Semiologic Pro is a turbo charged version of Wordpress and we recently converted to Semio for our blogs. We really hadn’t planned on doing this but we liked the first install so much, we changed them all over. It’s a cool system.

We found out about Semiologic from our friend Sherman Hu – an SEO and internet marketing expert and an emerging video-blog master – he’s sharp, kind and savvy. Sherman runs Sherman Live and Wordpress Tutorials. He is also a faculty member for Stomper Net and uses Semiologic Pro himself. Thanks for the tip Sherman.

Semiologic is a versatile and powerful blog platform that really makes starting an online business a piece of cake. It’s search engine friendly and enhances your internet marketing efforts without having to know HTML or PhP. This lets you focus on creating good content instead of trying to figure out the latest technology before you can use it.

The more familiar I become with the capacity and the flexibility of this system, the better I like it. Although Wordpress was created as a blog platform, it seems to be evolving into an effective platform for e-commerce as well because it is so easy to use.  And cool new PhP widgets are popping up al the time. As the "blog platform" and traditional website gradually merge into each other, I’m seriously considering using this as a stand alone platform for future websites.

You can learn Wordpress and Semiologic Pro fast and it helps you create a sense of order and systemization that makes your effort more focused and organized.  

There are tons of features built in and it takes a while to figure out how things work. But as you learn, it becomes clear that Denis De Bernardy has put a lot of thought and technology into Semio behind the scenes. It really is an elegant system, elegant in the sense of a ‘quiet power combined with finesse and the beauty of simplicity’.

Even if you aren’t interested in using your blog to market, this program will help you get better search engine rankings so more people can find your blog to read it.

Drawbacks:

1. The skins (templates that come with it the program) are kind of ‘plain Jane’ design – but they are very functional. Denis De Bernardy (the creator of Semio) says he is going to start designing new skins pretty soon. In the meantime you can have your designer come up with custom skin that integrates in to the Semio system.
2. It takes a while to become fluent in all the Semio language and the many features and options built into this. It’s not counter intuitive, but it takes practice until you hit the "ah-hah" moments when it seems like it all makes sense at once. It’s like any powerful tool, it takes time to learn to use it effectively.
   

Even if you choose a different platform for your main website – or e-commerce store – get this system for you blog. You can use it for multiple domains of your own for the same money.  It’s a very good value for the horsepower. 

Does Semiologic really get results? Bernardy has a PR 7 on his main page and here’s a quote from a comment on his website:

It took me 3 months to take this web site’s front page from null to PR5. Several pages are now PR6; many more would be if not for my moving pages around all over the place.

Obviously he hasn’t updated that page in a while because he’s already up to a PR 7. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. He’s doing something right at a PR7.

I highly recommend Semiologic Pro, it’s really a cool product.