If you ask anyone about the best blogging platform today, they will surely say WordPress.
WordPress to the Rescue
WordPress is one of the most popular blogging tools available today. But many people don't know that it is a powerful Content Management System (CMS) that can be used for more than just blogging. With WordPress you can build a blog, a website, or both.
Without any doubt, WordPress is the leading choice these days when it comes to a blogging platform. But what makes WordPress so popular and what makes it stand out from the rest of the blogging platforms out there?
In this post, we will have a look over all reasons to use Wordpress as a CMS.
Why to use Wordpress?
Reasons to Use Wordpress as a Blogging Platform (CMS)
The basic blogging platform is free of cost but with free accounts it also have premium accounts. You have to pay nothing for downloading and installing it on your site. Wordpress is not only free but it is well established too.
From the start, the only cost will be the price of hosting your site.
Why should that matter for your business? Open source means that the technology that powers WordPress is transparent for easier development. As a result there are people all over the world developing new themes and plug-ins to share with other WordPress users.
- WordPress can be used for simple blogging or full website content.
You might heard that Wordpress is used only for personal blog or you might be using it for your own blog but with few adjustments, wordpress can also be used to run a full service website. This feature of Wordpress makes it a one stop solution that can eliminate the need to use two different CMS for your website and blog.
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WordPress is very easy to use
Many blogging platforms make this claim but once you are trying to install them on your site, you will be bombarded with all sorts of options and features that you have no clue about.
With WordPress, anyone with zero knowledge about HTML or CSS or any coding language will have no problems creating a decent blog.
For example, backup of your blog or website can be done by simply including a backup plugin and with just a click or two you can accomplish your backup.
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WordPress is optimized for SEO
When building any website or blog that's aimed at a wide audience, search engine optimization (SEO) is important. The construction of WordPress blog code is consistent and streamlined without excessive HTML code that Google finds very inviting for indexing. WordPress provides good search engine optimization (SEO) right out of the box. There are a few tweaks you need to make, but there are many seo benefits that WordPress provides for free. In fact Google's own Matt Cutts says WordPress is "made to do SEO well" in this video:
Matt Cutts gives tips to small business owners.
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WordPress provides excellent technical support
Because of the high popularity of WordPress, there are hundreds of web developers and programmers out there that continue to churn out new WordPress plug-ins and enhancement programs on a regular basis.
These same developers will be able to provide you with customized solutions to practically any blogging requirement you might have.
In short, you will never be left groping in the dark in case you encounter problems with your WordPress website.
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WordPress has a supportive community
WordPress users and developers have online support networks on various forums. Users also post step-by-step video tutorials that can walk new users through the most basic as well as complex concepts. If you you're looking for or don't have the time to work on something highly customized for your site, it's easy to find WordPress developers for hire. There are literally thousands of WordPress developers out there. And there are so many people writing about WordPress that help is only a Google search away!
Add images and media by uploading to server from within your secret admin area instead of through traditional ftp and risking deleting important files or uploading to the wrong directories
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WordPress websites are easy to update
One of the major complaints of business owners is that they can't update their website themselves, and that having someone else update it costs them money. Not only is WordPress free it is simple to install, it takes no more than five minutes to update without knowing any computer language.
In addition to being easy to create, it is also very easy to make updates to your self-hosted WordPress website with just few clicks.
You don't need to hire a designer to makes changes to your site. Make the edits yourself whenever you want and save the money you would've paid your designer for more important things by adding new pages on your own.
Make changes or add content from any computer in the world with Internet access and a browser without the need for additional software or fixing firewall settings.
Since you don't have to wait a few days for your designer to make those basic changes, the content on your Web site and be altered immediately by you, thereby giving your Web site visitors the most timely and current details possible.
Add content and then schedule those posts to publish on your site on whatever day and time you want. You could write an entire 12-week e-course, for example, break it up into 12 pieces and have each automatically post to the site at the same day and time each week for 12 weeks.
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Ease of Membership Site Rollout
With the addition of a few plugins, a WordPress blog can evolve into a full service membership site
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WordPress has thousands of extensions
There is a large community of WordPress developers who create free themes, widgets and plug-ins. There are extensions for polling, contact forms, backing up your site, blocking spam, making your pages load faster, ratings and thousands more that can be found on the
WordPress Plug-In Directory. Any enhancement you can think of, type it in to Google and you will find an answer or search the WordPress Plug-In Directory. From there, you add the new features to your website or blog to increase functionality, performance and features without having to hire a web developer.
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Increased Functionality with Lower Cost
Thousands of pre-written programs called plugins can increase the functionality of your out-of-the-box blog software. Traditional websites require everything to be programmed. Even if you find an available PHP or ASP script to work with a traditional website, there is usually significant integration work and customizing required, whereas WordPress plugins are usually a 3-click install process.
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WordPress has one-click installation
Many hosting providers have quick installations of WordPress. Wordpress is convenient as more hosting providers offer easy-install processes for it than for Movable Type. Quick installs are provided by many hosting providers, including Bluehost and 1and1.
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Wordpress is User Friendly
You do not have to be an expert to use WordPress on your website. Now a days, almost all web hosting services offer a one click install from their control panel. With the use of few tutorials online, you can do it yourself. Aside from basic use, tweaking and modifying sites is fairly easy as well. There are tons of free tutorials available on the internet. Google them, if you need.
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WordPress allows multiple users
Wordpress offers multi-user capability. Multiple people can have access to update your website or blog. You can set permission levels of each user to maintain the security and integrity of your website or blog.
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WordPress can be self-hosted
If you decide to use the self-hosted version of WordPress, there is more flexibility in terms of features and design. If you want to host it you have the ability, but if your company is not there yet you can manipulate WordPress to fit your brand and your needs.
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It's easy to change the look of WordPress websites
Everyone has different tastes and purposes for their site. There are well over a thousand free themes you can find, with many of them selectable right in the WordPress admin area.
You can also opt for paid themes from many reliable theme makers that specialize in professional quality themes.
You can change the theme of your blog/website at any time when you need. It is as simple as changing the theme of your mobile phone.
Your work is automatically saved as you type even if you haven't published your blog posts live to the web yet.
No need to produce a second Web site just for mobile users. WordPress automatically recognizes if a person is viewing the site through a Web browser or mobile device and configures the content to be viewed appropriately on either.
With a simple plugin, all your WordPress blog site content can be easily printed in easy-to-read format without creating duplicate "printable" versions of pages. No need for sacrificing screen view design just so that people can print the pages.
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Social Networking Friendly
Automatically integrate your blog posts with social media like Twitter, facebook, Linkedin instead of having to go to each one, login, and make a post that you've just added something new to your website.
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Engage with Current Media
Easily add audio and video to posts and pages.
Integrate any design within an hour or two in comparison to other CMS (Content Management System) tools that all look alike because of their stringent design constraints.
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Insanely Fast Learning Curve
Learning to edit content, post new pages, add photos and images is as easy (maybe even easier than) using MS Word. Figuring out these simple procedures on your own would only take a novice a few hours. Just search on any search engine what you need to learn you will get thousands of results to learn new things.
One of the subjects "against" WordPress or other blog software that use plugins is that hackers can break in to your Web site. But, the exact opposite is in fact true: If you have the right people involved in the setup of your WordPress installation, your blog site can be hacker-proofed even more securely than a traditional Web site.
Blog posts can be automatically converted to RSS feeds and syndicated to blog directories and other peoples' websites.
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Backdoor FREE Entry to Yahoo! Search Addition
When you submit your RSS feed manually to Yahoo! you don't have to pay their $299 listing fee as your site will be indexed for free.
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24-Hour Listing in Bing/MSN
Adding the RSS feed to Bing/MSN is the fastest way to have your site indexed and it is common for even new sites to appear in Bing/MSN within 24 hours using this method.
It might sound like I'm repeating myself with "ease of use" or "ease of learning" already listed as a benefit, but this one is different. How many ways are there to add content to a Web site where you truly only click a single button to make the content appear live online? Only one that I've found and it's through blog software. There are no 10, 5 or even 3-step processes to publish content live. It's one single step.
Takeaway
If you are still on the fence as to which blogging platform to use, all the points mentioned above should help you make your decision.
By choosing WordPress, you will not only be making your life easier and saving money but you will also be taking your blog a step or two above the rest when it comes to performance and functionality.
Did I miss any benefits of WordPress blog sites over traditional sites? Let me know and please contribute to this important post.
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