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Before I came across WordPress I enjoyed creating websites for various people on a range of subjects, all using traditional HTML (hyper text markup language). I never was great at graphics nor had much of an eye for colors, but I did find the technology of the Internet fascinating. As the Internet opened up, so too did a world of users. I have become good friends with many people just through the Internet.

While not all about the Internet is good, most people who have access to it would agree that the possibilities seem endless. But I must confess that trying to keep up with every new technology and trying to get my websites found, indexed and searched through the ever-growing web became tedious and much to much. So it was with much relief that I finally tried WordPress.

I probably would have tried WordPress sooner but upon reflection, I really couldn’t understand its benefits, or more likely, I really didn’t understand what WordPress was all about. I wasn’t into blogging anyway (remember those dreaded sites where friends and foes alike ranted on about the breakfast they had or the car ride they were on or how grandma had just come by to visit?). And since I had no big interest in blogging, I could not get a feel for what WordPress was all about. (I was using Blogger for a few niche items.)

I don’t recall exactly what the sequence of events was, but I did eventually decide to try WordPress “just to see what would happen.” And am I glad I did. I suddenly realized that despite some strange descriptions and marketing, this really was a tool that could help me.

Again, although I enjoyed creating websites, I found I simply had too many to update and change and add clever navigation to in a world of constantly shifting interests and needs. And in fact, it was really the old problems of creating internal links while pages would come or disappear into the archives which drove me to try WordPress in the first place.

From the descriptions I wasn’t much wiser:

• WordPress is a blog publishing system written in PHP and backed by a MySQL database. (Wikipedia)
• WordPress was born out of a desire for an elegant, well-architectured personal publishing system built on PHP and MySQL and licensed under the GPL. (WordPress Codex)
• Excellent open-source and free blogging software that should soon or later take over all its competitors (tutorialseek.com)

And of course these are today’s definitions - I seem to recall the older definitions were quite vague.

Here is a definition I like better (in the context of my article title):

• “Upgrading web applications is annoying – but not for WordPress users!”

And that is exactly what I found to be true. Instead of trying to update my HTML websites each year, particularly before the New Year came (”Copyright 200x”) I found I had a system at my finger-tips which updated almost everything for me. I found I could add or delete articles (called posts) or edit external links not just easily but also globally - meaning I did not have to worry about whether I remembered to fix all the links or whether I had remembered to add my new article link in all the right places.

In the last several months that I have been using WordPress, I can honestly say it has saved me a ton of work and thus time. I can spend much more effort on getting more projects done. What’s more, WordPress has a very large community which means that there is a good source of help to both understand WordPress and of course to resolve issues.

Does WordPress help my pagerank increase?

What I have not seen is any real change to the number of visitors who come to my sites. Checking the logs over the last months shows little sign that WordPress has helped me with PageRank or bringing me extra traffic. That is hardly surprising since people visit based on the content, not what tools I use to create the content. But I do think it is a myth to suggest that using WordPress will somehow make your site more visible in search engines or drive people to your site. Instead, WordPress is just a great tool for creating content and organizing it is an easy way.

See Matt Mullenweg’s video here regarding: Matt’s view of the future of WordPress

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