Matthew Widdop
Matty is a Digital SEO Executive at Intelligency, helping our clients to improve their digital performance. Matty is currently studying for his Level 3 Multi-Channel Marketer apprenticeship and has completed a Sport Journalism Degree at the University of Huddersfield.
WordPress is the world’s most popular content management system that is used by millions worldwide to deliver content on their websites to end users. In this article, we will talk all about how beginners can use WordPress to create and deliver content and what some of the key features are that make it stand out from its competitors.
What is a Content Management System
A Content Management System is a software that allows users to upload, edit, design and publish content for users to view online. It makes content delivery more accessible for beginners who don’t know how to write code or have technical delivery skills. CMS’, such as WordPress, are not only used by beginners, but also make more complex, normally time-consuming tasks more streamlined, even for experienced web designers and developers.
What Content can you create on WordPress?
WordPress is a versatile Content Management System that can be used to create almost any type of content. The two main types of content that you can produce on WordPress are:
Pages – These are the cornerstone of your website and are static content that is designed to form a permanent structure and give people information about your site.
Posts – These are not cornerstone pieces but are time-sensitive pieces of content that are ideal for content such as articles, blogs and latest news sections. These posts can be organised with categories and tags (taxonomies) to create distinct sections of the site for end users.
Users can also create other types of content outside of pages and posts, such as galleries or product pages, but often these require plug-ins as opposed to using basic WordPress features.
WordPress Key Features
WordPress has a number of key features that help aid users in content creation:
Plug-Ins: These are extensions you can add to your Content Management System that let you add additional functionality to your site without having to add code, saving time and making functionality more accessible. Because WordPress is open source (available to develop and create for free), there are thousands of plug-ins that can be used to add functionality for almost anything you can think of!
Themes: Are added to your site and determine the style, functionality, layout and colour scheme of your site. Unlike plug-ins, which are optional, themes are a necessary part of a WordPress site, and your site will be loaded with a basic WordPress theme, which you can change for additional functionality.
SEO: Search Engine Optimisation is the practice of improving your website’s visibility and rankings in search engines by maintaining and improving your website. WordPress supports SEO and aids in its implementation, including adding titles and headers to content, adding alt text to images for increased accessibility and more. SEO plug-ins are also available and compatible with WordPress sites that add additional SEO functionality, such as Yoast SEO.
Media Library – WordPress’s media library allows you to upload and store content in the backend of your website for ease of use, such as images and videos. The media library will also generate multiple different sizes of your images to make sure it is always serving them on the web in optimal sizes.
These are just some of the different types of content and key features you can use on WordPress to improve your site. Once using WordPress, you begin to realise that the possibilities truly are endless in terms of site building on the platform if you know how to use it correctly.
