Should I Learn WordPress in 2021?

WordPress was launched in 2003 purely for blogging purposes. Since it is an open-source CMS, a lot of developers around the globe started working on WordPress and adding extra features to it. WordPress is written in PHP and MySQL.

By December 2018 websites built with WordPress had over 22 billion monthly views. In 2019 This content management system, managed to win more than 60% of the websites using CMS, and currently, it powers more than 75 million websites.

However, WordPress isn’t the only content management system (CMS) available. Drupal and Joomla are both famous CMS’ that are competing with WordPress.

WordPress had over 140 million downloads while Joomla and Drupal are chasing it far back with 30 and 15 million downloads.

Most businesses are looking for a reliable and scalable website to remain in the competition. Most IT leaders of large companies have looked at other expensive solutions before finding a platform that powers more than 34% of the internet.

In this article, we are going to answer a simple question: Should I Learn WordPress? Is WordPress still worth learning?

What is WordPress?

WordPress is the most powerful website builder in the world. More than 34% of the websites on the internet are built with this CMS. Back in 2003, developers Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little created a platform for anyone, beginner or advanced to publish their content online without any hassle.

They came up with what is known now as WordPress. WordPress is an open-source website builder based on PHP. It is also under a GPL certificate. This means anyone can work on it and add to or remove features from it.

This feature allowed developers around the world to work on This open-source CMS and it became what it is today. More than 14% of popular websites are built by WordPress.

WordPress vs Drupal

WordPress gained its popularity because it’s easy to use. You don’t need to have any programming knowledge, a huge budget or populated staff. On the other hand, Drupal is known for being secure and developer-friendly for creating complex websites.

To use Drupal, you need to have certain knowledge to understand how to configure, build and design your website. But WordPress is very user-friendly and doesn’t require any programming knowledge to work with.

As mentioned above, there are more than 75 million websites built by WordPress. Therefore, a lot of hackers are constantly looking for a different method to gain access to any website built with this website builder. Thus, it may have security flaws. On the other hand, Drupal is found to be much stronger than WordPress, and hackers have difficulty gaining access to a Drupal website.

Generally, WordPress is used to build websites with many contents like blogging, news sites and etc. but Drupal is ideal for complex websites.

WordPress vs Joomla

Joomla is yet another powerful CMS that covers the middle-ground between WordPress and Drupal. You can argue that Joomla is as user-friendly as WordPress but with extra development options to build complex websites.

To build a website with Joomla you will have to have basic programming knowledge as it requires a bit of coding. On the other hand, WordPress doesn’t require you to have any programming knowledge. Plugins and themes can be used in both Joomla and WordPress. However, WordPress-related themes and plugins are much simpler to use.

In regards to SEO, WordPress offers a variety of plugins that makes life easier. However, Joomla is more limited on the plugin front and also is generally less SEO friendly.

Joomla is mainly used for websites with more content and structure flexibility like social networking websites and etc.

How Does WordPress Work?

In the older days, you had to learn a programming language to create a series of codes to display a single page in a web browser. Nowadays, by installing WordPress on your web server which only takes 5 minutes, you can use its web-based editor to create web pages without knowing any programming language. Even WordPress hosting has the installation tools and wizards that will do the job for you.

This CMS needs two main components to work on any web server.

• PHP
• MySQL

WordPress is written in PHP which makes it dynamic. PHP is a server-side language, meaning it runs on your web server. Due to the existence of WordPress, PHP has become one of the most popular programming languages.

On the other hand, it uses MySQL as its main source for WordPress database and storing information. By installing WordPress and using MySQL, users have access to the database and can create, update, read and delete any information on it.

All that being said, WordPress functions on three main levels:

• It offers a user-friendly interface known as the WordPress Dashboard for website owners to manage their content.
• It can create MySQL queries for the database.
• It is expandable by using themes, plugins, and shortcodes. Thus, the website owner can add any feature he/she wants.

How Does WordPress Help My Company’s Work Flow?

If you have a company and you want different teams to have access and work on the website at the same time, Then WordPress is the perfect choice for you.

It allows you to define different user roles and permissions. With different user roles, users can access different sections of the website,

But the question is, what do the employees learn?

Teamwork

By using WordPress in a big company, the employees learn to work together and fight for the main goal of the website. In addition, this CMS has a huge community of supporters that help each other in case there is something wrong with any sections of the website.

Problem Solving

WordPress offers the opportunity to build a great website and, in the process, your team may face some issues. In order to figure that out, they will have to do enough research to find the cause and how to fix it.

Even learning some of the basics of it requires you to learn and do some research beforehand. Once you learned the issue you will have to run some tests to make sure it is working fine on your website.

Organization

Creating a web page, a blog post, and learning where to use SEO, requires organization. For example, if one department is working on creating a blog post, it should be organized with the SEO team and publish their posts once everything is organized.

Communication

Creating a website with WordPress requires constant communication between departments that are working on the website.

Data Analysis

This is almost a must for any industry that uses WordPress. With Google Analytics and A/B testing with Google Optimize, you can create experiments to measure the results and improve on weak points of your website.

WordPress is Expandable

Most WordPress users don’t have any programming knowledge. If you don’t have any designing or programming knowledge and still looking for ways to add multiple features to your website. You shouldn’t worry.

WordPress allows you to use different themes and plugins to add design and features to your website. There are thousands of free and premium themes and plugins you can choose from, and most of them are easily configured.

Themes sometimes come with their own plugins as well. For example, our Publisher theme comes with 50 plugins that essentially complete the functionalities of the theme.

WordPress comes with many default features. However, the default features aren’t enough for some businesses or personal blogs. If you are amongst those users, you can simply use plugins to add extra features to your website.

There are literally more than 50,000 plugins to choose from. By installing plugins, you can add custom functionality to the website. For Example, by installing the Yoast SEO plugin you can optimize the website and achieve high ranks in search engines.

Big Name Brands That Use WordPress

As we mentioned above, WordPress powers more than 34% of websites on the internet. By far, this is the biggest and most popular CMS in the world and a lot of big companies use this website builder.

Some of them are:

• Ted
• Home Depot
• UPS
• PlayStation
• Etc.
• We have a good collection of brands uses WordPress

How to Become a WordPress Developer?

Thanks to the popularity of WordPress, there are a lot of opportunities for development. With over 76 million users, there are always people looking for WordPress developers to enhance their websites.

A website developer can change the way a website looks, as well as change the core functionality, admin panel, and more. If you are an advanced developer, you can even change the way the user profile looks.

So, what can a WordPress developer create?

Create Themes

As mentioned above, themes are the core design of your WordPress website. To develop a modern theme, you need knowledge of HTML5, CSS3, and of course PHP.

PHP is the main language of WordPress. Therefore, if you are planning on becoming a developer, learning PHP is a must.

Create Plugins

As you probably know by now, plugins can expand the functionality of a WordPress website. In other words, plugins can completely change how a website works. Creating and releasing WordPress plugins is also a very profitable industry at the moment.

Can I Use WordPress for Big Companies?

Most businesses and startups Are not sure how useful WordPress can be, or if they should even invest in a website built with this website builder.

Besides the free aspect of WordPress, it is powerful and these features give you the flexibility you always wanted. There are also numerous and tutorials on the internet that will help you start your website.

There are 5 key reasons why WordPress is a good choice for your business.

Low Ongoing Costs

In terms of budget, it is very hard to beat. As it is totally free and you don’t have to pay for any licensing. Affordable hosting, free themes, and plugins take care of your essential needs.

The initial cost can set you off for one year (or more depending on your package). You will need a domain name, and a hosting server to store your website. Thanks to the popularity of WordPress, both of these can be purchased very cheaply.

Versatility (Plugins & Themes)

Have you ever been on a website with a gorgeous-looking contact form, slider, or other cool functionality? Ever wondered how they did it? Do you want to have the same on your website?

Well, WordPress makes it easy to do so. By installing relevant plugins you can add all the features you want.

This is why WordPress is so popular, with the help of themes and plugins, it can turn into any website that you have in mind.

Functionality

The WordPress Dashboard allows you to edit and customize your website without having to hire a web developer. Its interface is user-friendly, making it simple to use for almost anyone.

It allows you to upload different types of media and files and display them to your audience.

Expandable

WordPress’ flexible design and customization make it a great choice for a company that is constantly expanding. You can start by using a simple theme and slowly expand your operation and functionality of the website.

All of this is achievable without paying any extra money or upgrades. Since it is very popular, most online services are compatible with WordPress. For example, MailChimp.

Upgrades

WordPress has millions of active users in its community. Thus, they regularly release updates to increase the security layers and fix any bugs. This means any weak points and vulnerabilities can be fixed very quickly.

Therefore, if you are going to use it to start your business, we recommend keeping this CMS updated at all times.

How to Create a Personal Blog Using WordPress?

As mentioned above, WordPress is very easy to use and low cost. However, for blogging purposes, you can simply create an account on WordPress.com and start blogging without paying a penny. This provides a platform for small bloggers and people who are just starting out to learn how to blog and create a website.

Although, blogging on WordPress.com servers comes with a few limitations. For example, you cannot add or remove any features to your blog.

Conclusion

In this article, we talked about an awesome CMS and tried to explain if learning WordPress is worth it. WordPress is the most powerful website builder in the world with over 75 million websites built with it and 500 more are created on a daily basis.

A lot of big companies use this platform to design them. The features it offers and its flexibility has convinced big companies to stop paying big money for static websites and use WordPress instead.