I have decided to use Word Press as my content management system.   It is easy to install and download a theme that I can modify enough to make it look like my own.  There are plenty of plug-ins to use to add features to my site with little effort.  With the theme that I chose, plug-ins to flickr.com and twitter were easy to set up.  And there are a lot more out-of-the-box functionality that I have yet to start using.  If I were setting up a small business and needed a fast, easy and inexpensive way of getting started, I would choose WordPress.  No need to create a custom site.  I set up this site in a couple of hours over the weekend.  And now I can focus on building the site out, rather than concentrating on the look and feel, and the functionality. 

One of my goals this year was to build out a nice web site.  I have the Adobe Professional products, such as Dreamweaver, etc., and tried at first to use that to build a site.  Great tool if that is your job.  But if you have a full-time job other than developing and coding, or if you are a business owner who just wants to site to advertise what you really do full-time, then the professional package is not a good option.  I also started working with Drupal, but this too is a full-time job.  Great for customized sites, but many small business owners do not need that level of customization.    I have been using WordPress off and on for the past two years, but have been exploring other options to get a good feel of what is out there.  Plus I have a technical background, and have created externally facing sites and internal sites for the company I work for.  And I wanted to do this on my own to create a site based on my own design and development.  But now I have decided to use WordPress rather create a site from scratch, because you can get a lot further using what others have created.  The development base for WordPress is very large and hard to compete with, or ignore.

Recently, I have also been reading and hearing a lot from the web site design and development community good comments about WordPress.  And many professionals are switching their sites to WordPress from other blogging/content management systems for their sites.  The main reason is the recent updates to WordPress and the growing and vibrant community of WordPress developers creating plug-ins and themes to use.  A recent article in Smashing Magazine, the Ultimate Guide to Using WordPress For a Portfolio, touts the benefits of using WordPress to advertise your design portfolio, whether it is web design or photography.   Also, Boagworld is one of my favorite podcasts about web design has decided to move its site to WordPress citing the simplicity of using this as a content management system and the growing amount of developers adding plug-ins to WordPress.

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