wordpress logoWhen I started the blog back in 2005, I started with a free service.  I don’t know which one it was, I just remember that I hated it and it made no sense.  I didn’t blog often because it was too much like school work… who wants to write all the time!

Around the same time I was setting up a new hosting service for all my web clients and my personal stuff.  I went with Dreamhost because of all the features and costs.  A guy like me who has new web site ideas needed a place to put unlimited domains… Dreamhost did that for minimal cost… and I mean minimal.

As I got into Dreamhost I found this button called one-click installs.  Under this button was a program called WordPress.  It was exactly as it said… one click and WordPress was ready to use. And now begins my WordPress story.

Much like other blog sites WordPress comes with pre-made templates, except a lot of them.  I found even more online… 100s then and now there are 1000s.  Even with this many templates I have never been satisfied with the minimal design or the fact of knowing everyone else has the same access.

I’ll begin my reasoning why I believe WordPress is a great answer to blogging as well as a total website solution… now.

  • As mentioned above.  Templates.  1000s of them and 90% are free.  These open source templates allow you the opportunity to click a button and change the feel of your site while still allowing you complete freedom to edit and configure as needed.  With some basic html and CSS skills you can do brain surgery with these things.  A great list of incredible templates is here.
  • Plugins-  These have made all the difference and have continually increased my satisfaction with WordPress.  There are over 4,000 plugins available.  I don’t use nearly that and it’s like anything else, you find what is useful and weed out the noise.  Here are 5 plugins that I believe are must’s for starting your WordPress journey.  Did I mention they are all free?
    • All-In-One-Seo: Exactly what it says.  It optimizes your WordPress site for search engines.  Automatically optimizes your page titles.  Adds meta words and descriptions to your posts and is completely customizable.
    • WordPress Mobile Edition: This creates a mobile version of your WordPress site.  Simple navigation and links.  With more people using their mobile phone to access the web, this plugin makes sure your WordPress site is readable and accessible.  Great Plugin!
    • Google XML Sitemaps: Google is the king of search… they use spiders to track content on the web as well as use sitemaps for..uh.. maps.  Sitemaps are a must for sites with a large amount of content.  This plugin creates a Google ready sitemap and even alerts Google each time a new sitemap is created.
    • Akismet: This is the little plugin that doesn’t get a whole lot of love.  Akismet checks comments against other web services to determine if it is spam or not.  Since installing this, it has caught over 4,000 spammers and bots- 99% correct!
    • Feedsmith: This plugin detects and redirects all your feeds to Feedburner.  This allows you to keep up with all possible subscribers.  Feedburner is a great tool for any site that aggragates content.
    • CMS: The Content Management System is built for ease of use, both for the beginner and expert.  The dashboard is built for easy navigation and puts all your tools right in front of you.
    • Widgets:  While widgets are not exclusive to anyone platform or service, WordPress comes with many templates that are widget ready and include many options.  This allows for you to add extras like twitter, friendfeed or adsense codes without digging into the html files.
    • Satifies the control freak in you:  This seems a little over the top, but I like to have control.  I have my own domain and I control my own domain.  I don’t log into any one else’s service to access my site.  With my hosting account WordPress is a free add-on.  Free is good but it’s great when you get a quality program ready to run.
    • Online Publishing:  WordPress is quickly becoming a favorite for online publishing.  Since you can allow users multiple access priveleges you can create an online publication with multiple contributors while retaining the control.  Many indie magazines have jumped on the WordPress wagon to publish and have created some very interesting sites. Here some sample sites:
      • The Revolution Theme- These guys have a few samples up.  Clean and great looking, all driven by WordPress.
      • Mimbo Pro- This is a theme that I absolutely love.  I’m actually on my second customization for two different sites.  This is the demo site, I’ll post the others once they are done.
      • The Morning After - This theme has no demo, but the link gives you a screen shot-  nice template, a little more understanding of css and custom fields are required for this one.
      • Tomodachi - Clean, more business WordPress style.

    Each blogger will have to find what works for them, but for new clients looking for blog sites and corporate sites I am pushing WordPress.  The built in content management system allows them to edit and manage their own sites long after I am done with them…  basically that means they don’t pay me to keep updating the site!  Oh, if you are wondering, there are tools out there to back up and export from other blog sites.. no need to lose the stuff you’ve already done!

    This post is part of
    Watercooler Wednesday hosted by Ethos!