For the good part of the past few years, there has been an undeniable increase in the number of web sites one can find on the web. While these used to be the traditional company websites, where one would need to shell out a lot of cash on design, development, maintenance, and hosting, this doesn't seem to be the case today. For all the advances that technology has brought us in so short a time, there have also been major breakthroughs for the person without any idea of HTML tags – foremost of this is the world of blogging.

The connotation attached to the word "blogging" used to be that of an online journal and diary – where one can rant out one's emotions and heartbreaks and make it available for viewing online. It was a start on the way cyberspace would eventually invade the lives of the average person, and the availability of such resources that make this possible has been so great that even thirteen-year-olds can actually make money out of blogging.

People blog for various reasons – keeping an online journal, maintaining up-to-date news and developments within a company or organization, and even for the sole purpose of online affiliate marketing. The possibilities are becoming endless, and what's more is that the ease that you can acquire these tools is exponentially increasing. How, you might ask?

Enter WordPress.

On what was once thought to be a pure blogging platform has morphed into a full-fledged Content Management System (CMS) that's powerful enough to run a complete website that's customizable to the very core. It offers complete versatility in almost all areas of what you want in a website – anyone from a avid internet-user to the hardcore coder can find his/her own field and options in WordPress, as well as take the least amount of time in coding and maintaining one.

From Installation to your First Post

Installation here is a breeze. Due to that, there is a huge number of available tutorials on the web (as if you really need one. Yes, it's that simple). One only needs to download the latest version from WordPress.org, set-up a few configuration files and upload these to a web server, and you'll be jotting down your first post in under a grand total of five minutes.

Feature Filled

The best feature of a WordPress-powered site has to be that – features. There are numerous plug-ins and resources that are freely available on the web for your website, all of them containing the needed functionality that one needs to run a website accordingly. Need a eCommerce plug-in for a shopping cart website? Get it for free. Looking a good gallery viewer? Multiple plug-ins allow you to do so. Dreaming of a "Like" button similar to that of Facebook? It's readily available on the web for your instant use. Again, as I will point out, the resources are close to limitless, and it is this main feature of WordPress that makes it so appealing to the general population.

If you're thinking of starting your own WordPress-powered site, I'll be very much willing to help you out. Getting your own domain (i.e., yourname.com) will cost about Php350-500 a year, and I can handle the web hosting needs for you, for FREE. Just e-mail me@theruffy.com if you're interested, and I hope you subscribe to this site while you're at it.

So what are you waiting for? Spread the word! Your online presence may just be a few days away!