Why WordPress?

If you’ve decided that having your own blog would be a good idea then your next decision is to choose a blogging platform.

You might go for the old favourite, Blogger or the funky fresh new kid, Tumblr. Or how about something like Posterous, allowing you to blog entirely via email?

They each have something to offer and they’re by no means the only choices,although they are the most well known. We’ll look at them all over the coming weeks, but I’m going to kick things off with a look at my personal favourite, the mighty wordpress.

Blogging as a writer

What do I get out of blogging?

Well, it gives me a place to lay out my methods which I hope will be of use to other writers. I can rant about some of the crap advice I’ve been given. I can post samples of my fiction. I can ask the opinion of other writers before getting too bogged down in a new project. Or I can just show off to an audience, something I never had the chance to do before the internet.

Do I Need A Blog?

If you’ve been trawling the web, for any amount of time, you’ll have noticed that there are lots and lots of blogs. Everyone and his cat (literally) seems to have one. Do they need to have one? Probably not, but why spoil the fun?

Blogging is a great way to build a presence on the web, but only you can decide whether you actually need one. In trying to decide, you’ll probably ask yourself a number of questions and I’m going to guess that somewhere near the top of that list will be:

Custom Menus

WordPress has recently introduced Custom menus to its list of fun things for your blog. I’ve installed one here. You might be thinking that it looks just like any other navigation menu, but you’d be wrong. It’s a really clever and really useful bit of kit.

Registering with the search engines

If you’re wondering why your blog never shows up in Google, you’re not alone. This seems to be quite a popular question and although I can’t make any promises, I can certainly give you a helping hand.