What is WordPress And How Does It Work?

Being someone who eats, sleeps and breathes WordPress, the question what is WordPress makes me nostalgic.

WordPress has given me the chance to prove myself, pursue my dreams and is the source of my bread and butter.

But, I am not alone, WordPress is such a blog management tool that powers over 17 million (17,402,952 to be exact) blogs, online stores, Fortune 500 company websites.

This is crazy!

What is WordPress? Introduction to WordPress!

So, what is WordPress after all? WordPress is a free and open source blogging and website creation tool. Written in PHP and MySQL, WordPress (WP) is by far the most powerful and easiest content management system (CMS) for bloggers and website owners.

WordPress works by giving you the ability to get online, start a blog or a store and interact with people and customers. It is however not limited to this and read on to find what more you can do with WordPress.

WordPress (self-hosted WordPress) powers over 38% of all websites on the internet (source) and is often confused with WordPress.com which is the free but limited version of the self hosted WordPress.org.

Brief History of WordPress:

One of the most stable and robust blogging platforms today, the development history of WordPress dates back to 2001. This official successor to the b2/cafelog was first released for public use in 2013.

WordPress was founded by the two co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. However, WP is today an open source software which means anyone including you and me can use it, edit it, remove features and add more to make it a better and more stable platform.

Matt, the co-founder owns WordPress.com under the umbrella Automattic. This is a easy-to-use version of the self-hosted WordPress, is less flexible and has restrictions based on content ownership etc.

WordPress.com earns money by providing a VIP version of the WP.com service which gives a bit more freedom and through advertisement revenues.

ALSO READ: Key difference between WordPress.org vs WordPress.com.

Why is WordPress so popular?

Why is WordPress so popular? The freedom and ease of using WordPress makes it so popular.

WordPress is a state-of-the-art publishing platform and enables anyone (from amateurs to professionals, authors to painters, companies to churches and so on) have an online presence, share their minds via their blogs and even earn their livelihood by various means of earning online.

Almost every popular website you have come across is probably built with WordPress. WordPress powers sites like Google, The New York Times, Facebook, Beyonce, CNN, Disney, 9to5mac, The Official Star Wars Blog, Harvard, eBay, Sony and many many more.

The reason why so many people and businesses use it is, WordPress works out-of-the-box, is free to download, use and install and starting a WordPress website can be done in 5 minutes.

ALSO READ: Why is WordPress Free? What’s the catch?

A WordPress site doesn’t require a bit of coding knowledge and is suitable for anyone who is not that tech savvy or has a business to dig into rather than messing with the site.

It has a huge repo of free WordPress Themes and 48,221+ free plugins to accomplish almost anything on your website.

You can build almost anything with these resources, from a photography blog to a news site, from a food blog to a fashion blog from a company business website to a non-profitable charity website.

WordPress integrates with so many things (again without involving a bit of coding) like buddypress to make a social networking site or Woocommerce  to create your own fully functional online ecom store.

ALSO READ: Why you should use WordPress? (And how to get the most of it!)

How does WordPress make money?

To avoid any confusions, let me make it clear that WordPress.org (managed under the WordPress Foundation) is a non-profit organisation that doesn’t make any money selling WordPress or related products.

The main revenue model for free self hosted version of WordPress is through:

1. Donations -from companies and anyone getting profited by using WordPress for their business. This can be you and me also because ideally I make a living online via my websites powered by WordPress which means I owe my success to WP.
2. Indirect Promotions: WordPress, what it is today is by the businesses that target WordPress users to make money. The major of them are WordPress hosting companies that sell hosting to WordPress users and other WordPress related products like OptinMonster (email marketing tool), Yoast (SEO plugin).

These companies make millions by selling to WP users and in return sponsor WordCamps (events/conferences that promote WordPress usage) and donate to the organisation for further research and development.

The free version of WordPress (WP.com under Automattic Inc.) however makes money by giving users a packaged WP experience. They sell WP with ready-made hosting and other features. This is free for usage by anyone.

Automattic has a business model that is funded by ads that run on the free websites that use WP.com and payment to use a custom domain name like https://WPChime.com than using something like www.wpchime.wordpress.com.

They also have a VIP version which allows more storage disk space, permission to remove their ads and use your own banners and other services like backups etc. (They still are not as FREE and robust as the self hosted WordPress.org)

How do WordPress developers make money?

Now that you know the business model and income source of WordPress you might ask why do developers spend their time improving on something that is free and non-profit.

Nice ask, I must say!

WordPress developers are those awesome people who believe in making the internet better and providing the general bloggers with something more robust and useful.

They, however, make money indirectly by selling services, working for firms that deals with WordPress products, consultancies and their own plugin or WordPress tools.

For example, here are some awesome companies made by WordPress developers:

StudioPress: Deals with premium WordPress Themes.

Chris Lema: Very renowned WordPress developer and contributor.

Elegant Themes: Another hugely popular WordPress Theme shop where you get almost 87 premium WordPress themes for less than a $1 each.

Syed Balkhi: Multi-million dollar WordPress entrepreneur with life-changing WordPress products like OptinMonster, Soliloquy and many more.

The above brilliant companies and WP experts are just to name a few, WordPress has helped many entrepreneurs and bloggers reach their goals, shine their destiny and shape their identity. They are just an example to what is WordPress and how it can help you grow.

What is WordPress used for and how can you make money with WordPress?

Like I said, WordPress is much more than just making money. It can shape your destiny and identity. With a WordPress site, you can grow and reach more people, connect with customers and build a prospering business.

With WordPress:

• You can create your own blog and earn blog with various blog monetization strategies.
• You can can online store and sell your own products/ affiliate products to make money.
• Create a stock photography site to display and sell your own photos.
• Create an online portfolio and start earning by providing services like content writing, VA, social media marketing etc.
• Expert in something, You can also create your own course and sell it to your students on subscription model.
• Create your own design agency and provide web designing services to small businesses.
• Create a food blog, a fashion and lifestyle blog, a niche site or amazon affiliate blog, the possibilities are endless!

Your imagination is the only limit to what you can do with WordPress!

Wrapping up: What is WordPress and how does it work?

Now that you have a complete idea of what is WordPress and what is WordPress used for, I am sure you are excited to use WordPress and see it changing your life.

Click here to start your own money-making WordPress blog.

If you’re new to this site, you must read this article before visiting the blog for latest articles.

This article was originally published on 30th Dec 2016 and is updated perpetually with fresh and relevant content.