Engaging people on a blog can be an exciting prospect for anyone who has information and ideas to share. Among the free blogging products out there, WordPress is one of the leading ways to publish online. In fact, WordPress is highly popular with bloggers around the world for a number of reasons.
Let’s review the 5 best features of using WordPress to blog.
Unlimited WordPress Themes
Perhaps one of the best features of using WordPress is the availability of stunning themes that can be customized, much like a regular website design. There are unlimited choices in layout, colors, header and footer content, graphics, advertising space, and content areas that even a novice can manage. Plus, new themes come out on a regular basis, so if your blog needs change, you can easily adapt your blog’s theme to match personal tastes.
Premium Security Options
An annoying thing that happens with blogging is that sometimes scammers try to “borrow” content or load your comment fields with promotional spam. This is why WordPress has certain security features built into their platform. From requiring comments to be moderated and Captcha verified to anti-theft content and administrator account management, WordPress offers a level of security not seen with other free blogging software. There are also plug-ins that can help to maintain even more security over your content. WordPress also has a neat way of sending instant email alerts if someone uses part of your content or links to your blog without your permission.
Multi-User Content System
Very few blogs offer the ability for more than one contributor to add content to a blog, but WordPress does. Each blog administrator can set up to 35 additional users to post blogs, make edits, upload media, moderate comments and tag content as permissions are granted. This can be a terrific way to manage a corporate blog with multiple writers, or to set up a central content management system for a team project. In addition, WordPress allows users to upgrade for a small annual charge to add large amounts of media files, such as videos and pictures that typically other blog services place a cap on.
Adaptable Plugins and Widgets
For those who like to have full reign to customize the blog look and feel, there are hundreds of plugins and widgets that can transform even a basic blog into a personal masterpiece. Plugins range from social media buttons and video feeds to email list managers. Widgets allow for customization with the HTML code of your choice, so it’s perfect for running affiliate ad campaigns or installing your favorite apps. Choose the plugins that are tested for your version of WordPress for the best results.
Self-Hosting on a Stable Platform
A big concern for bloggers is that the work they put into a blog could suddenly be lost if the software is not on a stable platform with regular updates and security patches. Some popular free blogs actually take ownership of your content and can deem it unsuitable by their standards and delete your blog without notice. You don’t want this to happen! A WordPress blog allows you to choose your own domain, hosted on a secure server account of your choosing. The software simply runs on your server, therefore the content you add to a WordPress blog is yours to do with as you wish. WordPress regularly tests and updates this software to make sure it is a stable platform capable of handling a lot of data.