WordPress makes controlling the content of a website easy. It can be done by you, or you can train another person to do it, because the Admin area is as intuitive as it is powerful. WordPress gives you the keys to build sites easily with all the modern features that clients crave. And because WordPress is free, open source, and has fostered a giant community around it, you’ll always be in good hands. WordPress has changed the face of publishing content on the web, and we are all reaping the benefits. For all these reasons and more, we can safely say that WordPress is amazing.

How to Optimize and Secure WordPress
Out of the box, and with a full cup of common sense, WordPress is a reasonably se­cure software package. But if you are up to snuff as a web designer/developer, you understand the importance of security and know that it is up to you to do every­thing possible to keep your site safe and secure. There are a slew of precautionary measures you can take to help with security, and we’ll show you all of them. Things like locking down sensitive files, checking file permissions, and using various mani­festations of "security-through-obscurity."

While we are at it, we'll customize our sites to streamline and optimize the effi­ciency of WordPress. Many of the things that can make WordPress faster are also things that can make any site faster, like reducing HTTP requests and optimizing images. But there are many WordPress-specific things you can do as well, like cach­ing data, keeping your database optimized, and reducing the number of database queries.

So, You’ve Never Heard of WordPress
If this is your first shindig with WordPress, there are a few things that may not be instantly obvious. If these things are obvious, good, you’re ahead of the curve, and remember there was a time in all our lives these things were not obvious.

Static vs. dynamic sites
Your old Geocities page? That was a static site. Your new WordPress powered site? That is a dynamic site. Dynamic sites have content that is stored in databases and pulled out and displayed as instructed by templates. This is a powerful way to build sites. It may seem complicated at first, but the flexibility offered by dynamic sites is well-worth the price.

Dynamic sites are...

• Better for designers - templates make it far easier to make global changes to a site.

• Better for developers - having content in databases allows them to get you what you need when you need it.

• Better for site managers - it puts publishing into their hands with tools meant for normal people to use.

• Better for visitors - because the site you create with it will be fantastic!

WordPress.org
This is the self-hosted, download-and-install-it-yourself version of WordPress. This is the WordPress to which WordPress.org is dedicated, enabling you to download the latest version, partici­pate in the forums, and browse the Codex (the ex­tensive and official WordPress documentation). This is the version that is for “real” designers and developers, as it offers you absolute and total control of your site, for use on your own servers, with no us­age restrictions at all.

WordPress.com
Perhaps introducing slight confusion, there is also a WordPress.com, which is a hosted blogging service owned by the same parent company (Automattic). Sites hosted at WordPress.com are located at URLs like “yoursite.wordpress.com” and are largely used only for blogs. There, you have less control, can’t do things like use plugins, and cannot deliver your own advertising. Of course, it’s also free, easy, and uses essentially the same Admin as self-hosted WordPress, so it’s great for your Mom; but even so, we’ll be us­ing the real WordPress for our websites!