So why choose WordPress?

WordPress is one of the best blogging platforms available today. Google loves it and most search engines gives priority to WordPress blog. It is reasonably definite that search engines give main concern to certain websites and blogs, so now that blogging and pinging segment might be losing at least part of its effectiveness, now is the time for something new.

There are strong facts that WordPress blogs get better search rankings compare to any other sites. We will discover that in more detail later, but for now just know that there are some search engine advantages to using WordPress tools.

In some ways this tool is only good for those who understand the value and benefits of blogging. Blogging is a form of website promotion and information sharing that can have very strong business implications.

WordPress Blogging

What is the so unique about WordPress? Simplicity and easy to setup is what WordPress is all about. It only requires minimal programming requirements and efforts to get it up. To make things even better, WordPress provides you a collection of themes with various blog designs and layouts, plugins/widgets, theme resources, support forum and other stuff to make sure it’s fully flexible to accommodate modifications. Hey, I can keep talking about WordPress features and its benefits but the most important thing using WordPress is for one simple reason and that is to make money.

Here’s a quick example of how WordPress can change the way you blog forever:

Now, there’s two possibility here. One, you’re a beginner and looking for a way to setup your own website and you encountered WordPress. Second, you have a few websites and already are earning some decent money from them so you have a full time programmer on retainer. You’ve heard about WordPress and how it would allow you to set up your blogs with little or no effort.

No matter which category you’re in, what really matters is you like the idea but don’t want to pay the programmer so you decide to tackle it yourself. You only need few things actually. Download the zip file from WordPress.org, extract the files and transfer it to your website using FTP software. Once uploaded you can start install it by following the instructions attached in the zip file. It was that easy. Another method you can use is using Fantastico which most web hosting has it as a tool. The installation process is done much simpler.

Once the installation done, you can setup all the theme, plugins/widgets, feeds, and template you need from the administrator area. All this can be done within an hour. Then, you can start posting some articles, setup the categories, give your blog a proper title, slogans, add links or if you want to customize certain area to match your requirements. You accomplish all this in less than 30 minutes.

Best of all you didn’t need to take up your programmer’s valuable time.

In case you want to earn some money, you can then go on to embed Google Adsense ads (if you don’t have then you can register at: Google Adsense) and other advertising options in the blogs. A few strategically placed links on pages that are already indexed and your blogs are up and running!

WordPress is a high-end blogging tool that simplify the entire process of setting up a blog or blogging system and that’s why WordPress is VERY easy. Honestly, you can setup the WordPress blog in 30 minutes if you just follow the instructions properly where the 30 minutes includes download, code extraction, upload, database setup and installation. While I did not do heavy customization, it would have been very simple to do through the interfaces that are available through the WordPress administration tool. Here’s the WordPress I installed in 20 minutes.

Pretty fast right? It’s very easy actually if you just follow all the necessary steps. The basic steps to uploading the WordPress tools are:

1. Instructions (make sure to read them). For online instructions you can read at: 5 Minutes Installation
2. Download the WordPress zip package from WordPress.org and extract them to your local pc. You can also extract them in your server by using File Manager. It’s up to you to choose the method. As for me I prefer extract at local pc and upload it to server.
3. Then open a file called wp-config-sample.php and rename it to wp-config.php.
4. Go to your website and pull the MySQL database information (a) Username,  (b) Password,  (c) Server Information. This information will be available in your server control panel. You need to create all those in your web hosting. You need to include those information into your wp-config.php file.
5. Make sure you already have a domain if not you can purchase from any registrar. Namecheap is I always used and Hostgator is my favorite web hosting. It’s cheap and have a good support staff that willing to assist you whenever you need them.
6. Upload the WordPress files (to your public-html folder).
7. Go to your website www.yourwebsite.com (index.php is the default page that WordPress opens to) to start the installation process.
8. Input your setup information, and set up the links and layouts of the website.

Why WordPress instead of Blogger?

Have you ever used blogger? I am referring to www.blogger.com. Blogger.com and LiveJournal.com are some of the best-known blogging websites on the internet. I used both before but I’m not too impressed with it. I found it’s much harder and it’s not flexible like WordPress.

One of the main reasons I don’t like blogger.com is I don’t own the website. That’s one MAJOR drawback because if anything go wrong like breaching their terms and conditions all your efforts will be wasted.  This is not something that I want to do. Can you just imagine, after pouring tons of efforts they can simply delete your profile without any warnings. It is definitely not my best interest. This shows no business built on Blogger or LiveJournal.com is actually yours, both Blogger.com and LiveJournal.com reserve the right to kick you off.  My personal advice is you should never put your business and hours and hours of your work into a website you do not own and cannot control.

Features and Benefits of WordPress

WordPress make things easier for everyone who is using their tool. It allows you to easily download and upload files to your own personal websites. WordPress is built to W3C standards for XHTML and CSS. These features make WordPress code easier to manage and easier to render in standards-compliant browsers. Non-compliant browsers are made compliant with only a few changes.

Apart from that, WordPress also have some very positive features like themes, plugins/widgets and other tools that give the ability for customization. The most positive factor that I noticed right from the beginning in the WordPress utility is that you do not need to know PHP. With many blogging systems you often need to know how to program. With Blogger, I spent hours embedding stuff like YouTube videos, Image gallery and Google ads in the pages. Also when I made changes I had to recompile the script or so called “rebuild” it.  Imagine how much time you can spend “rebuilding” dozens of blogs! In each blog I modified each blog and linked it to my central website. Linking blogs that get regular traffic is a technique called “hub”.

Blog Linking Strategy 1

Blog Linking Strategy 2 (best back links strategy)

In the first scenario, you have to see how you can arrange your blogs to produce traffic for a central website. This is an excellent tool to produce income for your business. While in the second scenario, its like 3 ways linking which is very popular linking strategy method. WordPress has the potential to be the perfect tool for your business to generate an average level of traffic to a central website. The relative advantages are:

1. You don’t have to know PHP.
2. You don’t have to know how to program at all.
3. You don’t need to use the WordPress hosting service. Although this is offered, it is not necessary.
4. WordPress has aggregator support for standard RSS configurations. This has already been done with Atom.
5. WordPress automatically connects and configures with MySQL with virtually no effort.
6. Being built to standards increases WordPress’s longevity and future internet adoption.
7. WordPress automatically imports images.
8. The WordPress template has built-in links added in the template.
9. WordPress allows for the customization of metadata.
10. WordPress allows customized styling for printing.
11. WordPress allows the administrator to design headlines.
12. WordPress allows for categories.
13. WordPress allows for customization of the sidebar.
14. WordPress allows for customized RSS Feeds.
15. WordPress allows for customized forms.
16. WordPress allows for basic blogging posts.
17. WordPress allows archiving for posts.
18. WordPress allows for contacts in the template.
19. WordPress allows for an “about” page.
20. WordPress allows for the styling lists and is built with CSS.
21. WordPress allows for social sites linking. E.g. Twitter, Facebook, Technorati, Digg, StumbleUpon, etc
22. WordPress allows for customization of template.
23. WordPress allows widgets/plugins integration which mostly available for free.
24. WordPress allows visitors interaction.
25. WordPress is FREE!

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This entry was posted on Sunday, May 23rd, 2010 at 11:45 am and is filed under Wordpress Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.