SoulCode

Many websites consist of web pages with code and text all created manually using HTML editing and web design techniques and/or site building software like Frontpage or Dreamweaver. And while this model may still be appropriate for some purposes, it is awkward, technical and tends to foster websites that never change.

Blog software was created to make it easy to produce a daily “web log”. WordPress is one of the most popular packages for creating blogs and has been extended so that it is an excellent tool for small websites – what I call “blogsites”.

In a “blogsite”, the website’s look and content are “controlled” by a blog software package such as WordPress. This allows you to create a website which is:
• Visually interesting and easy to navigate for the user
• Easy to update and add content to for the site owner

Remember why you want a website in the first place; because you have something to say to the world – you want to write not program. If you want to shortest path to content creation you need a “blogsite”.

Blog software is one type of content management system or CMS. A CMS uses a database to store the content (text, media and layout instructions) of a website making updates and additions much easier and less costly than a custom, hand-coded web site.

The look or design of the entire blogsite is controlled by a “theme”. A theme is a set of files with code to control the colors, fonts and other layout features of the site. Themes are fairly easy to customize but a new user should look through these WordPress theme sites to find a theme that will not need a great deal of initial customization to satisfy their need.

Once the user has a theme that is generally pleasing to them and suitable for their type of information, they can quickly begin to create content for their blogsite. We will explore different types of content and WordPress in more detail in our next article: WordPress101.