Word Press For Web Sites and 1 More Thing

I realize Word Press was created for blogging. However my question is this Is it a good platform to build a web site on. I'm thinking if so it would sure building one a breeze I would think.

Currently I have a blogger blog that targets a very small niche that I have for philanthropic purposes that I do not indend on trwying to make money off of on blogger and the way I have it set up its appearance is more like that of a non-blog web site. Sorry I realise my discription is really showing my ingnorance about these things.

So with what I've read about wordpress and some sites I've seen built on or in whichever is correct the WP platform function more web site like then blog like even then my blogger blog. So anyway would wordpress be a good platform for a IM inche nweb site that is not meant to be a blog if that makes sense.

Secondly where I work a guy told me that he has to sites up on the same topic, happens to be wedding photography, both are nearly identical and have links pointing to each other he claimes this helps his search engine rankings, because they have different hosts and as a result IP addresses is this a good strategy or would things like squiddo lenses and such accomplish the same thing for free?

Well I hope I made sense. Its kind of late for me and I should be in bed goodnight everyone.