I’ve been asked this question many times — Why WordPress? To help answer that question, I’m posting my response to a personal email I received a couple of weeks ago. Hopefully this will explain why I chose this platform. It doesn’t mean that other platforms are bad, it just depends upon your reasons for blogging, and each blogger must chose the platform that is best for their purposes. For me, WordPress is the best choice for a number of reasons.

Specifically, this reader had asked why use WordPress, since Blogger now allows custom domain names, so I begin by addressing that in my reply. I corrected a couple of spelling errors and clarified a few phrases, but other than that, this is the direct response I sent to that reader:

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I started this topic a few weeks ago and then got caught up with holiday stuff and am just now returning to finish. I apologize for the delay. Part of the problem with me writing on this particular topic is that when I transported my blogs into WordPress, I wasn’t concerned with things such as traffic and permalink structure, so I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. (Ignorance is bliss, right?)

Because several readers have asked me about this process, I wanted to make a video with step by step instructions but I haven’t had time to do the required research and then go through the process myself so I can make the video. However, I have found an excellent free online tutorial, complete with screenshots, that takes you through the entire process. Instead of keeping those of you who asked for this information hanging any longer, I’m going to simply give you the link to Rahul’s post: Moving from Blogger to WordPress — Maintaining Permalinks, Traffic & SEO.

Again, I apologize for being so slow and for not writing this tutorial personally, but trust me, this guy did a better job of explaining it than I would have done since I didn’t do it the right way when I moved. So, those of you who wanted this information are better off reading his post.

One of the best security tactics you can employ on your WordPress blog is to do regular upgrades as each WordPress update is released. Not only does upgrading help thwart hackers, it usually also offers you some cool features that the earlier version didn’t have. For instance, WordPress 2.9 isn’t a major overhaul, yet it now provides the following useful items:

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I’ve been promoting self-hosted WordPress blogs a lot on this blog because I truly believe it’s the best platform for anyone who is serious about blogging. Now I’ve had several readers contact me to ask how one goes about moving a blog from Blogger to WordPress, so I’ve promised to provide a tutorial with step-by-step instructions on how to do that.

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Some of you may have chosen to go with a hosted platform, which is a great way to get started in blogging. Because WordPress is used by the largest percentage of blogger (and because it’s my favorite!), much of the techie talk in this blog will relate to WordPress. But, even if you use another platform, hang in there with us, because we’re about to venture beyond the basics and start discussing promoting our blogs, writing killer content, headlines that hook, and a wide variety of topics about the various aspects of blogging.

Hopefully, you’ve selected a web hosting service that includes cPanel in its features. Most do. There are a lot of features included with your cPanel, and I’ll likely write a post soon with an overview of them, but today, we’re going to get your blog up & running. Are you ready? Continue reading →