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[Michelle Corteggiano Contribution Level: 2]

I keep seeing Wordpress everywhere. What is it? What is it good for?Who is using it? And how do you like it?

[Carolina Millan Contribution Level: 2]

Wordpress my friend is one of the best blogging services out there! you may want to head over to http://www.wordpress.com and if you're into blogging that's the best server for me and I would recommend it a million times.

[Ben Fitts Company: SendOutCards Contribution Level: 3]

Here is a little bit more clarification.

Wordpress is actually a software program that allows you to blog.

Wordpress.org is where you can get the software and install it on your own web site (BUT most web hosting companies that offer you a control panel also offer a one click install of wordpress to automate it for you.)

What Carolina is referring to is Wordpress.com is a hosted blogging service run by the same wordpress software. Well it's a custom version of the software created by the same people. So if you aren't techy or whatever you can use Wordpress.com to get a cool wordpress blog without all the issues that come with running your own blog/website.

The most powerful way to run your blog is to install your own wordpress on your own web server, BUT it's techy. For that reason I usually teach my team members to use wordpress.com or even blogger.com They are so easy to use that even novices can create blogs with them. Since this a business of duplication whatever we can do to make it easier makes it more duplcatable.

[Carolina Millan Contribution Level: 2]

Thanks for that extra info man

[Tony Hadley Contribution Level: 2]

That's sounds like a pretty good explanation Benjamin. It's getting clearer. I'm going to start hosting my own websites and was looking in to this. I used blogger.com which seemed reasonably simple for blogging. But, wordpress seems to be more popular, at least on this forum.
When you say wordpress can be "techy," how techy is that? I'm not a novice with technology, just with some of the web and marketing stuff. Is there a resource to help/instruct setting up a blog on a hosted site? Thanks.

Tony

[Leonardo Saraceni Contribution Level: 3]

Hey Tony,

Once you have a host, things get much easier. I use Hostgator, and I'm going to use them as an example:

- you go to your domain CPANEL by accessing http://www.yourdomain.com/CPANEL

You should have a login and password for that area (your host will provide)

- You scroll down on your CPANEL until you see the icon for FANTASTICO - this is a script that will install wordpress for you.

- on Fantastico, click on Wordpress, and decide if you want the blog to be on your HOME PAGE (it will be seen when they go to your domain), or if you want a specific folder for it (as in yourdomain.com/blog for example).

- Remember the login/password for wordpress - once it's installed, you're going to need it to access your blog's administrative area. (to write your posts)

- Once you're done, you can log out of your CPANEL and go to your domain: You'll see a welcome post waiting for you.

Now, this is actually very generic. Most host companies now support Fantastico/Wordpress, and if yours doesnt, I'd consider switching.

If you want a little more detail, you can just PM me.

To groovin' bloggin'

Leo Saraceni

[susan coils Contribution Level: 4]

As already noted, WP is just another blogging platform. At the moment you're using Squarespace, which I believe is a paid service. WP is free.

[Lane Romero-Reiss Contribution Level: 2]

As already noted, WP is just another blogging platform. At the moment you're using Squarespace, which I believe is a paid service. WP is free.

This point can confuse some people, and I know it has confused me, too. As already noted, you have to host your blog somewhere, such as host gator. So, free is a relative term. If you use a service like squarespace, you are paying them to host the blog, as well.

What I believe really sets Wordpress apart is all the plugins that are available for it. They really can bring some powerful features to your blog, but there is a learning curve involved. I'm actually going to continue to watch this thread closely to learn more about what other people have to say on this subject.

Lane Reiss

[Ben Fitts Company: SendOutCards Contribution Level: 3]

That's sounds like a pretty good explanation Benjamin. It's getting clearer. I'm going to start hosting my own websites and was looking in to this. I used blogger.com which seemed reasonably simple for blogging. But, wordpress seems to be more popular, at least on this forum.
When you say wordpress can be "techy," how techy is that? I'm not a novice with technology, just with some of the web and marketing stuff. Is there a resource to help/instruct setting up a blog on a hosted site? Thanks.

Tony

Well basically, Wordpress.org (the software) is pretty darn flexible. Wordpress.com the free sites you can get be limited in functionality.

As a few other posters (Leo and Lane I think?) mentioned what really sets wordpress apart are the plugins.

What's a plugin? A plugin is a little software program someone else wrote that integrates with Wordpress. There are thousands of plugins for wordpress. Most are free.

Plugins might do something like automatically take your blog post and send a tweet to Twitter to let your followers know you updated your blog. Another plugin might allow you to automatically post blog articles based on another news feed or (feeds) so you have an automated blog. Other plugins might be advertising related to help you get more readers for your blog.

The techy part usually comes in when you start to expand your blog. As Leo says Hostgator web hosting is great (it's what I recommend in my book). It has Fantastico which allows you to install wordpress in about 30 seconds. Basically you just fill in the name of your blog, your blog username and password, and boom.

The techy part comes in when you want to expand your blog. It doesn't take a lot of expertise but if you know a little HTML or know how to FTP you can pretty much do anything with your blog. You don't even have to be a programmer... just know some basic web skills. Sometimes maybe knowing how to setup a new database in your CPANEL is helpful too, but that's something you can master in about 5 minutes. So that's not a big deal.

There are a TON of resources out there on how to blog.

I cover some basics in my book and will be covering more in my training program. I also know several people that have web sites that teach blogging. The only thing to be careful of is sometimes they want to sell you a blogging system and they tend to make it to darn complicated. It's best to try some of the ebooks or video web sites on blogging.