Last Updated on May 10, 2022

What is WordPress?

WordPress is an online, open source website creation tool written in PHP. But in non-geek speak, it’s probably the easiest and most powerful blogging and website content management system (or CMS) in existence today.

WordPress started in 2003 with a single bit of code to enhance the typography of everyday writing and with fewer users than you can count on your fingers and toes. Since then it has grown to be the largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world, used on millions of sites and seen by tens of millions of people every day.

What is the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org?

Yes, you heard that right… There isn’t just one WordPress.  Don’t let your clients and and others fall into the WordPress.com trap.  Basically, WordPress.com is a limited version of WordPress that is hosted by WordPress company.  For better more features you will be paying them more and you won’t have access to all open source plugins and themes and FTP access.  WordPress.org, on the other hand, is the open source version of WordPress which requires you to self host the site (or pay a hosting company to host it for you).  You have access to whatever 3rd party plugins/themes you want (some premium items come at a price).  We recommend self hosted WordPress websites rather than WordPress hosted websites…

Content Management System (CMS)

A content management system (CMS) provides structured content management features such as the ability to store news documents, images, video and any other online content type imaginable. They are used for websites that normally have multiple editors and sections and are used as the foundation on many large websites which include newspapers and governments.

Almost half of the websites in the world use a CMS. There are lots of CMSs available. WordPress is used by 28.7% of all the websites, that is a content management system market share of 59.6%.  This is one of the many reasons why Sebo prefers to work with WordPress.  You can read more about why Sebo prefers WordPress on our website: https://www.sebomarketing.com/why-wordpress-websites/

Here are some of the top CMSs according to w3techs.com

  • WordPress
  • Joomla
  • Drupal
  • Magento
  • Blogger
  • Shopify
  • Squarespace
  • Wix
  • Weebly

https://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/content_management/all

Future Video Goes Here

Future Video Goes Here

HTML (the Hypertext Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) are two of the core technologies for building Web pages. HTML provides the structure of the page, CSS the (visual and aural) layout, for a variety of devices. Along with graphics and scripting, HTML and CSS are the basis of building Web pages and Web Applications.

What is HTML?

HTML is the language for describing the structure of Web pages. HTML gives authors the means to:

  • Publish online documents with headings, text, tables, lists, photos, etc.
  • Retrieve online information via hypertext links, at the click of a button.
  • Design forms for conducting transactions with remote services, for use in searching for information, making reservations, ordering products, etc.
  • Include spread-sheets, video clips, sound clips, and other applications directly in their documents.

With HTML, authors describe the structure of pages using markup. The elements of the language label pieces of content such as “paragraph,” “list,” “table,” and so on.

W3schools is a great resource for learning basic HTML.

What is CSS?

CSS is the language for describing the presentation of Web pages, including colors, layout, and fonts. It allows one to adapt the presentation to different types of devices, such as large screens, small screens, or printers. CSS is independent of HTML and can be used with any XML-based markup language. The separation of HTML from CSS makes it easier to maintain sites, share style sheets across pages, and tailor pages to different environments. This is referred to as the separation of structure (or: content) from presentation.

Check out the following website.  There are several different designs you can change the site to look like but the HTML is the same for each layout.  This shows how powerful CSS is in making the website what it is.  It clearly demonstrates that the HTML provides the structure of the page while the CSS provides the layout.

http://www.csszengarden.com/

W3schools is a great resource for learning basic CSS.

www vs non-www vs http vs https

Did you know that the following URLs can actually be 4 different websites and Google will treat them as such if a website isn’t setup properly?

  • http://sebomarketing.com
  • http://www.sebomarketing.com
  • https://sebomarketing.com
  • https://www.sebomarketing.com

Sites that are https are secure with an SSL certificate.

In most cases www and non-www URLS should both load the same website and one URL should redirect to the other.  There really isn’t an SEO benefit for using one or the other as the default.  What matters is that whichever version you start with you stay with that variation and make sure that the other variation redirects properly.

If the site needs to be secure then there should also be www and non-www variations setup for https as well.  Some sites will have https be the default and have all http traffic redirect to https while other sites will have http be the default and only force https on pages that need to be secure such as a checkout page.  If a site doesn’t have an SSL certificate then the https versions will produce a browser security warning error.

Take a look at some clients’ websites and see how their site handles www, non-www, http, and https.  Does one variation redirect to the other?