Starting a blog is not an easy decision. You have lot of things to choose. First you need to choose the topic on which to write, platform, themes and much more. Choosing a good topic is not very difficult, by following the right steps, you can easily find the topic that can make you famous.
But what about platform? Is choosing platform for blog difficult? The answer is No. But what is difficult is choosing right platform.
WordPress is a very good plaform for blogs and with its lot of plugins and themes, good choice for blogs of every niche as well.
In this post, I will tell you about the advantages of using WordPress as blogging platform and why 32 of the top 100 blogs use WordPress.
Why WordPress?
WordPress is an Open Source Content Management System that can be used for a variety of tasks. You can use WordPress to power Blogs, Forums, WebSites and even Directories. It is free to use and has vast community around it.
Advantages of Using WordPress:
WordPress is Powerful Blog Platform!
- You Own Your Content: Once I created a test blog on Blogger to experiment and wrote a small post with random words in it. After a few days, I was shocked to see a "Your Blog has Been Blocked" message from Blogger saying that it was identified as spam. It took 2 days to unlock it. It was just a test blog but what if it had been Blogging With Success (our first two months were on Blogger) or any other regular blog?
- You can Extend it: There are more than 4000 plugins available in WordPress Plugin Directory. They add functionality to WordPress and make managing your blog easy.
- Easy to Manage: With Version 2.7, WordPress has made installing plugins and upgrading dead-simple. You can do these tasks with a single click, no need to mess up with FTP (File Transfer Protocol.)
- It's Supported by a Strong Community: WordPress is supported by a big community which develops plugins and themes for it.
- Organized: WordPress uses themes that further consist of individual files. This makes editing themes easy as you don't have to mess up with a single file (like Blogspot templates) and finding errors becomes easy.
- SEO Friendly: WordPress is lot more SEO friendly than many other platforms. With the help of good plugins, you can control almost every aspect of SEO.
- Free: WordPress is free to download and you can use it as you wish. Only costs incurred are those of web hosting.
Disadvantages:
- Troubleshooting: WordPress is much more complex than Blogger or any other platform. When errors occur, it's hard to find the root cause (especially with a lot of plugins).
- Finding Good Host: WordPress blogs rely on hosting quality. If your host is not good, your experience will be a bad one.
- Technical Requirements: You need to know php, css and HTML to make even small changes to your blog. Luckily plugins cover most of what you need to do.
In December 2008, we moved from Blogspot to WordPress and have never looked back. We broke (and fixed) our blog hundereds of times and will continue to do it! What about you? Which platform do you use and prefer?
About Ishan Sharma
How hard and complicated it is to switch from Blogger to WordPress? Because I'm thinking of moving both of my blogs to WordPress and now having a dilemma in choosing the hosting service.
Hi Eli. How hard can it be when so many people switch successfully? You have to be willing to follow basic steps (research and plan in advance) or hire some technical help if your own time is a premium. We use and recommend Doreo Hosting (use our affiliate link and you qualify for discount counsulting help from us.) I have recent experience with Doreo and BlueHost since I'm converting a traditional website to WP. Doreo is much easier at about the same price. Read our post on the quick install for new sites, naturally exporting or forwarding your current post adds a layer… Installing WordPress in Fewer Than 5 Minutes. Feel free to use the services contact form to discuss further…
I like wordpress themes and plugins. I used wordpress blog for seo friendly and i familiar with it. Thanks.
Currently I run ALL my blogs (12) on WordPress, and wouldn't even THINK about switching to something else. I even use WordPress for a normal content website, for which it also does a great job after a bit of tweaking (yes, for this you need to know PHP and CSS).
So, in other words: I love WordPress…
As far as I have seen, WordPress can do everything! I have seen Blog Directories, Article Directories, Social Networks, Forums running on WordPress.
I think wordpress is the best. I had two blogs – one in wordpress and one in blogger and I liked the wordpress one much more as it was comprehensive and had a great community and the stats were better in that too(I am talking about a wp.com blog). wp.org self hosted is the best as i am discovering now – I am about to start one there.
Destination Infinity
i use it- very simple and effective
Simple and effective, that's what I too love WP for. You can have a lightweight website with it or create a super heavey-weight by using lot of plugins.
I've heard a lot of great things about WordPress, and I would probably move to it if I wasn't so cheap. With Blogger, you get great free hosting when you own your domain. That 5 or 10 dollars a month can add up, and my blog barely makes a few cents every week or two.
Blogger is a good platform for starting point. I was a fan of Blogger too, it's so easy and simple, but lacks advanced features I need. WordPress, in the other hand, has that 'advanced features' but not as simple as Blogspot.
You choose.
The best is FREE + PLUGINS which is awesome.
I must admit I was pleasantly surprised at how powerful WP self-hosted is. Now I see why there are so many Blogger 'hacks' of WP features and themes!
I use wordpress and it's been a good experience for me. Now I use the Thesis theme with wordpress and it's been going smoothly – thanks to my brother who is a Thesis guru.
However, I do wish the wordpress help forums were more active. I've posted a question or two and never received a response. It can be very frustrating.
I agree about the forums, not just for WP but most forums for widely used platforms. I've posted questions on Blogger and can't even find my question.. lol and if I do, there is no response. BlogCatalog can sometimes point you to a person who can help.
The main reason I use wordpress is because everyone else does. That means that people know how to navigate and how to comment. I get frustrated commenting on blogger blogs.
Same here! I just hate when comment form pop-up on Blogger blogs. I hate even more when comment form does not work correctly with my browser!