Wordpress CMS: Using WP as a Website Builder!

"To replace my ineffective, sluggish, outdated, unreliable CMS with Wordpress." But, why?

You've probably had a CMS like Joomla or Drupal recommended to you - but have you ever managed a massive site with either? If so, you've probably seen the server struggle with Joomla's rat's nest of code. As for Drupal: unless you have oodles of time to learn how to be a developer (which I doubt you do, if you're reading this), you're either stuck with hiring a developer, or spending the majority of your time NOT making money or writing content -- but learning how to program and tweak code. Either way: if you heavily modify either CMS, you'll be having plenty of fun when it's time to upgrade to a newer version.

Remember, the virtues of being a webmaster are:

1. To make things easy on yourself right now
2. To make things easy on yourself in the long-run
3. To go the route that has the most expandability

The viable solution is Wordpress. It's NOT a blogging platform. It's a Web 2.0 CMS - and here's why - complete design reliance on CSS, super stable & bug-free framework, an admin panel made for dummies, all the free plugins you can eat, and a simple theming system that doesn't use annoying programming languages like SMARTY. What you have here is potential for extreme greatness!

Think about all of the things you want out of a CMS:

• It actually works: It's always nice to know that your website won't unexpectedly greet you with a page of error code for no reason.


• Easy to use: Wordpress gives you a simple yet ample way to create new pages, posts and categories - and manage them later. It's easy enough for the beginner, and robust enough for the hardcore website modifier. You don't need an IT degree to use it!


• Cost effective: A fully-functional Wordpress site, with numerous plugins and a theme, can be created for a grand total of $0.00 - and still out-perform other CMS's with premium plugins and custom web development work.


• Quick Loading: Wordpress is as clean as a whistle, in terms of its hard coding. Only the necessities are in its framework - whatever else you put into it is up to you. To back that up is a logical reliance on CSS for site themes, and you have a site that puts minimal strain on your server, no matter how big your site gets!


• Search engine friendly: You get to choose how your URL's look - name your categories and pages accordingly, and benefit as search engines reward you for doing so! Laugh as your competitors suffer with their CMS's dynamic URL structure. Link your pages together with tags, and you have an advanced internal linking hierarchy in place.


• Advertising possibilities: They're unlimited with Wordpress - especially with the plugin Adsense Deluxe. The bulk of your advertising success depends on ad placement (as seen on this handy heat map), as well as the Wordpress theme you choose - which should be optimized for the most effective yet unobtrusive ad placement (the dark red and orange regions are the places where ads are most effective!)


• Easy to Theme: Buy or download a theme and drop it into your /wp-themes folder... then activate, and you're done! It really is that simple. When it comes to editing a theme, dropping something in or commenting it out from a theme file (header, footer, sidebar, etc) is super easy with the Theme Editor menu. Remember, Wordpress uses CSS in its theme structure - it is as easy to learn and use as HTML was in the 90s!


• Lots of Plugins to Choose From: Wordpress has them all - literally. Think of a plugin, and there's a 99% chance it exists, and exceeds your expectations.


• Modern-day technology: Enjoy your out-of-the-box RSS feed capabilities and get your site integrated with Feedburner.com, so that your visitors can keep coming back for more, in style. Make things easier to find with built-in tags and categories capabilities.


• It gets updated: Unlike other dev teams that take months (or more than a year!) to update their software, Wordpress is updated regularly. Bugs and vulnerabilities take extreme precedence and are patched up immediately.


• Expandable [for the future]: Wordpress isn't going anywhere...except upward! It's the most "safe" platform you can choose, as its developers are not a bunch of kids working in some basement only to disappear someday, but an actual, reputable company with funding behind it. The Forums are going strong, and you can get Wordpress help on virtually any message board for webmasters.

So, you've decided to take the path and try out Wordpress as a CMS - a good decision :) Before you begin, you'll need a few things: First of all, a domain name, which is where your site will point to (even if it's just temporary). Secondly, you'll need a hosting account, which is where your site will reside. Wordpress requires that your hosting account must have PHP and MySQL installed.

Obviously, you'll need your free copy of Wordpress, which will be installed within your server account, and will have a domain name pointing to it. A Wordpress theme: they come in both free and premium (aka "not free") versions. Go with free themes if you want to test things out and learn how to modify. When you're ready to be serious about your site, experience premium themes for their optimized CSS stylesheets and expandability.

Wordpress is easy for people of all proficiency levels to install. It's made for everyone, and it shows from the moment you set up your site. It's rare to encounter any kind of error during a Wordpress installation, thanks to its minimal requirements.

Once your site has been installed, it's time to then modify or upload your new template, upload and activate your desired plugins, and begin creating categories, pages and posts. From there, you'll undoubtedly want to modify your home page to look more customized, by including your logo, color scheme, and using a custom home.php page to get your site to look just the way you want.

One of the best kept secrets is that Wordpress has dozens of intricate plugins that are 100% free, but are otherwise rather costly for other open source CMS's. In fact, there are so many plugins for Wordpress that it is easy to get lost during your search. Here's a rundown of what the "must haves" are, if you're looking to begin your Wordpress CMS path:

• All-In-One SEO: Be seen on search engines: easily manage your site's optimization elements, or just make the process easier by assigning defaults that can be changed later! (Also requires beginner's SEO knowledge)


• AdSense Deluxe: Your one-stop shop for inserting ads of all kinds. Insert AdSense, Adbrite, CJ or any other ad code you want. It can even be used to place anything else: images, code, whatever you want! Simply assign a value in the plugin's menu, then place the "tag" for that value on the live site, and it will show up.


• aLinks: With this plugin, you can replace all instances of a word with a hyperlink that points to anything you want.


• Related Posts: Simply put: it will list and auto-update your site's related posts on whichever page you place it on. It's a great "what else would I like?" feature for visitors! Place it at the bottom of every article.


• Popularity Contest: This plugin maintains a running list of the most popular pages on your site, depending on what gets the most action.

Wordpress doesn't have to be "all go, no show." With the right Wordpress theme, you can really expand your site's horizons and blow your competition out of the water. The default Wordpress theme, well, sucks. Don't fret - there are hundreds of Wordpress themes available out there. While only dozens of them are worthy of using, you'll undoubtedly find the design that's right for your site or business plan. Even if you're not entirely crazy about it - modifying it is a valid option, as it is easy to do!

Remember to BE Remembered!
In marketing, looks are half the battle. If a website doesn't LOOK good, it better perform or offer something else pretty damn amazing to balance out the equation...or else, your visitors will not remember your site, or come back for a direct return visit. Therefore, looks contribute greatly to effectiveness - the better your site looks, the more credible it appears to be to your visitors.

The Amazing Auto-Updating Home Page
With the introduction of mashups, it's preposterous to see websites whose front pages aren't completely dynamic and ever-changing. This poses to be a challenge for your Wordpress CMS ventures. However, it is completely possible to add auto-updating content, like RSS aggregators to pull new feeds from your forum or other sites (or even your social bookmarking account). Flash videos continue to be a favorite addition. Don't forget about widgets, and their endless ability to fill up dead space. Just don't overdo it!

Know Your Limitations: Wordpress Isn't Superman!
Since we're on the topic of using Wordpress as a CMS, it would make sense to mention that certain applications would be either impossible or really painful to update for the webmaster. These situations would include creating a Youtube clone site with Wordpress - which simply cannot be done without major code writing or simply doing it the old fashioned way (creating one page per video, inserting the video, rinse, repeat). Either that, or subscribe to Revver - however, they have complete control over the moderation of your own videos. Same goes for using Wordpress as a social networking site. Your closest option is to try Wordpress MU (or multi-user), allowing your visitors to create detailed user accounts.

Wordpress category pages are, in essence, worthless. All they do is display a title, and list all of the posts within them - certainly not helpful or SEO friendly. Learn how to turn Wordpress categories into custom pages! You'll need to create a separate page that each category will display, and add some code to the universal category page, which simply tells Wordpress, "If you visit category ID#1, display this page...for category ID#2, display this one instead...", etc.

If you haven't already known, Wordpress MU (or multi-user) is a separate version of Wordpress that supports multiple account creations. In other words, it allows for multiple blogs to exist within one installation, instead of just one blog. That's great and all, but out of the box, it doesn't have many implications for those looking to make a Wordpress CMS. An amazing new development called BuddyPress will, though.

BuddyPress is a social network platform that will transform Wordpress MU into a full-featured social network, kind of like Facebook. With user profiles, messaging, friends, groups, blogs, albums, RSS feeds for everything and much more - BuddyPress is looking to be the Wordpress CMS solution for the MU crowd! (oh, and it's FREE).

Any Wordpress CMS'er knows to never say never when they want a particular feature added to their site. In these cases, ask a knowledgeable community if your idea can be done. DigitalPoint Forums' blogging forum is a great place to start - with many seasoned Wordpress hackers willing to help guide you down the right path. Also, try Wordpress's official forums.

If you simply don't have the time or effort to hack your Wordpress site, why not hire a freelancer at Wordpress Freelance or WPlancer?