WordPress themes and plugins

WordPress users may install and switch between themes. Themes allow users to change the look and functionality of a WordPress website or installation without altering the informational content. Themes may be installed by using the Wordpress "Dashboard" administration tool, or by uploading theme folders via FTP.

One very popular feature of WordPress is its huge library of over 17,000 plugins which extend WordPress to do almost anything.

Widgets offer users drag-and-drop sidebar content placement and implementation of many plugins' extended capabilities. Users can rearrange widgets without editing PHP or HTML code.

Native applications exist for almost all smartphone/tablet platforms which allow for mobile editing and uploading.

How is WordPress different from a standard website?

In a standard website (.html based), a web developer/designer creates a template and saves each individual page as a separate file. When an item needs to be edited, it has to be changed on each individual file and re-uploaded. Most small business don’t have the resources to have pay every time something needed changed.

WordPress is different. Instead of storing the content in files, it stores the content in a database. Whereas a standard webpage contains both the structure and content, the WordPress theme contains the structure in the theme files, so you can change, edit, delete, and add new content without altering the basic look. Basically, if you can edit in a Word document, you can edit in WordPress.