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WordPress is the largest self hosted blogging tool in the world. It is used on millions of sites and seen by tens of millions of people every day. Everything within WP was created by and for the community. WP is an Open Source project. This means there are hundreds of people all over the world working on it, and you are free to use it for anything you want without paying a license fee or getting any other authorizations.
Did you know? WordPress isn’t just for the SMB. Some top brands that you know well like Sony, Star Wars, Bloomburg, Playstation, Facebook, and MTV News use WordPress as well (see list).

Why use WordPress?

FREE

WordPress (WP) is a FREE software. Yes, free, no catch. There are currently over 2,600  WordPress themes and more than 31,000 plugins available for anyone to use, free. You can download, install and use them on any website. WP is a community software. Since it is Open Source, it is maintained by a large group of volunteers. Anyone can contribute to WP by writing patches, answering support questions, writing plugins, creating themes, translating WordPress and updating documentation. By using WP yourself, you become part of that community. You get free support from other members, download free plugins and themes, and gain experience with WP so you can contribute back to the community.

User Friendly

Not only does WP have a detailed step by step guide on how to install WordPress, but it comes with hundreds of other WordPress tutorials too. Anything you need to know how to do, they can teach you step by step in their tutorials. WPBeginner has tons of articles written specifically for beginner level WordPress users, so it’s simple for anyone to use. Another benefit of it being Open Source is that you have hundreds of volunteers, just like you, using the site who can help answer questions.

Easy Management

WP comes with a built in updater. It that allows you to update your plugins and themes from within your WordPress admin dashboard. It also notifies you when there is a new version of WordPress is available, so you can update it by just clicking a button. To make it even easier, you can set up automated regular WP Backups. For anyone who doesn’t have time to check their site regularly for updates, this is a very helpful feature.
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Themes/ Plugins

There are thousands of WP themes to choose from that are super easy to customize. A lot of them come with their own options panel, which allows you to change colors and backgrounds, create sliders, upload logos, and more without ever writing any code at all. Just like the themes, there are thousands of plugins available for you to use. Plugins are pieces of software that contain a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your websites. Not only do these plugins add extra functionality to WP, there are lots of plugins which can add a whole new platform to your WordPress site. The options are endless.
ReversedOut’s favorite plugins:

1. Yoast – Easy SEO plugin that guides even the most amateur on how to optimize your site for search.
2. Google Maps – Responsive, easy to use, with a variety of themes to choose from.
3. ContactForm 7 – Easy forms that allows customization and even includes SPAM filter options that you’ll want to use if you get any measurable traffic.
4. Twillio – Great plugin that allows you to add SMS (text-messages) to almost any action on your site. Trying to reach those Millenials? Try this!
5. Stripe – Ecommerce checkout tool that is responsive and it integrates with Apple Pay
   

   Media Support

Using WordPress you are not just limited to writing text. It comes with built in support to handle images, audio, and video content. WP supports YouTube videos, Instagram photos, Tweets, and Soundcloud audio by just pasting the URL in your post. You can even allow your visitors to embed videos in comments.

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