What is WordPress?
WordPress is a popular open source Content Management System (CMS) used to launch blogs, content sites, ecommerce sites, and many other types of websites. It's known for its ease of use; it is possible to launch a website within 5 minutes. Since its inception, anyone has been able to download the software for free at WordPress.org.
WordPress has a vast community of contributors - most notably its theme and plugin developers. There are thousands of prebuilt themes, plugins, and other add-ons that anyone can download and use on their site. This makes it possible for small teams, or even one-man-armies to launch complicated websites in a very short amount of time. You can browse many themes and plugins on WordPress.org.
WordPress core is built in PHP, while its new(ish) editor Gutenberg (launched in 2018) is heavily JavaScript and React.js based. WordPress's flexibility is one reason why it is used by the largest enterprises as well as the smallest of personal blogs.
Common WordPress Questions
What is the difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com?
This is one of the most popular questions and confusion points surrounding WordPress. It is almost the most popular question on the WordPress subreddit. Here's a few takes on it:
- Automattic, the company headed by Matt Mullenweg (founder of WordPress), owns WordPress.com. WordPress.com takes care of your hosting, and typically you have a little less freedom here as many of the decisions are made for you.
- WordPress.org is historically where the open source software has been managed, and made available.
- Although both sites have a WordPress plugin directory, the .org version is where developers mainly submit their plugins and themes for review.
How many plugins should you have?
There is no magic number of the amount of plugins you should be using, but the more plugins you have, the higher chance of a possibility of a plugin or theme conflict. For this reason, you should routinely make it a point to go over the plugins you are using.
- Not necessarily about a number of plugins IF they are all serving a purpose
- ~35-50 is when you should start auditing your plugins and trying to delete ones you don't need.
- Ecommerce and WooCommerce involves an entirely different set of plugins
Should You Learn How To Code To Use WordPress?
It is not required to know how to code to use WordPress, and with the large adoption of page builders in the last decade, it's possible to do more and more each and every month without knowing how to code.
That being said, knowing the bare minimum of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP can dramatically improve your capabilities as a WordPress superstar. Here are a few of the basic things you should know:
Know the folder structure and most important files:
- The WP root directory contains the wp-config.php which is where your database connection is made, along with many other global contents such as your ability to enable error logging.
- Your theme directory is located in wp-content/themes
- Your plugin directory is located in wp-content/plugins. When you download plugins, this is where you will find them.
- Your uploads directory is located in wp-content/uploads. This is the destination for all of your images that you upload via the media library.
- WordPress uses PHP hooks and filters to make it easy to hook into and easily add backend functionality.
- You can easily add these hooks/filters in the functions.php file. This file is specific to themes and can be found in the wp-content/themes/{your-theme} directory. It can be treated as the catch-all for custom coded functionality. The more code you add here, the bigger the reason to start developing a custom plugin.
Common WordPress Plugin Stacks
Page Builders
A page builder allows you to develop and design a WordPress website without needing to know how to code. Everything can be built within the WordPress dashboard.
If you are going to use a page builder, then this is usually one of the first decisions to make when creating a WordPress site. Many themes have different versions based on which page builder you use. Some common WordPress page builders include:
Classic Editor Note
Since Gutenberg is a page builder on top of an editor, it is sometimes required to install the classic editor plugin in order to stop confusion or conflicts with other page builders.
Site Speed/Caching
Caching plugins basically take a snapshot of your website at any given time (usually the first time a user visits your site in their browser) and then the plugin will make it so that the same saved page gets served up again anytime it's visited again. This dramatically increases site speed and loading times.
Many caching plugins work very differently, and some are particular the host that you are using as well.
Forms
Forms are a necessary item on each and every WordPress site. People must have a way to contact you as well as fill out various applications, surveys, etc...
It's extremely important to be able to monitor entries, customize fields, as well as customize styles. Notifications on forms are also extremely important. When you choose a form plugin, make sure that the forms settings are exactly what you need.
The most common free form plugin for bootstrapping a site is Contact form 7, however three advanced forms that are well worth the money are Gravity Forms and WPForms. Formcraft is a very affordable plugin that is a step ahead of contact form 7 and only a one time charge.
SMTP (Sending email through the website)
Sending mail from your WordPress instance is extremely important. It's impossible to do password resets, contact form notifications, and other auto responders without an SMTP plugin.
When you are choosing your SMTP plugin, you may also want to consider which forms plugin you are going to use as well as form plugins such as WPForms and Gravity Forms have their own SMTP plugins. Easy WP SMTP is a great solution that isn't affiliated with any specific form plugin.
Custom Post Types
Every WordPress instance comes with a few basic post types, and two of the reserved and special types are “Posts” and “Pages”. However you have the ability to register new custom post types within WordPress. Some common types might be Videos, or Recipes, or Podcasts...
If you know PHP and the WordPress code base, custom post types are easy enough to register via a few lines of code. Indeed, sometimes if you are using a plugin with a fair amount of CPT customization, you'll want to register it in the code. However if you need to create CPTs on the fly, or know for a fact that your WordPress instance is going to ship with a set of certain CPTs, then investing in a plugin like Custom Post Type UI is a good idea. This plugin makes it easy to register custom post types right within the UI.
Directory/Store Locator Plugin
Maybe you are running a chain of local franchising businesses. Perhaps you want to build your own directory of a store finder? You'll want to keep in mind what data you'll want to enter on each local store.
You'll also want to choose a plugin with a nice look and feel to it, as the maps will be a big draw to the directory, making it easier for users to visualize where the stores are.
Subscriptions
Subscriptions are a form of eCommerce that involve recurring payments. In terms of the backend code, they may be the king of “if, then” type of logic. They involve products, transactions, subscriptions, subscription groups, and more. For this reason having a strong plugin like memberpress is key to launching a successful product.
Events
It's important to host events on your website so customers and potential customers can connect and get involved with your company. It's also important that people looking for events on Google can easily find yours. Investing in a good events plugin allows you to schedule events with the right details, and then surface it on your website is a great investment. People know that when the events are listed on your website, they can trust that it's actually taking place.
Finding a plugin that also integrates with other platforms for events, such as EventBrite, or even Facebook can also be a great way to distribute your events to other channels.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is a vital part of your website's search engine visibility. Setting your Title Tags, Meta descriptions, and even your Schema on a page by page basis, or by using sitewide patterns is something that any SEO plugin, like Yoast or RankMath, should be able to do.
Redirection
Redirecting URLs is something that every website will need to do at some point, usually very early on. Although it's not technically an SEO plugin, redirecting your urls when they are old, broken, or have a lot of backlinks “juice” that you want to retain is very important for SEO. For that reason, you'll want a plugin specifically to monitor your redirections, like the Redirection plugin.
Custom Plugins
The minimum amount of code you need to write a custom plugin and get it to show in the plugin directory is the plugin header doc which has information about the plugin like a name, version, author, license, etc... Of course this would be a plugin that doesn't do anything, but if you know PHP and the basics of the backend of WordPress, It is relatively simple to get one going.
Common features of custom plugins include:
- Custom plugins are written in PHP.
- A Readme.txt and .md file that gives a description as well as instructions for the plugin
- All plugins are different but some ideas of common capabilities include:
- an admin interface where users can manage settings in the WP dashboard
- shortcodes that make it easy for users to embed functionality within a page or post
- functionality that is run activation or deactivation of the plugin
- some type integration with other plugins or a third party service
For an example of the codebase of one of The Wellness Way's WP plugins, checkout out the Github Repo for our protein calculator plugin - which you can download on the official WP directory.