XHTML or WordPress?

so i’ve wondered for a while what makes a better website framework: XHTML or WordPress? both are very popular formats, & online resources for each are second to none. the question is: which is simpler & more search engine friendly? i recently converted SDT to WordPress as an experiment to find out.

when installing WP, it struck me how easy the process was. i logged into CPanel on HostMonster, chose SimpleScripts & then clicked a link. actually, there was one extra step – it required ionCube to run the installer, so i enabled that first. this literally is a 2-step procedure requiring no PHP or database knowledge.

next, finding a theme & tweaking it to my needs required a bit more legwork (but no more than setting up a site w/CSS attributes for an XHTML template would).

what i realized is WP is designed to be much easier to use than a HTML WYSIWYG editor. obviously that’s pretty much a given, but push-button site publishing (after tweaking CSS for hours in the traditional method) wins hands down for simplicity & scalability. there are some limitations to WP though – modifying a theme can still be a challenge, as they use CSS for object layout & style attributes.

XHTML is also more flexible in terms of design. it allows greater adaptability to achieve specific visual attributes whereas WP is limited by the PHP framework within which it operates. the caveat for both scenarios is CSS. a necessary evil, cascading style sheets can be a real nightmare when attempting to achieve a specific layout or graphic element style (especially while attempting to maintain cross-browser compatibility).

our last important factor is search engine friendliness. WP is much easier to configure for this than XHTML, making it the clear winner. plus, you don’t have to worry so much about PPC campaigns, backlinks & SEO markup to overcompensate for static pages. WP’s blog format w/RSS feeds & social media plug-ins reveal a truly effective quotient for increased search engine exposure: dynamic content = more traffic.

following the stats for SDT using Google Analytics, i’ve noticed a gradual increase in traffic over about 3 weeks since the transition. otherwise, haven’t really done much beyond publishing a few blog entries like this one & re-posting craigslist ads.

we’ll see what happens over time. more later…