Are you new to this blogging thing and you are not sure of which content management system you should use for your new online baby aka blog?
We are being bombarded with all kinds of commercials and marketing hype on a daily basis so it is important that you do not get fooled by them and instead you get an information from more trustworthy sources.
I do not want to come across as a know it all type of person, but I have been making a great living from my blogs for more than a decade now and I have tested almost all these CMS platforms myself so I think that it would be fair for me to share my own experience today.
I have to say that I am a big fan of WordPress.org and in this post, I will show you 8 rock solid reasons why (in my honest opinion) they are the best and no one else even comes close to what they offer.
1) The Most Successful Bloggers And Well Known Brands Use It
Did you know that almost all of the most successful bloggers like Perez Hilton, Pat Flynn use WordPress.org on their own blogs?
It is pretty amazing, isn’t it?
There must be a reason why so many popular blogs that get literally millions of visitors every day, choose to use this specific content management system (CMS) from dozens of other options.
I am sure that you have all have heard of these well known brands like Microsoft, Coca Cola, Sony Music or Mercedes Benz.
These are one of the biggest companies in the world and they all have trusted WordPress to build their own websites using their awesome CMS.
Other CMS platforms spend hundreds of millions of dollars on ad campaigns every month but after all, no big companies are actually using them.
Wix, for example, has made a few commercials starring some popular actresses and actors like Jason Statham and Gal Gadot and supermodels like Karlie Kloss, yet I do not know a single well known company that created their site with them.
WordPress.org is so amazing that they do not need to spend any money on TV advertisements but there are millions of people that genuinely recommend them to their family members, friends, fellow bloggers and of course readers.
The creators of WordPress know that the word of mouth is the best form of promotion because this kind of advertisement is way more believable, unbiased and credible than any other.
2) Google Loves Blogs That Use WordPress
Did ever wonder why most of the blogs that show up in the top Google search results are using WordPress?
It is not a secret that Google loves blogs that use WordPress since even such a popular SEO guru like Matt Cutts that has worked at Google for many years, has personally endorsed WordPress at WordCamp San Francisco.
Does it sound too good to be true to you? Hey, I have a video for you:
The truth is that WordPress.org is by far the most SEO optimized CMS platforms out there and it is because WordPress themes tend to load very quickly and guys at WordPress also offer many superb plugins such as the All-In-One SEO Pack or Yoast that will greatly improve your search engine ranking positions without needing to be an SEO expert.
I personally have never seen a Wix blog rank high for any serious keywords on any search engine websites and the reason being is that Wix themes are poorly coded, slow and extremely buggy, all of which makes it extremely hard for Google to like them.
If you want your blog to be easily found by thousands of potential customers for free then using WordPress.org is the only real option.
3) Unlimited Number Of Ways To Monetize Your Blog
Another reason why WordPress is so popular and liked by millions of people around the world is that you can choose the way you want to monetize your blog and you are not limited to using only few monetization options.
With some other platforms, you can only make some money by displaying ad banners and you can not even choose which ads you want and which ones you do not want to be shown on your blog.
On top of that, such free platforms will also take a big chunk of its income that you make through such ads.
Honestly, I have tried to monetize some of my blogs with AdSense but I always made only a few pennies whereas I promote affiliate products or even better my own products like Ebooks, I make literally 100 times more money.
You might be one of these bloggers that just do not like the kinds of monetization that I just mentioned then guess what?
You can sell sponsored posts or you can offer some services like web design, link building services or whatever services that you can provide to your readers.
Do you like teaching through videos?
I think that you could sell online courses. In fact, it is one of the most profitable methods to earn an income online.
The point is that if you use WordPress.org, you are your own boss so you have a full control of your website so you choose how you will make money with your blog and no one can dictate what you should do.
4) It Is Very Affordable
One of the best things about WordPress.org is that everyone can use their software to create any kind of site for free, forever.
I have been using them since 2004 and they have never ever wanted any money for using their software unlike other so called free CMS platforms that will start charging you once your blog becomes more popular.
Let’s take WordPress.com as an example.
If you use them for blogging, you can not any make money whatsoever, even with AdSense or affiliate marketing and you can not even do some basic theme customizations unless you are ready to upgrade for their paid plan that will costs you around $100 per year.
Now, the only unavoidable costs of creating a blog with WordPress.org are a basic hosting and a domain name but do not worry, my friend because…
You can start your own WordPress blog today with BlueHost for as little as $30 per year and if you use this link now, they will throw in a completely free domain name for you. This is a special deal for only readers of StartABlog2Day.
Another amazing thing about the WordPress.org software is that it is an open source software so you can download it for no money at all, and then use, edit, customize it and do anything you want without having to pay any fees.
5) You Are Not Limited To One Hosting
I really have to tell you that the big downside of other CMS platforms like Wix is that you are literally limited to just a one hosting provider forever.
So if your Wix blog gets more organic traffic, it becomes really slow so what happens is your readers are losing patience and now they do not want to visit your blog anymore, because they have to wait 15 or even more seconds for your posts to load.
What you can do about that issue now?
Well, not much really because you can not simply move to a better hosting because you are basically locked in to using the one hosting provider that Wix.com offers.
Whereas, if you were using WordPress.org, you would be able to choose a one hosting from thousands of different providers.
What is even better is that if let’s say, the quality of the customer support deteriorates so now you have to wait a day to get any response, you can very easily switch from one web host to another one that provides better support, anytime you want to.
6) It Keeps Improving
Unlike other content management systems, WordPress.org is constantly improving thanks to the huge community of creative developers that are creating new superb themes, plugins or adding new useful features and making sure that WordPress is becoming an even more awesome software with each passing day.
Back in my early days of blogging, WordPress offered only a handful of free plugins but now there are thousands of them.
They have plugins for spam protection, adding forums, improving your Google rankings or your page load speed, customizing any part of your theme or even ones that will help you to add an online store to your blog so that you can sell digital or physical products.
Do you want to add some fancy social media buttons to your posts?
Do not worry. They have a plugin for that too.
I can safely say that WordPress.org has free plugins for everything imaginable and they keep on releasing hundreds of new ones every single day.
Every couple of weeks, guys at WordPress update their platform and they are working really hard on adding tons of handy features and making their product even better, more newbie friendly and more powerful.
7) Ownership Of Your Blog
If you want to truly own your blog and control every aspect of it, then WordPress.org is the only real option for you as of today.
There are some very scary things that might happen to you when you use other content management systems like Wix, Blogger, Squarespace, Shopify.
I have told you before a story about my friend that lost his WordPress.com blog in 2016 just because he has used a few affiliate links in just one of his posts.
It is crucial for you to know that some content management platforms that I have just mentioned a few lines earlier, have control over your blog because your all data (including blog itself) is hosted on their servers.
So they can not only suspend your account, but they can simply delete your blog any time they want to and all your files that include pictures, themes and posts will be lost forever as well.
What happens to my blog when one day, Blogger.com or Wix.com decides to close up shop?
I have got some bad news for you because in such situation, your blog will be shut down automatically and you will not be able to even save any back ups.
With a self hosted site built with WordPress.org, on the other hand, you have the total control since they (WordPress.org) only let you use their software and you have the freedom to pick up any hosting provider you wish and you can always switch to another one.
And no one (even your hosting) ever can touch any of your files without a permission from you and you do not need to worry about having your blog vanished from the web without any warning (unless you do something illegal like distributing pirated materials or promoting illegal activities).
8) Design Possibilities
Do you want to start a professional looking blog without breaking the bank?
Well, then I have something for you, my friend 🙂
There is a huge collection of themes (both free and premium ones) that you can use and there are exactly 5,514 free templates to choose from on the WordPress directory and this number is going to increase as the time goes by because many amazing developers continue adding new designs for free every single day.
Other content management system platforms such as Wix, offer only a very limited selection of themes and the vast majority of them are extremely buggy and looking very cheap.
I have to admit that I have used many free templates before but I have stopped using them because either they were not updated for a long period of time so some things stopped working properly or they lacked some important features that I really wanted to implement.
I think that you should only use free themes if you really do not have any money (I mean it literally) because it is just better to spend around $50 for a superb premium theme that is going to make your blog look really nice, clean and the most importantly unique without having to know any code.
My favorite shop where I buy WordPress themes in is MyThemeShop. You will not only get a kick ass template, but you will also get a helpful support when you will need it and regular free updates that will fix any issues and even add more useful features and improvements.
Now, The Choice Is Yours
WordPress.org is the only choice for me and owners of big companies like Coca Cola or Microsoft as well as millions of other bloggers think the same.
I visit frequently many webmasters forums and I have read some very horrifying stories from people that used Wix or Blogger for their blogs and I would never ever use these services for anything serious, because what is the point of creating a blog when you can not even monetize it and you can lose it at any second.
Do not get me wrong, guys. I think that platforms like Blogger can be good for classroom, hobby or test blogs but I would not recommend you to use them if you want to do it for a long term and you are planning to make any money off of it in the future.
If you want to take the first step and start your own WordPress blog today (link) then I have written a guide that is very easy to follow even for non tech savvy people.
By the way, if you have any questions, I will be more than happy to answer them in the comments section.