So what is WordPress? Well, put simply, it is everything you are looking at right now. This article is WordPress. This blog is WordPress. In fact, over 25 million blogs and websites worldwide are built on a strong WordPress foundation, and WordPress sites receive tens of millions of visitors every single day. It is used by everyone from casual bloggers like myself to celebrities and large businesses. This is one of the main contributions to its power – it’s infinitely flexible.

It is so flexible in fact, that most times you wouldn’t even realise that you are looking at a WordPress powered site. While most casual users will opt for a basic theme like the one you see here, this is by no means fixed. With some clever designing a theme can be manipulated or even written from scratch to produce a totally unique and wholly professional look. The site need not even follow a conventional blog layout. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination… (and coding skills!)

If you’re one of those people that runs a mile at the slightest sniff of some PHP or HTML, then there’s no need to worry! WordPress prides itself on its ‘famous 5-minute installation’ and it really is that simple. It requires no coding knowledge whatsoever which is ideal for companies who need a quick, easy to maintain site and for standard bloggers who often have no knowledge of web languages at all. For a WordPress admin, the ‘dashboard’ is their home. From here, they can add posts, edit posts, add new users, approve comments, and even change the entire look and feel of the site in a few simple clicks – with not a scrap of code in sight!

So, you ask me, what’s the catch? How much will this cost me? The answer – nothing. That’s right, WordPress is completely free and open source. It started in 2003 as a couple of lines of code and has subsequently grown exponentially to become the framework it is now. But one thing has remained the same: it was designed ‘by developers, for developers’, and the community at WordPress are happy to help with any issues or queries. After all, your suggestion may help them to improve the project for everyone’s benefit. Everybody is a member of WordPress, and this is its power. It’s globally useful, it’s globally flexible, it’s globally accessible, and it’s globally free.