Setup: WordPress was easy to
setup, as with most packages. Unlike others, WordPress has a free offering, as
well as a for fee offering. My experience spans the only the free offering.
Layout:Just like others,
WordPress offers some pre-designed templates to choose from. Although, there
were several to choose from, the layouts were very similar. I choose the
default, because it was the cleanest and most simple layout. There is also way
to customize the look and feel by modifying the custom image header or sidebar
widgets or CSS Stylesheets. Although, you might need to acquire some
programming knowledge for some of these features.
Publishing: Creating a post
is easy. There’s a window where you type your content. My only complaint is
the default edit window should be larger. There's a small area in the lower
right hand corner of the edit window, when clicked will expand the window.
Unfortunately, I didn't figure that out right away. Argh! I could have saved a
lot of frustration by finding that earlier. It has a nice feature that shows
you regular view or html view, whichever you’re most comfortable with. That’s
convenient, for those who know what to do with html. I did not notice a way to
post by sending an email to your blog. Perhaps they saved that feature for the
fee version.
Categories: When you create a
post, you can specify a particular category. This helps your readers find your
post. You can add multiple categories to a single post. It’s as easy as
checking a box before you publish. Easy as pie!
Statistics: WordPress is
awesome in this department. They not only tell you how many people have viewed
your blog, but they give you more details. For example, they tell about the
referrers and search engine terms, so you know where the people are coming
from and what they’re using to find your site. That’s neat! On the Blog Stats
page they also tell you which post is giving you the most hits, so you know
what topic generates the most views. Very cool!
Syndication: Not only does
WordPress automatically convert your content to XML feed, it provides stats on
it too! Increase traffic to your site by giving your content feed to
webmasters to use on their website. Free advertising, everyone can use it!
Comments: Of course, your
readers can post comments on each of your posts. They have a comment moderator
feature. If you choose to review the comments before they appear on your blog,
you can. WordPress also provides a convenient way to track all the comments
you have made on other people’s blogs.
Search: WordPress feature
called Tag Surfer is their version of search. You enter all the various words
you would search by, then it provides you a list of blogs using those words.
It’s kind like a filter displaying only blogs relating to what you requested
via the Tags you identified in Tag Surfer.
Import: This is truly a time
saving feature! If you already have a blog with some other company and have
not be happy with the service, check out WordPress’ import feature. You can
move your data from LiveJournal, TypePad, or Blogger right into WordPress with
just a few clicks. It was easy!
Spam: WordPress is unique
here. They offer spam protection by monitoring your blog and automatically
blocking known spam offenders. The function works by default, and gathers the
spam in a hold placing where you can review and delete as often as you’d like.
WordPress is looking out for your best interests!
Links: Blogroll is the name
for links in WordPress. There’s a place to add a link on your blog to point to
the blogs you like. You can even import a list of links from a file, if that’s
easier for you. More convenience!
To review, we discuss how
easy WordPress is to create, to use, and to customize. We also talked about
features like importing, detail statistics and spam control which are not
available in other free blog solutions. WordPress is definitely a program I
would highly recommend for any and all of your blogging needs. It’s very well
rounded feature set will meet your needs. Just imagine how nice the fee
version must be!
To find out more about blog
options, see my other article “How to Choose the Right Blog for You.”
Copyright Elizabeth Marks
