WordPress is an Open Source solution we would recommend for individuals, practitioners, and small businesses with requirement to keep their web information current, fresh and excitingly up to date. This article looks at the strengths of WordPress and how to get started with it.
Many historic web sites can only be described as "tomb stone" sites containing static information painstakingly carved into stone and erected as a grave-yard monument never again to be visited. With the popularity of social networking sites such as: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube a new generation of web technologies are out there and a new set of expectations raised. WordPress attempts to respond to these expectations.
So what solutions are available to replace these out moded web sites? The site could be re-designed with a more recent web builder? But this felt could just be doing the bad job all over again. A professional web designer could be engaged to make a good site hoping that the return on investment will pay for this? But for many Small Businesses keeping their content up to date and dynamic and keeping track of what the clients want is impeded by a static web site. Or a more sophisticated (and more expensive) web site could be designed professionally with a Content Management System, this allows me the text within the overall structure to be changed. However this could be an expensive solution and could still prove inflexible, the overall structure remains unchangeable.
In recent years technologists have been talking about Web 2.0 (or even Web 3.0), although the definitions are somewhat hazy, like many "technical paradigm shifts", it is something about a whole new approach to dynamic web sites that are rich in multimedia content, and applications. These sites allow non-technical people to produce very sophisticated multi-media web experiences very quickly and easily. The great thing about these sites is that they build on very high level objects (widgets) - not low level web mark-up languages so very sophisticated sites are built very quickly.
Social grouping capabilities allow groups of people, communities to have access to particular information and discuss it and update it. Blogs within these structures allow people to casually add new information in a timely way. There is no looking back. One sure sign of the paradigm shift was when one large fortune 500 company started using Facebook as the prime means of communication for their most important project. Decades of closed bespoke intranet communications were thrown out, in favor of something that just worked much better and something that made much more sense. Similarly many companies were using MySpace and WordPress.
So what is WordPress? Well WordPress is an Open Source solution to building web sites with the dynamic and flexible features, a Web 2.0 enabled technology. At the entry level a non-expert can build an impressive site using design templates and widgets from scratch very quickly indeed. The site can then be updated very easily and maintained with very low effort. Because WordPress uses the latest Web technology such as PHP, CSS and templates everything is reconfigurable. You might decide you don't like the design template - well you just change it and the content remains the same. You might decide that you don't like the photo gallery -well just plug a new one in. You might decide you want video then just add a video capability.
There are probably three levels of user coming to WordPress, let us call them Novice, Intermediate and Jedi levels. The Novice has a minimal level of web literacy - they would perhaps be able to build a web site using a Web Builder site. The Intermediate person is willing to learn and invest time reading the documentation and keep upto date with the latest capabilities. They might already have come to terms with publishing their own photos on Flickr, or their own videos on YouTube or have their own Blog on Google.
The best place to start is to browse through the WordPress showcase (http://wordpress.org/showcase/) and see the sites look to be the sort of thing you are after. Remember that everything can be tweaked and changed, so it is the general capabilities you should be focusing on.
The next problem is how to get WordPress uploaded on your web site. If you are with a good Service Provider they should be able to help you do this. Business With Heart can provide a WordPress site for you, or there are no shortage of service providers out there.
See: WordPress Sites for Business With Heart Clients page
Once you have your site installed then the fun bit configuring and designing your site!
Stephen Hinde MA, BSc.
http://www.businesswithheart.co.uk
Copyright January 2009, Stephen Hinde, Business With Heart
Contact: Stephen Hinde
E-Mail: steve@businesswithheart.co.uk
Mobile: 07803 18 37 47
Web: http://www.businesswithheart.co.uk
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