Why We Like WordPress

WordPress has been around since the dawn of time. Well ok, maybe just since the Green Pond began its time. But it’s a fantastic platform for building websites, and that’s why we chose to use it exclusively.

We admit – we’re passionate about using WordPress. Many know what it is and have used it, yet there are plenty of people who don’t even know what it is. We’ve been asked, “What is WordPress?” many times when we have handed out our business cards.

So we thought we would demystify WordPress and break it down in plain English. Here are a few reasons we think WordPress is the best:

  1. It is FREE. WordPress is open source. Not many may know what open source means but what matters is this – it means free. Forever. End of story. There is no trick. This is one main reason millions love it.
  2. It is very easy to install. It is famed for it’s 5-minute install. It can be done manually by you or automatically for you. Which leads us to the next reason.
  3. It is supported by almost ALL hosting providers. Many web hosts offer tools to automatically install WordPress for you, which can be as easy to install on your website as the click of a button, quite literally. HostGator does not mind frogs in their ponds, so it our web host of choice. We’ve been with them for almost a year and have been swimming happily ever since.
  4. A blog can be set up at WordPress.com or self-hosted. Setting up your blog at WordPress.com is simple and free. However, you might want the premium version or your own hosting to map your own unique domain name to your WordPress site. For example, you can have yourdomain.com instead of yourdomain.wordpress.com. This will also make customization broader and easier.
  5. No coding knowledge is required. You never have to hack the source code of the CMS. But if you know PHP you can find comfort in knowing that you can change it around if you had to. It’s written in PHP, which makes it very customizable & easy for hosts to make friends with. We won’t swim too deep with why PHP is good. But trust us – methods of coding like Perl are just too scary.
  6. Writing New Posts & Pages is easy. It is as easy as creating a Word document & clicking Publish. There is also a wide array of formatting tools included at your own disposal. You can tweak your posts even after they’ve been published. Even if you make mistakes, don’t let that stop you. You will learn as you go.
  7. There are MANY paid & free themes to choose from. A huge market has erupted around paid WordPress themes. There are websites such as Organic Themes, Woothemes, & Elegant Themes dedicated solely to creating WordPress themes for you. And many by individuals at Themeforest who can simply submit their theme design for sale. Themes can range from free to a few bucks for the web illiterate person to get started with a cheap yet stunning web site. This is a big reason many people use WordPress over other CMSs. There are hundreds of free themes over at the WordPress Theme Directory. You can also download free themes at other sites such as Smashing Magazine. After you download your theme of choice, installing it to your website is super easy.
  8. There are countless plugins. WordPress is so easily extendible that with a mere plugin you have an eCommerce site or even an entire social network. Other plugins include database backups, which allow you to schedule blog backups & have them automatically sent to you by email or stored in the server.
  9. It is backed by a large community. WordPress has been built based on the feedback of amazing support, users, & especially by those who rely on WordPress as their main source of income. It’s vital having this kind of support in the community.
  10. WordPress is for the simple & the complex. It can pass as a great use for a traditional blogging, or as a large CMS (Content Management System) for things like movie reviews, magazines, & stores.
  11. It keeps getting better. When it began, WordPress was solely used as a traditional blogging platform. Then there were many niche-specific theme designs for portfolios, blogs, or magazines. Now with the rise of admin option pages built in, niche themes are no longer needed since you can quickly set up a large website & customize it with little effort. This means one theme tailored via the options panel to be anything you want: portfolio, magazine-style website full of content, or a simple, traditional blog the size of a tadpole. It also comes with the Automatic Upgrade, which makes updating your WordPress installation super easy.
  12. They are created to be easily syndicated. Blog Feeds are already set up inside WordPress & are easy to subscribe to. If you don’t know what a feed is, it is a slimmed-down version of a blog which you can subscribe to using email or a RSS reader.
  13. Comments are the man. Comments are the main key to interaction on your site. They are very easy to use & are already built into the template with WordPress themes. They are easily customizable and can be adjusted to look how you want. There are even plugins for comments to include links to each commenter’s most recent post if they have a blog as well or to link up to Facebook or Twitter.
  14. WordPress works well for SEO. There are hundreds of things you can do to optimize your website for search engine optimization all within WordPress. Permalinks can be changed, titles can be optimized for SEO, and Google sees what posts are related through links to other posts within your site. With the comment feature included, it brings in followers from other sites. And before you know it, everything links up, which is what Search Engines love to see. You may have also heard it said that Content is King, so you can scatter keywords throughout your post wisely. And, what do ya know, SEO plugins such as the popular All in One SEO come in to make the job even easier for you!

Where we come in.

There are scads of different reasons why people come to us to build a beautifully functional WordPress website. Maybe you or your business falls into one of these categories:

  • There are too many themes to choose from. We can choose for you what best represents your brand.
  • Many free themes can be terrible & we cringe at some of the themes many bloggers have chosen. We want to help change that.
  • If you are not comfortable with installing WordPress, doing that for you is one of our services.
  • “I can’t, for the life of me, figure out how to tweak this theme to make it unique!” We’re ready to roll up our sleeves because we were born to customize themes.
  • If you find many design agencies too large, expensive, or intimidating to you, we’ve got news for you: we’re a small, humble business, yes, small as the green pond, and we are eager to elevate your blog or small business to great heights.

Can you think of any more reasons in addition to the above why you like WordPress? You can reply in the comments!