Foreword

One of the most amazing statistics I have ever read, I read while reading this book—15 percent of the web now runs on WordPress.

The impact of this statistic is staggering. The size of that two-digit percentage, when multiplied by the entire Internet is so vast as to be incomprehensible. Yet the bigger imponderable the greater statistic comes when we realize that 100 percent minus 15 percent is 85 percent. That 85 percent has yet to discover WordPress.

In my career, I deal with web statistics every day. At Packt we publish books on IT and web technologies, and so it is to the web that we go for our research to base our assumptions of what is popular, what is worth spending our time, and an author's time on the technologies that will sell books. WordPress is virtually unique in that its popularity grows steeply and almost linearly over time, right from day one, and has done so for the last eight years, up, up, and up. Eating up the Internet bit by bit like an unstoppable virus. One might be forgiven for thinking the whole of that other 85 percent might succumb given time.

When setting up a content based website the fact of the matter is that there is no longer a reason not to use WordPress. Drupal and Joomla! have had their day and are declining in popularity. WordPress has now won the battle of the CMS outright. And the reason is simple. With a few tweaks and a five-minute installation, WordPress is the most search engine-friendly way to put content on the web bar. Yesterday that was enough to get you noticed on the web. Today, WordPress is only half the story. The other half is social media. And that's where Michael's book comes in.

When you begin to combine WordPress with Social Media elements you have the power of the Internet at your disposal; a way to fully engage readers; and that's a concept as staggering as the one we started with. Michael is a true expert and has written a book that is a pure joy to read because it gives you and me the tools we need to succeed where we may have failed before, yet without cost or high-level skills. The plan of action contained herein is, simply put, a template for web success that anyone can follow. I couldn't commend this book more emphatically to anyone who needs to be heard above the deafening noise of the Internet and nowadays that probably means all of us.

Robin de Jongh

Acquisition Editor, WordPress Social Media and WordPress Marketing