You might have heard the term “WordPress” before, and then you ask yourself “what’sWordPress?” , and if you’re familiar with it you might be like “why WordPress?”

What is it?

So let us start… This very blog you are currently reading from is built upon WordPress. WordPress is a free open source, content management system (CMS) that came to be in 2003. In other words a content management system is a software application that allows your average user to create and manage digital content even with limited expertise. Meaning gone are the days when you had to learn html, css, and all that geeky stuff that may seem like foreign language, though it helps a lot if you’re familiar with these in order to fully customize and do many great things. Back to the point, you can easily manage and deploy digital content on the web with a content management system like WordPress, it was developed by entrepreneur Matt Mullenwey.

Rewinding Back …

Back in the days there wasn’t much talk about content management systems, but there were a few tools around including what was known as Cafelog or simply as B2. One of those users of B2 was Matt, and while running his personal blog he found that there was lack in functionality, as it’s always on the web there are many people out there who are with same mindsets and what better way to work along together with people with same ideas. A guy by the name of Mike Little suggested to Matt that they should work together in a joint effort to create a fork of B2, and boom what we now call WordPress came to existence! Fast forward a little and by October of 2009, the Open Source Content Management system Market Share Report reached the conclusion that WordPress enjoyed the greatest brand strength of any open-source content management systems. Since then, developers around the globe have developed themes,plugins, widgets and many different aspects that didn’t exist back then. Today many global brands such BBC America, CNN, Sony Music just to name a few run their websites on WordPress.

Why?

I can write a whole lot of content on why WordPress, but I’ll keep it very simple. Sure there are many other CMS platforms available today than there were ten years ago. But hey WordPress enjoys being the number one CMS of online content powering a whooping 25% of online websites, doesn’t that say something for itself? Not to mention the ease of use, available themes out there for a fraction of the cost that would otherwise be spent on developing from scratch, the amount of available tools such as plugins that allow us to do almost anything. In addition, you don’t have to be an expert to easily change content on your site making it easy and straight forward for your business. The amount of support there is on the web from both local and international experts is endless and it’s not going anywhere, it will only continue to be better.

So if you’re someone out there looking to start your online brand, why not try out WordPress. If you need expert help, just drop me a message on my contact page and I’ll be glad to help you out. Hope you enjoyed reading this piece of information.

Data courtesy of Marketing Land.