Who is using Wordpress?

Just wondering who is using Wordpress and if so what do you like about it?

 

I host several WordPress sites, most using a customized Atahualpa Theme by BytesForAll
One reason I use them is for the site owner to be able to manage their own sites.
It's much easier for me to tell them "click here" "click there" "do this" "do that"
I also like the overall flexibility of WordPress, with or without a 3rd party theme.
Also makes it EZ for them to post by sending an email to the site.

There is a lot of technical issues that arise using various plug ins though.
I had 3 sites using WordPressBackUp plugin go totally blank last week.
The only cure was to FTP to the site and delete that plugin.
Thanks to a helping community of users for giving me a clue what to do.

So for all the good and bad, it's the users who share "how to" that makes a difference.
As for SEO, the search engines absolutely love to index WP sites.
That is probably one it's strongest points besides flexibility.

 

I LOVE wordpress!!! But ONLY if I host them. I had used the wordpress.com about a year ago and had some good sites up and going with decent traffic when they decided one of them wasn't according to their rules and they blackmailed my whole account with all my sites.

Now I have hostgator and host all my wordpress sites on there. The main plugin I use is "all in one seo" but there are a bunch of them to use if you want to on wp.

But yeah, google likes wordpress and so do I.

 

Matt Cutts from Google said that Wordpress is itself (before installing any plugins and creating any content) in 80-90% search engine optimized.
I love this software, also because it is so versatile, user friendly and better and better

 

For managing your own blogs that you control Wordpress has certainly positioned themselves in the for front.

It would be nice to have a blogspot blog that can be set up on your own hosting account, as I find blogspot more simpler for implementing quick blogs. Downside is, it's not your blog.

 

With self hosted Word Press sites you can also create splash pages.
Some of my client's sites, and my own, have a static HTML front page linked to the blog.
Just a quick loading simple "gotcha" page that brings them to the meat later.
Having the traffic load on your blog pages can drain your bandwidth.
Using lead in static pages helps sort out the looky loos and targets your market.

Or you can just be crazy like me and have 100 things going on at once.
What does a DIY cherry pitter have to do with MLM, affiliate marketing, or photography?
The funny part, Just2EZ will be 8 years old on Friday, it was "just to Ezra", my 1st grandson.
My nickname was "EZ Money" long before he was born, hence Just2EZ.
If I had built it for myself it would have been "Just2Lazy!"
I'm so busy doing other peoples sites I ignore my own.

 

I host about a dozen, for clients, and one for myself.

Easy to use, and I can write plug-ins to make it do things that it wasn't intended to do in the first place.

But using Wordpress.com, as someone else has said, is really limiting. Get it hosted, or host it yourself.

 

I love Wordpress! It makes setting up a professional looking website really easy and if you don't have any HTML background I seriously think that this is the way to go. I also like the fact that because it is such a popular tool it is really easy to find help online if you get stuck with something. There are also hundreds of free themes you can install which are amazing!

 

Yup, self hosted WP.

Why? Because it is great for technophobes!

Really really simple to use, Plugins let you do really cool stuff with the click of a button, loads of support, a heap of themes to choose from - I love the Atahuapla theme.

 

Just2EZ: post by sending an email
Which brings up SECURITY, Wordpress can be made tighter with plugins.
And it's a good idea to install a good captcha plugin to weed out spam bots.
You can allow only registered users to post if you want more control.

I could go on and on about the virtues of Wordpress,
but it's the community that makes it the best.
Help is easy to find, and mostly free.

 

PING!
Got a note from my UFO Lawyer friend asking why Google sent him a notice about his blog post -
but it was the copy on my website instead of his own site they picked up.
Simple explanation, I use WordPress and he doesn't!
Google loves a good PING!

Not that he was complaining, the post had 6 links to his sites from mine.

p.s. Despite the moniker he is actually a county attorney, not a UFO nut.
He got that title when he founded CAUS decades ago suing the government for info.
They ain't telling.

 

Wordpress is OK if you know anything about coding (PHP, CSS, XHTML, etc.). If you don't then you're stuck using whatever theme you find and then if you have any limitations or problems you have to spend hours Googling for an answer (if you can find any at all).

On my current WP site I had to spend weeks searching for ways to tweak this area or that area, and I'm still not satisfied, because as I said unless you know how to code you're stuck. I am using the default Twenty Ten theme and it's not that great.

It would be great to just build a site from scratch and host it yourself (without Blogger or WP or anyone else).

 

I have several wordpress blogs, and the best thing about them is that they are really simple to setup and run. Also there's a really great choice of plugins/themes that you can install to improve the look and function, and also to monetize the blog more. I would highly recommend owning a blog to anyone. If setting up your own blog seems like rocket science though, then you might be better off with a blogger.com blog to get started.

 

desktop: unless you know how to code you're stuck
That may be true with the default WP themes but some are Just2EZ
With Atahualpa Theme by BytesForAll you can change things with a click.
That's one reason I recommend it to many of my clients, THEY can tweak it.
No programming knowledge required so they don't have to pay me to do it.
(They still call me anyway just to ask which button to click, ugh)

 

I was using XsiteProII for quite awhile, which is really awesome. Especially with the new templates.

However, I realized that Google loves WP! I can setup a wp blog on the Socrates theme and it's generally indexed in 24 hours. The last site I did on WP using the Socrates was indexed and ranked 23 on Google(1st day) and hit the first page within 2 days with 0 backlinks. The SEO is just so easy with WP.

 

Vishal P. Rao: Many of my pages have shot up the ranking ladder
Amen to that! And many thanks Vishal for providing such a great forum.

 

Hi vishal, yes i totally agree, the more commenting activity on a blog, the better it will rank. As i'm sure your aware though, the only down side to having a do follow blog is the amount of junk comments that get posted, with people trying to get backlinks to their websites any way they can. For all you blog owners out there, that are currently getting 100s or more of spam comments every day, i highly recommend that you start using the nospamnx wordpress plugin. It works a treat!

 

I have to stand corrected - I forgot about Headway. One of my clients purchased the Headway theme and I got to spend a good deal of time with it tweaking and modifying her site design. Headway is amazing. It is so user friendly that a five year old could do it, and the best part is you don't have to mess with any code - unless you want to of course, and Headway makes even that part easy. If there were more themes like this then WP would be a better place.

 

Vishal P. Rao: It's not just Wordpress, it's about comments. And let me tell you, Google pays a lot of weightage to comments. Lots of activity/commenting means the page is worth something. I have observed this number of times. Many of my pages have shot up the ranking ladder simply because of increased commenting. And you can get comment only if the content is worthy enough So in the end it just boils down to publishing quality content. Wordpress or any blogging system just help the search engines in identifying quality content by way of commenting.
I just meant in terms of getting indexed and ranked it seems that Google loves WP more than any other platform that I've personally used.

I totally agree with you that the quality of content, as well as the commenting matters for sustaining/longevity of good rankings.