I hear this question from time to time. I would like to anwer it with a question: why would you not use WordPress?

By most estimates, WordPress is used by anywhere from 25-30% of the blogs in existence. But is popularity alone enough? Probably not. I have never been one to “go with the grain”, but in this case, I feel it is merited.

I have to preface my story by saying that I began blogging about a year ago. With a partner, we relaunched Lodi Valley News as a blog style site. I had previously written a straight-up HTML/CSS site, with a little JavaScript seasoning thrown in. It was a nice site, but we were looking for more interactivity. As I researched blogging, it seemed to be the ideal platform for achieving the level of interaction that we were looking for in our site. As a news/information site, Lodi Valley News was floundering as a one-way information source. Our then host, 1&1, had some plug-and-play versions of WP available. They were limited to a few standard themes and could not be restyled. At this point, I looked further into the various blogging platforms on the market.

The more I researched, the more it became apparent to me that the WP platform was probably the best for our purposes. I was impressed with the documentation, the forums, the themes- and most importantly-the plugins. Oh, the plugins. Wow, there was a plugin to accomplish nearly anything I would want to do. Polls, forums, feeds, calendars, image presentation, gadgets, gizmos and all sorts of cool stuff. Suddenly, our little news site was engaging and interactive. We could get our viewers involved in our stories. We could become an instantaneous debate about pertinent social issues about Lodi, WI! As we relaunched with all of the bells and whistles, our viewership jumped-tremendously. It gave us the opportunity to monetize our site by selling some small ads in the sidebar. And people liked the results. No, actually they loved the results. We were finally relevant.

Where will your website take you? WordPress can help to tame even the most unruly of sites.

It was like a revelation for me. As a web designer, I could only imagine the possibilities with something like WordPress. Not just for blogging sites, but for any type of site. I felt that for website owners who had some technical savvy, WordPress’ real strength lay in it’s capabilities as a CMS (Content Management System). These tech-savvy owners could manage their own sites, only having to come in for periodic maintenance. And for the not so savvy, it was relatively bullet-proof. The WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editing capabilities could have the most timid of owners updating their own site on a regular basis.

For the “totally plugged-in” crowd, the ability to interface with social media tools such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc. and share information between these various sites is legendary. Mix in some really kickin’ themes, a bit of post-dated publishing capability, an extremely SEO-friendly setup and a platform that is so extensible that it borders on ridiculous and it is a winning combination. Of course, having an intuitive, easy-to-use User Interface/Admin Panel doesn’t hurt either.

Since I began using WP about a year ago, I have produced sites of all kinds of flavors along the way. Artist portfolios, e-commerce sites, informational sites, sites with blogs, sites without blogs. Each and every time that I design a new site with WordPress, I learn something new and become more and more impressed. I have yet to find a real glaring weakness with WordPress.

OK, so all of this qualifies me for “fanboy” status. I know, I am guilty as charged. WordPress is the only blogging software that I have ever used. It is the only CMS I have ever used. I guess that I got lucky and found the right platform the first time through-so why change? Sometimes it’s not just about the destination as much as it is about the road you’re on. Enjoy the ride!

Thanks for reading along. See you at the next post!

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