OK already! I'm giving in...

OK, OK I am giving in... and for good reason!

I am not one to jump on the newest, greatest thing in technology. I like to let other people get the bugs out, see how the application and use goes and then use the best of the best.

What am I giving in on? WordPress!

I have been using Blogger for my main blog and while I like it, as I work with other clients on their blogs and websites I have been increasingly impressed with WordPress. I was looking for the best blog interface for my newest website, and am going to convert my buildyourvaskills.com site to WordPress.

There are several reasons I am doing that. Here are the main reasons.

Open Source Software

WordPress is an Open Source software which allows it to be used free of cost. You can use it on any kind of personal or commercial website without have to pay a single dime for it. It is built on PHP/MySQL (which is again Open Source) and licensed under GPL.

User Friendly

You don’t really have to be experienced to use WordPress on your website. Most hosting companies provide the utilities to install WordPress on your site at a single click of the mouse. The administration section is easy to navigate and its even easy to add articles/content to your website.

Themes Support

You will never run short of templates when using WordPress. If you don’t like the themes that come with the default installation of WordPress, you can hunt on the Internet and you will find thousands of free themes that you can download and use for your website. There are themes which can even make your website look like a regular site instead of a blog. Also I have clients that change their theme to fit the season, a product launch, their mood, basically whenever they want.

Plugins (widgets) Extend Functionality

WordPress plugins allow you to do just about anything that you want and can be installed quickly. For example, you want to customize the sidebar? Just look on Google and you can easily find the relevant plugin that will easily do the job for you.

Standards Compliant

WordPress is one software that follows all the Web Standards and keeps your blog or website compliant to all the rules that have to be followed when running a website. They provide timely updates and remind you when a new update is ready to go.

SEO Friendly

I am no SEO expert. I find I have no time to really concentrate on all but the simplest SEO techniques when updating my blog. Let's face it, I am doing good just to get it done. WP does it for you! Search Engines have to be definitely kept in mind when building a website. WordPress uses different functions which allow it to be search engine friendly. For example sending pings to other sites, making categories, tagging your posts, use of h1/h2 tags etc.

Large community Support

WordPress is used on more than 1% of the websites on the Internet in the world. There is a large user community backing the development of this software. So, whenever you face any problems, you can go through all the available WordPress forums and communities and find answers for all your questions.

You can customize if you are so inclined

If you just can't live with the standard theme and plugin (widgets), you can hard code WP to do anything you want. I don't suggest it but it's possible. Once you start you are opening a can of worms, but if you like that sort of thing, you can certainly do it.

And just a few more quick reasons:
-Wordpress can automatically ping all the RSS sites.
-Wordpress allows the use of Categories (VERY SEO friendly, and automatically found by search engines.)

So, you see the benefits of using WordPress now? And, you can add to this list by providing your feedback in the comments.