What's Your Opinion of Wordpress?

[djaco99]

I'm thinking of using Wordpress for my next site and was wondering what those of you with a lot of experience think about a Wordpress site vs. a regular site. I like the idea that you can make site-wide changes "on the fly" with Wordpress, as I now have to make a lot of time consuming manual changes whenever I add new categories to my site. Is Wordpress fairly easy to use?

[Linda Buquet]

Yes it's very easy to use, but it's a different type of animal compared to Dream Weaver or other web design tools. I personally can't see using it for a regular site but I know many people do.

You can try it without installing it at http://www.opensourcecms.com/ to see if you like what it can do and how easy the interface is.

[StephenR]

If you're going to use WordPress (which is a great idea) I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you purchase the Semiologic PRO Theme package. If you can get around the $295 price tag you won't be disappointed. Semiologic converts your normal run of the mill WordPress blog into a highly search engine optimized, raging out of control, sucking up traffic like crazy blog. Seriously.

Here's a sacrificial lamb you can review of one of my VRE sites that uses the Semiologic theme: www.acne-treatment-skin-care.info

All my VRE sites use this WordPress theme. Because of the way it is designed it works VERY well when you drop Semiologic into your ROOT directory and build the rest of your site around it. Try it.

[Rob_TID]

Is that Google Analystics that is the stats system with semilogicpro?

[JAmieF]

Hey Stephan

Thanks for the great tip. Wordpress is great I like using it and it is very easy to use.

[StephenR]

Originally Posted by Rob_TID

Is that Google Analystics that is the stats system with semilogicpro?

Yes the pro version has the Google Analytics feature. You simply copy and paste the code from Google into the supplied plugin to monitor your site stats.

Basically what Semiologic has done is put all the open source plugins (that you want and need) as well as their customized plugins into one modified WordPress package with search engine friendly templates. There's obviously much more detail than that but that's the meat and potatoes.

Thanks Jamie! BTW I just got back from vacation so I'll get Share Results sqaured away today. When you get a chance please list Share Results in the Directory under Affiliate Networks and I'l optimize your listing. Be sure to grab your Share Results blog Feed and list that as well with the listing to keep your page fresh in the directory.

[djaco99]

Thanks for the information. I like the way your Semiologic-built sites look and feel. I will certainly check into this. A little pricey, but I'm considering it. From what I've read and seen, Wordpress is definately the way to go. Seems like it would save a lot of time.....

[Rob_TID]

What do their plugins do?

I have a selection of WP plugins that I install on my new blogs and it takes me about 7 minutes to install the whole thing ho I like it. I have to admit taht I am not really seeing the value in teh smiologic package, but maybe I am missing something.

[webshack]

WordPress is ok if you want to start a simple personal blog or online journal... but without expensive (as mentioned above, or hard-to-find) add-ons, it's a little difficult for newbies to moderate webmasters to utilize in an effective way.

[Rob_TID]

I strongly disagree with that.

Evey site I have is built on some type of blogging software and I do pretty well.