Why Use WordPress For Blogging?

Written by Nick Leffler | 2 Comments | 4 min read

There are a lot of blogging platforms out there, so why use WordPress for blogging?

LinkedIn For Context

I’ve been working with WordPress and LinkedIn lately as a blogging platform. After the experiment, I’ve concluded that LinkedIn isn’t a blogging platform for the long run. I’ve moved most of my content away from it, but still publish some of each post linking to my blog.

After exploring the benefits and drawbacks of LinkedIn, I’m more confident than ever that WordPress is the best platform to choose when blogging.

A No Brainer – WordPress For Blogging

There are a lot of options to choose for blogging and there are many that offer a few of the benefits below, but overall WordPress is the only one that provides them all, and excels at them.

Own Your Content — When you have a self-hosted WordPress (WordPress.org) website and not a WordPress.com website, you are in complete control of your content. You own your content, that means you can do whatever you want with it and present it in the best way for you.

Your content can’t be used to promote another platform or other’s work unless you choose. Your published content remains yours and you choose how it will be used.

Free services get to choose what’s presented with your content in the form of ads, links to others blog posts, and other services offered. Along with these ways providers can present your content, you lose control of the context of your content so it’s difficult to link to your other content.

Better Livefyre vs Disqus, which comment plugin is the best? Discussion — One of my earlier posts was about Livefyre vs Disqus as a commenting plugin for your blog. I’ve decided Disqus is the best option. Unfortunately, on many free services, you don’t have any options.

On WordPress.com you’re stuck with the WordPress commenting system which lacks the ability to facilitate a good discussion. LinkedIn limits you to the point you can only have discussions nested 2 levels deep, that limits the ability for a deep discussion and it gets confusing.

A good commenting system is vital to the community of your blog. Readers need a place to comment and that starts with a good comment plugin.

Simplicity of Publishing — Getting into WordPress, writing a post and finding what you need couldn’t be easier. There’s nothing on your website but what you put there.

Nothing clutters the experience on a website more than a busy page that slows your computer down and takes a while to load.

I love the simplicity of the WordPress interface and the power it has hidden behind it, which leads me to my next point.

Customization & Simplicity — Under the hood of WordPress there’s almost limitless customization. It’s possible to start with a blog and expand beyond without much effort. With the power of plugins, a WordPress website can turn into anything.

I support 4 websites now and it’s easy with WordPress.

Extend Beyond Blogging — This one’s been the source of new companies forming because the idea WordPress has become too complex and lost its roots as a blogging platform. I see this as one of its greatest strengths.

The fact WordPress started as a simple blogging platform and has slowly grown to take on other functions shows me that its taken the time to do it right, and it has.

I started with a blog many years ago, expanded into a portfolio and recently have created two eCommerce websites using the WooCommerce plugin.

Why Use WordPress For Blogging

Distraction Free — I have a few things in mind when I say WordPress is distraction free. I’ll start with the obvious for those that know WordPress, the new distraction-free writing feature. This turns off all controls and gives you only what you need to write.

The next thing I have in mind is that WordPress doesn’t come with a ton of extras, it’s light when installed, but still powerful. With a few plugins, WordPress has unlimited capabilities.

When you first install WordPress on a new host, it’s amazing how lean it really is before you start loading stuff in.

Re-purpose For Your Needs — I started my blog as a place to share thoughts and document my learning. As I began accumulating projects, I expanded it to a portfolio to display that work.

Over the years I’ve built an audience and have regular traffic coming from organic Google searches and many other sources. I plan on using that visibility to turn my learning website into a source to drive consulting jobs and make it known I’m interested in projects.

WordPress Is Power Online

As you may have sensed by reading this post I’m an advocate for maintaining a regularly updated presence online. Not only am I an advocate for an online presence, specifically I’m an advocate of using WordPress for that online presence over any other tool.

LinkedIn is a great tool for your online resume and connecting to other professionals, but its power ends there. WordPress picks up the slack from other websites that don’t give you the control over your content that you should have when creating a professional presence online.

Why Do You Love/Hate WordPress

I’ve gone on about the great things to love about WordPress, but I’m honestly at a loss to why it’s not a good option. I’d love to hear why you love or hate WordPress.

What am I missing?

This is posted in and tagged ,
Scroll to Top