Bummer! This is just a preview. You need to be signed in with a Basic account to view the entire video.
Start a free Basic trial
to watch this video
In this introductory video we go over what WordPress is and what it can do. At the end of the video you should be prepared to continue with the other videos, which go into more depth in how WordPress works and what it can and can't do.
NOTE: WordPress.org versus WordPress.com
In this course we are working with the self-hosted version of WordPress found at WordPress.org. There is also a hosted version of WordPress offered at wordpress.com.
If you would like to learn more about the difference between the two, please see this video from our Course on WordPress.com: WordPress.org versus WordPress.com
-
0:00
[MUSIC]
-
0:04
WordPress is an open source content management system.
-
0:09
It allows you to easily manage and build websites.
-
0:13
In this introductory course we're going to go over what WordPress is,
-
0:17
why people love it, and when it's the right solution for your sites.
-
0:22
At the end of the course, we'll briefly walk through the process of installing,
-
0:26
setting up, and customizing a basic WordPress site.
-
0:30
So you could see everything we talk about in action.
-
0:34
Before we do that though,
-
0:35
let's go over a few more details about what exactly WordPress is.
-
0:41
WordPress is a content management system.
-
0:44
That means that you get a nicely designed admin area for
-
0:48
managing all of the content on your site.
-
0:52
Whether it's posts, pages or media.
-
0:56
WordPress also allows for
-
0:58
plugins to be able to extend the built in functionality of WordPress.
-
1:03
Thousands of plugins exist and you can find them both for free and for
-
1:08
a small price.
-
1:10
WordPress also powers a large portion of the web.
-
1:14
They say about 25% of all major sites on the Internet are powered by WordPress.
-
1:21
Because of this we can find a lot of themes and
-
1:25
a lot of plugins that are available for WordPress.
-
1:29
WordPress themes determine what your site looks like and there are tons of
-
1:34
themes that are available again for either free or for a small price.
-
1:40
You should have no problem finding a ready made WordPress theme for
-
1:44
just about any type of site you're trying to build.
-
1:47
Because there's a large community around WordPress, it's easy to find support,
-
1:53
whether that's just how to use WordPress or
-
1:56
beginning to learn to develop for WordPress.
-
2:00
WordPress is an open source project, which means all of the code for
-
2:05
it is available for free online for anybody to use or to contribute to.
-
2:11
There are a lot of talented developers around the world that
-
2:14
contribute regularly to this open source project.
-
2:18
WordPress also comes with regular security and
-
2:21
new feature release updates throughout the year.
-
2:25
You'll often hear about the company Automatic and
-
2:28
the name Matt Mullenweg as the major contributors and influencers of WordPress.
-
2:35
Matt started WordPress back in 2003, and then built the company Automatic,
-
2:40
which has employees directly contributing to WordPress,
-
2:44
as well as other WordPress related products.
-
2:48
So now that we know a little bit more about what
-
2:51
WordPress is at a conceptual level.
-
2:54
Let's get more technical with how content management systems like WordPress work
-
2:59
behind the scenes.
-
3:01
Seeing this will help us better understand in more detail
-
3:04
what WordPress is truly capable and not capable of doing.
You need to sign up for Treehouse in order to download course files.
Sign up