Starting a new Website? First know what WORDPRESS is

WordPress is one of the most widely used platforms to create websites, blogs, complex portals, enterprise websites and even applications. 30% of the web today is powered by WordPress and this figure is growing day by day.

WordPress provides all coding facilities to the developer yet its simplicity makes it easy for the average users and publishers. It has speed and gives a great user experience.

WordPress is a powerful semantic publishing platform and comes with a great set of features that intend to make its usage as easy as possible.

There is a list of features that come handy with WordPress. With more than thousand plugins available in the market, the functionality of WordPress is limitless.

Initially, WordPress only started as a simple platform that was used for blogging.

But now, it’s transformed into a full-fledged content management system.

And now, because of this transformation, people have started opting for this software.

The best part is that even if you are not a professional and are unfamiliar with the content management system, with WordPress you can still build a professional site.

Other than that, WordPress is much easier and less complex to use compared to its competitors. Creating and adding content is very simple, and installing plugins also take very less effort.

In this article, you would find some interesting plugins that are must for a website and various features and tools that make WordPress so easy for publishers as well as developers.

Due to extending with plugins, the features that WordPress can provide to a website are limitless. Yet here is a list of few features that are important and come by default with WordPress.

1. Freedom:

Yes, you are right. You can use WordPress whichever way you want. The licensing of WordPress is under GPL which protects your freedom.

You are free to download it, install it, change it, or even distribute it and make as many website and applications as you please.

2. Multilingual Facility:

It does not matter which language you speak, you can use WordPress in more than 60 different languages. Your website can be created in any of those languages and can even be translated as well.

3. Management of users:

Every user may have the different contribution to a website. Keeping this in mind, WordPress provides a facility of user management where the users could be divided into administrators, editors, authors, and contributors and get the access to the website accordingly.

4. Use of Themes:

There are two default themes that come with WordPress but if you don’t like it, there is a directory of free as well as paid themes that can totally transform your website as per your requirement. WordPress provides this feature in a very easy way with just a few clicks.

5. Easy to publish:

Creating content using WordPress is as easy as using notepad. You can create Posts and Pages, format them easily, insert media, and within few minutes your content is published on the web.

6. Search Engine Optimized:

One of the most important features of any website to have today is to be search engine optimized. WordPress covers this feature 80%-90% on its own which can be further increased by using variously available plugins.

7. No access to others:

If you are using WordPress, all the content on the site will be yours. No adverts or any intrusion from a second party can be seen, hence making it your own space.

8. Forum Community and Online Support:

Being the biggest open source CMS has helped WordPress to make a strong community from all over the world who share their knowledge and experience. You even get answers to any issue that you are facing with WordPress.

9. Own your domain:

Unlike other platforms, WordPress gives you the freedom of choosing your own domain name eg. www.xyz.wordpress.com

10. They are easy to update:

If you can create a Word document, you can publish a new article on your WordPress website. Once it is set up, you can update it anytime you want, and that is important for engagement with your visitors and for the search engines.

11. Popularity:

Over the years, WordPress has gained a lot of support from engaged communities. There has been a study recently that claims that more than 7% of the sites found on Internet are run by WordPress.

If you get stuck at any point in time, you just need to Google and there are numerous designers, developers, and enthusiasts out there to help you out.

12. Plugins Directory:

Plugins are the short set of codes that can be easily integrated with WordPress to perform a specific function.

The online directory contains more than a thousand plugin to choose from which almost covers all the functionalists that you could think of.

Apart from the few features mentioned about WordPress, it also has a lot of scope for developers. Some of the features that make it developer friendly are:

• Create your own Theme: WordPress provides facility to the developers to create their own themes. It could be a simple one or can be as complex as the developer wishes. The developer can even give away his website theme for free or can sell it to make money.
• Create your own app:Not known to many but WordPress has features such as HTTP requests, URL routing, databases and many more features that can be used in creating an application of your own choice. The developer can use his creativity and make as many apps he wishes.
• Create your own Plugin: With WordPress API ’s, it is possible for the developer to create any plugin as per his requirement. There is a WordPress repository where you can hot your plugin and help users extend WordPress.
• Make use of the Latest Libraries: WordPress gives you all the latest libraries such as jQuery, Plupload,Underscore.js, and Backbone.js which can be used by the developers to enhance the user experience of the website.

Any article about WordPress would be incomplete without writing about some of the free plugins that are must on a new website.

Each plugin mentioned below has a unique feature/functionality of its own which extends WordPress and provides support to your website.

1. Content Aware Sidebars (Free):

This is a free WordPress plugin that allows you to create n number of sidebars and also gives you an option to assign it to any post, page, category and so on your website. In a simpler language, this WordPress plugin allows you to make as many columns as you want.

2. Enhanced Text Widget (Free):

This WordPress plugin helps you to experiment with the text of your website, giving you more options. You can even add the link to you wishful text. This WordPress plugin is basically a widget.

3. WordPress SEO by Yoast (Free):

Search engine optimization has become one of the most needed tools in today’s web world. WordPress SEO by Yoast for websites provides various features to enhance its SEO.

4. Akismet (Free):

This WordPress plugin for the website is used to combat spam. It helps the website to have only relevant and is very easy to install.

5. Digg Digg (Free):

This WordPress plugin for website enables you to get the maximum usage of the social media by enabling the user to quickly share on them. It supports all social media platform such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin etc.

6. Ajaxify Comments:

Ajaxify-Comments plugin implements ajax comment validation, posting and updating comments without refreshing or reloading page.

It supports threaded comments, comments that await moderation, pages with multiple comment forms and customize the look and feel etc.

7. HTML Compression:

HTML Compression plugin compresses HTML by shortening URLs and removing space, comments, whitespace and increase page load time.

8. Broken Link Checker:

Broken Link Checker plugin monitor all the broken link in posts, pages, and comments etc. notify you on the dashboard or by email.

9. Super Cache:

Super Cache one of best and recommended plugin which helps to cache all pages and posts to speed up or increase website and save bandwidth.

10. W3 Total Cache:

This is the popular and powerful plugin which has 16 options provides the significant boost in website performance. Using this plugin you can enable/ disables following options on your website:

• Content Delivery Network (CDN)
• Opcode Cache
• Compress and Minify Files
• HTML Compression
• Browser Cache
• Database Cache
• Object Cache

11. WP Smush:

This plugin use for Resize, Optimize and Compress all of the images.

12. Google XML Sitemaps:

Google XML SiteMap plugin is using to creating special XML sitemaps which help to improve Search Engine Optimization in Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Ask.com.

13. Contact Form 7:

As plugin name describes nature of plugin, This plugin help to create the customized contact form with CAPTCHA and Akismet Spam Filter etc. options.

14. BJ Lazy Load:

This plugin helps to improve website performance and save bandwidth.

15. WP Mail SMTP:

If you having the problem with sending emails from the website. You can use this plugin and configure SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) Setting to fix email delivery issue.

16. WooCommerce:

WooCommerce is eCommerce plugin which is holding 30% of all online stores more than any other platform.

These are just a few numbers of the plugin that can be used for your website and would make it better. The use of WordPress for creating website gives you infinite possibilities and helps you get your requirement fulfilled.

Hope you liked the read, kindly comment below and provide me with your honest feedback.