I often work in the role of a Blog Coach. When I’m getting a client setup for the first time on a blogging platform I choose to use WordPress. In fact I like it so much that I use it with almost all of my clients blogs. Sure there are other good ones out there. I’m not saying anything bad about Blogger or Typepad. There are lots of blogs that I read on a regular basis that are written on those platforms. What really matters is the Blog Content not the platform.
With that said there is a lot to be said for the platform. Instead of trying to win you over I’m just going to share some of the aspects that I like about WordPress. I should note that when I’m talking about WordPress I’m talking about the self-hosted version of the platform.
- It has a huge user community. Got a problem with WordPress? Chances are there is someone online who can help. Sometimes for free and sometimes not. However its awesome that there a ton of people using this platform and wiling to help with problems that you may have. However its not just about helping you with problems. The WordPress community creates free themes, free plug-ins, free widgets etc.
- Themes – WordPress has ker-thousands of Themes on the internet for you to chose from. Many are free while some are not. I keep lists of the ones I like. It’s my own little reference guide when I start working on a new project.
- Other uses. Want to setup an invoicing system for your clients? Want to create a job board? How about a Wiki? Yeah we got all that and more! Thanks to the friends at Designer Daily! They helped us find a list of all sorts of things you can do with you new WordPress site!
- Plug Ins – WordPress has great plugins that make life so easy. If you want to use Google Analytics there are plug-ins for that, do you want to stop spammers from leaving you messages for viagra then call that, plugins to back your database then there are plugins for that. For just about anything thing you might need there is a good chance there is already a plugin!
- Its free! WordPress is a free tool that anyone can use!
- It’s easy to use. Sure anything can be complicated but WordPress at its basic form is easy for just about anyone to use. Of course one of the ways that Smack Smog acts as Blog Coach is to help you with WordPress so that you don’t have problems!
- The search engines love it! Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc all find it easy to index, list and find the content that you create on a WordPress Blog. Sure there are Plugins that take care of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and I occasionally use them but I find that good content is enough for the WordPress code to match with the Search Engines algorithms. Its just that good!
