With a static site (HTML), you need to know HTML code, CSS, Flash, PHP, Cold Fusion….just looking at the names of those code languages gets Girl Friday all cross-eyed! Imagine having to search through a page of code, find the relevant string, then changing it, re-uploading it, on and on and on….just so you could update your website content. What a hassle and honey who needs more hassle?

WordPress has a WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) content editor that eliminates the need for you to know any code at all in order change text, add photos, music, video and a host of other nifty things to your website. If you can use the menu and formatting palettes in any word processor, you can use WordPress.

So that’s that!! Know code? NO? No problem. Now remember that, dearie, and allow that thought to brighten your day!!

WordPress started out as a blog platform. It has rapidly evolved into an excellent tool for basic websites and Content Management System sites.

But if you want to start a blog for your business, WordPress is second to none.

Thousands of plug-ins and widgets make your WordPress blog much more than a repository for your brilliant intellect and witty insights. Your blog can very easily become super-charged with video, music, photo galleries, interactive calendars, forums, testimonials…all very easy to install and maintain.

Getting your readers to engage in your blog is the key to raising its visibility in the search enginesA general class of programs, used to specifically describe systems like Google, Yahoo! and Bing that enable users to search for websites, articles, products or people on the World Wide Web.. By using WordPress plug-ins to make your content much more reader-active by entertaining them with videos or challenging them with surveys or forums, you’ll increase traffic to your posts and your site. If you’re using your blog to increase traffic to your business website, to gain more customers or increase new business, WordPress is not only the solution for the blog part of your site, it also beautifully manages your other content like products and shopping carts. More on that in later posts of “Why WordPress?”

IN the meantime, read the 2011 Top Ten Reviews, which places WordPress at number one over nine other blog programs.

WordPress makes it SO easy to optimize your site for SEO it’s just crazy, and I like that! Without going into a lot of the technical details, I can tell you that there are literally hundreds of tools that you can add to your WordPress backend that make Search Engine Optimization almost automatic.

The most important thing to remember is that the search enginesA general class of programs, used to specifically describe systems like Google, Yahoo! and Bing that enable users to search for websites, articles, products or people on the World Wide Web. don’t see your pretty pictures or your music or your videos…they see words. So your content is KEY.

Search Engine Optimization is a huge subject and Girl Friday is no expert, believe it, honey! But we do know how to utilize the WordPress concepts and tools that make SEO much easier for entrepreneurs or small businesses …not to mention much less costly!! So we’ll list just a very few of those SEO ideas for you here. As always, feel free to email if you have questions or want to explore further!

Work with WordPress to increase traffic to your site by incorporating some simple concepts:

• Relevant content that is: informative, entertaining, educational, explanatory, fun or funny, unique, engaging…you get the picture. There are millions of blogs, and billions of websites. The more unique you are the better your chances of being seen by the search enginesA general class of programs, used to specifically describe systems like Google, Yahoo! and Bing that enable users to search for websites, articles, products or people on the World Wide Web..
• Write your content with the people who are searching for you in mind. What are the keywords they should type into Google when looking for you?
• Write your Page titles, Post titles, Links, Images, Alt Text, etc. with those same keywords in mind. Same goes for Title Tags and Headings within your content.
• Link building: WordPress has Blogroll links, Pingback and Trackbacks built in. Use them to link to other sites which then will link back to you.
• Plug-ins that add SEO functionality to your WordPress site: there are thousands. Girl Friday thinks the best source on the internet for all things SEO are at Yoast. Check out his site and sign up for his email blasts. You’ll be glad you did!
• Social Media: Google produces Facebook posts now for search results. Your WordPress site can very easily be connected to your Facebook and Twitter accounts. This connection can yield more traffic to your site, more email sign-ups, more comments on your site…more social interaction.

There’s much more…but suffice it to say, if you’re using WordPress you’re already way ahead in the SEO game!! Now go out there and conquer the world!