photo credit: Vince Kusters

I have been a fan of WordPress for several years now. I had been hard coding sites for a while and found it time consuming. Instead of providing content, I was constantly redesigning the look and feel. Then a friend introduced me to the WordPress platform – and I was in heaven. While I can still tweak the look and feel of the site to my hearts content (and without learning a completely new programming language!) it allows me to focus on what I really want to do: post quality content.

Content is King

You’ve read it over and over, that without quality content you’re website is over before it has started. So for a writer you want to make sure that the platform you choose for your website allows you to put in your content easily. I chose WordPress because of how user friendly the back end is for people who are providing content. I can access it from anywhere and put in content – and so can other authors. I want my guest authors, or myself to be able to easily put in photos, video and text and I don’t want to have to code the layout every time I get a Word document. Which leads us to the second reason WordPress is perfect for writers….

Design is Queen

Presenting the content in a clean fashion is almost as important as the content you provide. If your page is covered in several different blocks of text without formatting or color to differentiate where one thought begins and another ends, your readers will be confused. I can’t tell you how upset I have been when I clicked on an advertisement link that I thought was part of the content I was reading and then having to click back to find the original. Sometimes, the simplest design addition of a different background tint for a different section can make all the difference to your reader.

WordPress makes this easy for the writer by providing easy instructions on how to upgrade themes. You can often find these for free in theme directories. The template I am using for this website was made by David Hoyt and was found in the WordPress.com Theme collection. It’s a simple theme very well executed. I just tweaked a couple of settings and ta-daa – easy to read, classic, website. Thanks to David’s hard work, I can move beyond worrying about the design and concentrate on my content.

The other thing to keep in mind when looking at design is bandwidth. Without going into all of the details of image size reduction, you can tell if you’re website is suffering from bandwidth problems if it takes a very long time for your page to load. It doesn’t even have to be images. If you have a link to an off-site ad network that takes forever to load, it’s possible that your text will not be displayed until the ad is. This keeps your reader waiting. And if they want to look at multiple posts on your site they’re going to become easily frustrated waiting for ads to load every time they click on an internal link. Constantly check to see how long it takes your page to load and if any of your plugins are the culprits- don’t drive your visitors away!

Make sure you keep in mind that no matter how pretty yur website looks, if you don’t have the content your readers need the design means nothing. Again, content and design work in partnership to create a successful blog/website/product.

But the Pawns do All the Work!

Ease of use and navigation will also help your readers find what they’re looking for. WordPress makes this possible by offering two different types of posting: static pages and blog posts. The static pages serve as the meat and potatoes of your site. This is the content that shouldn’t change. Your prices, your portfolio, client statements, etc. This is all of the stuff you want your readers to have super easy access to.

The blog posts are part of the new wave of content marketing. Constantly changing content that helps build a relationship with your readers over time. WordPress allows you to create both types of content with the simple press of a button. Both of which are easy to edit, thus allowing you to change your prices, put new items into your portfolio or add a new quote from one of your clients.

WordPress allows you to easily update the areas of content and design so you can work on creating. With all of the other things you’re trying to accomplish as a Freelance Writer you’ll need to find tools like WordPress to simplify delivery to your audience.