Why use WordPress for your website?
If you ask most people, they will tell you that WordPress is a blogging platform. That is both true and false. WordPress is used by http://wordpress.com to power many, many blogs. But, WordPress itself is not a blog. It is a powerful content management system.
According to one definition a blog is:
a shared on-line journal where people can post diary entries about their personal experiences and hobbies
This sounds like almost every blog in existence, whether the blog is a personal blog, a movie blog, a sports blog, a video blog, or any other type of blog.
But, how does WordPress is defined? This is what the WordPress website says:
WordPress is a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability.
So, WordPress is not a blog, but a web publishing platform, also known as a content management system. With WordPress, a developer or a user can modify and maintain the content of a website.
When we think of WordPress, we need to learn to think “outside the definition” of a blog. When designing, developing, or contemplating a website, do not ask the question, “Do I need a blog?”
Instead, ask the question, “Do I need a web publishing platform that focuses on aesthetics (look and feel), web standards, and usability?” If the answer is, “Yes,” then WordPress may be for you.
Similarly, if you answer “Yes” to any of the following questions, then WordPress may be the platform for you:
- Do I need to manage or update web content?
- Do I need to manage user access to certain web content?
- Is collaboration or feedback important?
- Will my content be dynamic (changing regularly)?
WordPress.com is a great example of the user of WordPress (actually, WordPress MU, but that’s for another article). However, there are many uses of WordPress. How many? Almost as many uses as there are web applications.
