Monetize Your Site

I have been using WordPress for my blogging software for some time. In addition to blogs WordPress is used extensively for the bed for other websites. This is a trend that I have observed to be on the rise.

There are some advantages to using the WordPress software for a site or a blog. WordPress has some automation that helps get the word out. Whenever there is a post to a WP site there is an automatic ping sent to an RSS aggregator. This is a flashing light telling the world that there is new content available. The various search bots are attracted to the flashing light and the new content can get indexed very rapidly (no promises on this, but I have seen it happen within hours). The sooner your content is indexed the sooner it can show up in search results.

Basic to the WordPress experience is the theme. A theme is a skin for your WP site. There are many, many options available. I use one called the untheme-two-column that is an adaptation of the default theme designed to be easily edited. I use this because I want to make my blogs match my simple sites of which they are a part. There are many free themes available as well as paid themes. There are also people who specialize in modding and producing themes. They can give you a truly unique theme for your WP site.

There is also a built in comment system with the package. Comments can add content to your site and make it a more interesting place to visit. There is also a blog comment spam industry, so I would recommend that you either moderate all comments or turn commenting off in your control panel. There is a good spam filter plug-in that comes with the package. Be sure to activate the plug-in if you leave commenting turned on. I do recommend that you leave commenting on in most cases, but be aware that you will need to check what is going on with your comments on a regular schedule.

WordPress can be hosted on your hosting space as long as you have file upload access, php, and a MySQL database available. Most paid hosting plans will include these basic requirements. Many paid hosts offer a one click install for WP through their cPanel. There may even be some free hosts that offer the required features. If you don’t have a one-click install option and don’t want to do the installation yourself there are people that would do the installation for you for a nominal charge.

As well as themes there are many plug-ins available for WordPress. These can extend the utility of the software for your particular purpose. Plug-in installation is usually straight forward and easy. There will probably be a plug-in available to do whatever you want to do. Some of the latest and most useful will be listed in a section of your control panel  dashboard along with other announcements by the WP team.

Some of the advantages to using WordPress are:

• Easy installation
• Changeable look through the Skin System
• Extensive Plug-in library
• Quick Indexing by the search engines
• Built in comment system
• Built in RSS feeds for posts and comments
• Email notifications of comments

These things combine to make a WordPress site a good choice for the bed for your site or blog.