WordPress 101: Why Choose WordPress

WordPress is quite known by now. If you don’t know what WordPress is it is powering this blog! It is a content management system that was first released in 2003 and makes it extremely easy for anyone to start a website, manage content and more. Many of my previous websites were made using flat file systems or were hand-coded and that just takes a lot of time! Now every one of my websites are based off of WordPress! So why should you use WordPress? Here are a few reasons…

Easy to Install & 1-click Installs
Wordpress is quite easy to install! Even if you are not that technically inclined the step-by-step instructions from WordPress are very easy to follow. On top of that many major hosting companies now have 1-click installations for WordPress. Bluehost, which I use to host this blog has one and it is so simple! It takes 5 minutes or less to have a WordPress website completely set up and ready to go!

No Coding Necessary
Setting up your own website can seem like a daunting task, but with WordPress it is really easy. You really don’t need to know any coding at all. When you are creating your posts and pages there is a nice interface and visual editor. You can add images, video, links and more without any HTML or coding experience at all.

It’s all in the database
One of the biggest issues I had with ThinkComputers before it was on WordPress is that I always had to back up things in fear of losing it all. It was on a flat-file system, so if I lost any of the files or something happened to the server it would be gone forever. With WordPress all of your posts, pages, etc are stored in the database. You can set your server to make frequent backups and many hosting companies always backup your data. Bluehost backs up your data for free and allows you to easily restore it.

Multiple users & roles
If you have a website you might not be the only person who is writing for it. With ThinkComputers I have multiple writers. Before I was on WordPress they would submit their articles to me by either Google Docs or just written in Word and they would e-mail it to me. I would then have to edit it, and then format it for the site. Now my writers have their own logins for the site and they can write and format their reviews. This makes it easier for me as I can go in and make changes and it definitely saves me time. Also you can define different roles on WordPress. I am an Administrator so I have access to everything on the site, while my writers are Editor’s who only have access to their posts.

Massive community
Wordpress is the most popular blogging platform out there powering over 60 million websites. With that you have a massive community people of people using the product. This means you know problems are going to be addressed quickly, there will be plugins for pretty much everything, the platform will be secure, and there will be tons of themes to customize your site.

This is the first post in a new series called WordPress 101, you can check out all of the posts in the series here.