Welcome to the very first lesson of our WordPress Short Series. This WordPress Introduction is written for complete beginners, so you do not need any coding background to follow along. By the end of this tutorial, you will understand what WordPress actually is, how it started, how fast it has grown, and what career opportunities it can open up for you.
What Is WordPress?
WordPress is a free, open-source Content Management System, commonly known as a CMS. In simple words, a CMS is software that lets you create and manage a website without writing code line by line. This WordPress Introduction focuses on one key idea: WordPress gives ordinary people the power to build professional websites using a visual dashboard instead of raw programming.
You can use WordPress to build almost any type of website. This includes blogs, business websites, online stores, portfolios, news sites, and educational platforms like Tutorials Ocean. Because WordPress is flexible, both beginners and professional developers use it for very different types of projects, from a personal blog to a large company website.
There are two versions of WordPress that often confuse new learners. WordPress.org is the self-hosted, free software you install on your own server, and it gives you full control. WordPress.com is a hosted service where WordPress itself manages the server for you, but with fewer customization options. Throughout this WordPress Short Series, we will work with WordPress.org, since it is the version professionals use for real client projects.
| Feature | WordPress.org | WordPress.com |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting | You choose your own host | Hosted by WordPress.com |
| Customization | Full control (themes, plugins) | Limited on free/basic plans |
| Cost | Free software, pay for hosting | Free to paid plans available |
| Best For | Businesses, developers, agencies | Simple personal blogs |
A Short History of WordPress
WordPress was officially launched in 2003 by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. It began as a simple blogging tool, built as a fork of an older platform called b2/cafelog. At that time, very few people imagined it would grow into the platform that now powers a huge portion of the internet.
Over the years, WordPress evolved far beyond blogging. Major updates introduced custom themes, a plugin system, and eventually the Gutenberg block editor in 2018, which changed how people create content visually. Each update made WordPress more powerful while keeping it beginner-friendly, which is why this WordPress Introduction still applies to the very latest version today.
Today, WordPress is maintained by a large global community of volunteer developers, along with companies like Automattic. This open-source nature means WordPress is constantly improved, kept secure, and updated for free, which is rare for software this powerful and widely used.
WordPress Yearly Usage Growth
One of the most convincing parts of any WordPress Introduction is seeing how consistently it has grown year after year. Unlike many technologies that rise and fall quickly, WordPress has shown steady, long-term growth in the number of websites using it, based on data tracked by W3Techs over the years.
| Year | Approx. Market Share (All Websites) |
|---|---|
| 2019 | 34% |
| 2020 | 35% |
| 2021 | 39–40% |
| 2022 | 43% |
| 2023 | 43% |
| 2025 | 43–44% |
These figures are approximate industry figures and may shift slightly by the time you read this, but the overall pattern is clear. WordPress has stayed the single largest website platform on the internet for well over a decade, and it continues to outgrow every competing CMS combined.
Why WordPress Dominates the Market
Today, WordPress powers well over 40% of all websites on the internet. That means out of every ten websites you visit daily, roughly four are likely built on WordPress. This makes WordPress the single most used website platform, far ahead of competitors like Shopify, Wix, and Squarespace combined.
Many well-known organizations trust WordPress for their websites, including major news outlets, universities, and large global companies. This wide adoption is one of the strongest points in any WordPress Introduction, because it proves the platform is trusted at both small and enterprise levels.
- Free and open-source core software
- Thousands of free and paid themes for design
- Tens of thousands of plugins to add features without coding
- Strong SEO-friendly structure out of the box
- Huge community support and documentation
- Beginner-friendly, yet powerful enough for enterprise sites
WordPress Career Scope and Salary Package
This kind of market dominance directly translates into job demand. Every business that builds a website on WordPress eventually needs someone to design, customize, maintain, or troubleshoot it. This makes WordPress one of the most practical skills a beginner can learn, whether the goal is a full-time job, freelancing, or running an agency.
Career paths built on WordPress skills include WordPress Developer, Website Designer, Elementor Specialist, WooCommerce Store Builder, WordPress SEO Specialist, and Freelance WordPress Consultant. Many professionals also combine WordPress with PHP, page builders, and automation tools to offer complete website solutions to clients, similar to the kind of work taught throughout this WordPress Short Series.
| Region | Approx. Average Annual Salary |
|---|---|
| Pakistan | PKR 400,000 – 600,000 |
| India | INR 300,000 – 480,000 |
| United States | USD 45,000 – 80,000 |
These numbers are general averages and can vary a lot depending on experience, city, client type, and whether you work locally or take freelance projects internationally. Beginners in Pakistan and India often earn significantly more once they start working with international clients through freelancing platforms, since payment is usually in USD.
You can read more about WordPress directly from its official source here: wordpress.org.
This is Tutorial 1 of 10 in our WordPress Series. In the next tutorial, we will move from theory to practice by installing WordPress locally using XAMPP.
Practice Task
- Visit wordpress.org and explore the homepage for 5 minutes.
- Write down 3 differences between WordPress.org and WordPress.com in your own words.
- Search online for 2 famous websites built on WordPress.
- Note the year WordPress was first launched and who created it.
- Pick one WordPress career path from this tutorial and list 3 skills you would need to learn for it.
- Write one paragraph explaining why WordPress is popular, in your own words.
Bonus Challenge: Research the current WordPress market share for this year using a trusted source like W3Techs, and compare it to the figures shown in the growth table above. Share what you find in the comments.
Continue exploring more WordPress tutorials in our WordPress category.
