use WordPress as a blogging platform to add articles to their webpages, improve SEO and enhance page rank, and share news updates and other dynamic content.
WordPress as a CMS
While WordPress is intended as a blogging platform, WordPress also serves as a powerful CMS, or Content Management System. Websites use CMS when they want to be able to add dynamic content on the fly without changing HTML files or drastically altering the look of their websites. Without a CMS, you’d have to go into your website and write different code for every single webpage you have. You’d need to change the HTML every time you wanted to change your website, and that could alter the look and formatting of your website.
A CMS provides a way to change your content without altering the look or feel of your page. With a CMS, you don’t need to be an HTML expert or a web designer to add stories, articles, and news updates to your page.
WordPress as a platform is flexible enough to be a stand-alone CMS. You can style the static parts of your website within the WordPress layout functions, and designate how the content is distributed through the dynamic portions of your site. More and more businesses are eliminating static websites altogether in favor of dynamic websites driven by WordPress as a CMS.
Career Options with WordPress Websites
If you learn how to use WordPress as a blogging platform and a CMS, you could take advantage of a growing range of careers related to WordPress websites:
- Professional Blogger
Either with your own WordPress blog or by working for other people with WordPress blogs, you can become a professional blogger. You could create your own unique blog that generated income via ads and page views, or you could go work for somebody managing their WordPress blog content.
- WordPress Designer
Thousands of WordPress themes exist to change the look and feel of a WordPress page. You can design your own WordPress themes and sell them to companies, or even work as a designer to create custom WordPress themes based on a company’s needs. You could match company’s existing websites, or create custom WordPress displays for their blog.
- WordPress Manager/Administrator
A WordPress Manager/Administrator performs a range of tasks based on a company’s needs. The Manager/Admin might set up and maintain WordPress formatting, styling, and CMS capabilities. You could even start your own company setting up WordPress on people’s websites and working with server-side issues to troubleshoot existing WordPress blogs.