Wikipedia defines WordPress as a web publishing system (a.k.a. content management system) written in PHP and backed by a MySQL database. WordPress is used to manage frequently-updated Web content, especially Weblogs. It is distributed under the GNU General Public License and is available free of charge.

If you are freaked out by the technical jargon don’t be. If you have your own web hosting account with mysql access you can easily install the software on your server or have a php programmer install it.

The software is free and can be accessed at http://wordpress.org The benefits of have the software hosted on your server include link popularity. Because you will be promoting a blog with a link back to your original domain you will get backlinks. The downside is managing the software on your hosting account which can cause added stress and take some time to maintain.

If you are not at all technical you can sign up with several free wordpress hosting services like http://freedesktopads.com that will host the software on their server. All you need to do is log in with a username and password to use the service. You will not receive backlinks to your direct domain but you will create backlinks to the blog you are working on. One other issue is the host can pull the plug on your blog at any time so be sure to have some back up of the material at least if you are forced to move.

Blogs can target specific keywords for Search Engine Optimization just as traditional web pages can. The benefit of article marketing versus a web page is content pure and simple. The blog is an ongoing listing of your articles one right after the other. If your blog is full of articles on one particular niche you are likely to use the same keywords throughout various articles. Your blog will be full of good information with keywords scattered through it appropriately instead of concentrated for SEO benefit.

Your blog can all be distributed through RSS feeds. Think of an RSS feed like an email list. If you have a number of people who find your blog worth while they will add it to their feed service. When your blog gets updated your RSS feed will send it out to your subscribers. How cool would it be to have your blog feed to thousands of RSS feeders and all you need to do is add content.

Word press makes it really easy to tag your blog. Tagging a blog means that your keywords are tagged and picked up by popular pinging services like technoratti. A tagged blog is more readily available for users searching for your particular content. Tagging a wordpress blog is extremely simple. Create categories based on your keywords. When you publish your articles on your blogs select the specific categories that related to your articles. As you create more keyword rich content create more categories. You will see a solid spike in traffic based on tagging alone.

Get instant traffic to your blog with a pinging service. Pinging is the act of letting other content sites know you have new information on your blog. Ping at http://pingoat.com for sure. Every time you update your blog use the ping service. Pingoat pings top notch services like technorati. You can also submit your blog to hundreds of blog directories like http://www.blogcatalog.com

Blogs are beneficial because they are easy to update, they can keyword rich and are easily announced to the world. The content should be kept fresh and up to date to keep people coming back for more. Use your blog to direct traffic to other sites, monetize it with Google Adsense or Clickbank products.