What do Martha Stewart, Discover Magazine, the NFL, the Royal Navy, the Wall Street Journal, and Danielle Steele have in common? They all use WordPress.
But these are mega-money megastars. And besides, you say, I’m not a blogger. I don’t want to have to write every day or even every week! So how can you, the entrepreneur, small business owner or sole proprietor, benefit from using WordPress over hand-coding a traditional site?
Here’s the thing. Blogging software—any blogging software—automatically handles chores that traditional, hand-coded sites (yes, we can call five or ten years “traditional” on the web!), built with Dreamweaver or other coding programs, need lots of human attention—i.e. time and money—to do..
- A blogging platform allows you to publish to the site without knowing or doing any html or web coding
- You can change the total appearance of your site with—literally—one click
- The software automatically publishes your updates as an RSS feed (more on this in another article click here to learn how RSS can make your life easier)
- And most wonderfully, blogging platforms automatically archive your published articles without any action whatsoever on your part.
But Why WordPress, Rather Than Blogger, Moveable Type, Expression Engine, or Some Other Platform?
A couple of years ago, the choice wouldn’t have been clear-cut. Now, more top-100 bloggers use WordPress than any other single platform. It has evolved from a promising but clunky tool, back when I first encountered version 1.0 in 2003 or so, to a thriving, highly extensible platform that has managed to maintain its accessibility to the novice user while offering professional-level technical and design sophistication. It’s a stand-out among blogging platforms.
The 18 Reasons I Recommend WordPress to My Clients
- 1. It’s free. There’s nothing to buy, no subscriptions, no editing software needed.
2. Ready to use, right off the net. All you need is a web host.
3. Infinitely customizable. You can download a selection of free themes—and apply them yourself, instantly. Or, you can purchase premium themes for special purposes (real estate site, business site, ecommerce site, etc). Or, of course, hire a designer to create your own custom look, feel and function.
4. You can easily create, organize and update your own site, without knowing any coding.
5. Like other blogging software, it automatically archives all your posts.
6. Like other blogging software, it automatically creates RSS feeds, and pings the services of your choice when you update your blog.
7. You can publish to your site via email, or your phone.
8. You can use it to podcast, videoblog, photoblog, or write.
9. You can also use it to create a totally non-blog site or an integrated blog-plus-conventional-site.
10. Reader comments can be configured in a variety of ways to enhance the sense of community on your site.
11. Twitter, microblogs, and other new platforms can be integrated into your WordPress site easily.
12. It’s continuously updated and supported by a huge team of users and developers.
13. It can be quickly extended to perform many additonal functions via hundreds of plugins.
14. Can be updated automatically… no need for tricky reinstalls.
15. Comprehensive support and instruction, both written and video, is widely available at little or no cost.
16. It’s very SEO-friendly. Traffic, traffic, traffic!
17. There’s a quick learning curve.
18. And last but not least, has an easy-to-use admin interface.
With all these advantages, why would you use anything else for your blog or site? That’s exactly what I started thinking, and why I have redesigned this site in…guess what?…WordPress.
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