A Guide to WordPress Development: Everything You Need to Know

A strong online presence is vital for almost any business these days, and having a website is a key part of this. More than 5.3 billion people worldwide use the internet, so having a quality website will help you reach a much wider audience.

There are various options when it comes to building a website, and WordPress is one of the most common approaches. You can build a high-quality, fully functional website that will help you meet your business goals. This isn’t always easy, however.

In this guide, we’ll go over the basics of WordPress development so that you can get a better understanding of how it will help your business. Keep reading for more.

What Is WordPress?

WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems (CMS) in the world. You can use it to create websites as well as other digital content.

WordPress is written in PHP and uses a MySQL database. It also makes use of languages such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. With that in mind, WordPress doesn’t always require programming to operate.

One of the reasons for its popularity is how accessible it is. It’s free and open-source, and over the years it has seen a wide range of advancements. It’s worth noting that WordPress.org is free, while WordPress.com is a paid service.

It’s a suitable platform for building small personal websites, or sites for large organizations. As it stands, about 43.1% of all websites in the world use WordPress. Some common types include:

• Blogs
• eCommerce
• Portfolio
• Membership
• E-learning
• Forum

Whatever types of websites you may have in mind, it will be possible with WordPress.

What Is a WordPress Developer?

While anyone can use WordPress, it takes a lot of skill to use it well. A WordPress developer is a professional who understands the ins and outs of WordPress and is therefore capable of building and editing websites effectively.

They have expert knowledge on how to tailor a site so that it meets the needs of their client. In most cases, WordPress developers have a degree of coding knowledge. While it’s not essential, understanding HTML and CSS can allow a developer to make very specific changes to a site when needed.

WordPress Basics

If you’re going to use WordPress, there are some basic elements that you should understand. These will help you get the most out of your site and produce something that appeals to your audience.

The Admin Dashboard

The dashboard is where you control your site from. When you log in, you’ll be presented with the dashboard, and from here you can create and publish content, manage users, and customize your site. Only those with authorized access can use the dashboard.

Themes

WordPress has a huge selection of themes that can form the basis for the appearance of your site. There are plenty of free themes available, as well as paid ones which tend to be a bit more flashy.

By default, WordPress sites initially have the latest WordPress theme applied, but you can easily change this to another theme of your preference. You can then make edits to match your branding and make your site stand out.

Plugins

Plugins are pieces of software that can add new functions and features to your site. Again, there are a lot of free plugins as well as some paid ones. They make it much easier to add new features rather than needing to code things manually.

Pages

These are the static pages of your website. For most sites, these include things like “About”, “Contact”, and “Services”, but you can also add any other pages you want to have.

Posts

Posts are the articles that you post on your site, and most people choose to add these to a “Blog” page. Even if you’re not creating a blog site, adding articles can be a great way to improve search engine optimization (SEO) and provide more value to your users.

Blocks

The Block Editor (also known as Gutenberg) was recently introduced to WordPress as a new way to edit sites. It allows users to make changes and create content without the need for any coding. A wide selection of custom blocks are available and entire sites can be built this way.

Why Use WordPress?

The fact that so many websites are made using WordPress shows that it serves its purpose well. There are various benefits that it offers which make WordPress a great choice.

Free

Developing a website can often be an expensive process. Whether you’re building it in-house or hiring a designer, the fact that WordPress is free will help keep costs down.

Adaptable

Blogs are one of the most popular website types made using WordPress, but that’s far from the limit of what’s possible. WordPress is well suited to various website types, making it ideal for almost any individual or business.

Extensible

As it’s open-source, WordPress has a huge number of community contributors who make it a better platform. The functions and performance are always improving, while many other HTML builders remain fairly basic.

New themes and plugins are always available making it easy to build a site that does exactly what you want. Skilled developers can even create their own themes and plugins when necessary.

Support

Some platforms are very particular when it comes to media formats. This means you may need to convert images, videos, and other documents for them to work properly.

WordPress supports a wide range of file types, so you usually won’t have any issues with anything you want to add to your site. Even some relatively obscure file types such as .ody, .ogg, .key, and .3gp work fine with WordPress.

Community

The WordPress community is huge, which is part of the reason it works so well. Plenty of developers build plugins and themes that you can then integrate into your site.

A skilled WordPress developer will stay up to date with what’s happening in the WordPress community. This means they’ll be able to take advantage of the latest website design trends to help build better sites for their clients.

Ease of Use

WordPress isn’t just ideal for creating a website, but also for managing it. If you have the time to manage your site yourself, your developer can show you the basics of what you need to know. Alternatively, most developers offer maintenance plans, so for a monthly fee, they can keep your website working properly and make any changes or updates as needed.

Reasons to Hire a WordPress Developer

With how easy WordPress is to use, a lot of individuals and businesses take it upon themselves to build their websites. While this is an option, it can be far more beneficial to hire a professional WordPress developer.

WordPress is designed to be simple to use, but it can take a long time to figure out how everything works. It’s also somewhat difficult to figure out how to use everything effectively. As such, building a site yourself could prove challenging, and you may not get the best results.

A WordPress developer will have the skills and experience needed to build a high-quality site in no time. This will help you get things going faster, and you won’t have to worry about anything not working properly on your website.

Developers know what users look for in a quality site. They can optimize it based on your audience to help attract more visitors and secure more sales. Someone without the right experience won’t be able to do this as effectively.

Another area that developers are typically well versed in is SEO. Using proper techniques, they can improve the SEO of your site so that it shows up higher on search engine results pages. This could have a huge impact on the organic traffic to your site, so it’s not something to be ignored.

There are aspects of your site that many people won’t initially think about. Things like load speed, navigation, and mobile responsiveness can all have a huge impact on how successful it is. A WordPress designer will keep these in mind when building your site to ensure it meets the highest standards.

Maintenance

When it comes to managing your site, a WordPress developer can also be a great choice. They’ll ensure all themes and plugins are kept up to date which will keep it functional and improve security.

They’ll continuously monitor your site, so if there are any security risks or other issues, they’ll be able to deal with them quickly. This is especially important for any sites that hold customer data such as eCommerce businesses.

Professional WordPress Development

When it comes to building websites, WordPress is one of the best options available. It gives a huge level of freedom that allows you to create a site that meets your needs perfectly. The plugins and themes will help you bring your vision to life while ensuring your site functions well and is suitably secure.

Neur is a leading WordPress design and development agency that can build the perfect site for you. With over 18 years of experience, we’ve created all kinds of websites, some of which you can see in our portfolio. Take a look at our WordPress development page to see more about how we can help your business.