This blog has a lot of articles about WordPress, such as using it for the enterprise, converting from an HTML site to WordPress, and others, but I don’t have a specific blog post about using WordPress for a CMS. This use of WordPress is really at the heart of why I am big on WordPress.
So, let’s go over the basics. What is a CMS. CMS stands for Content Management System. For novice users, a CMS is used to write, edit, and control the text and html used in pages on a website. This is where we have to specifically separate the two concepts in WordPress, a page and a post. When we use the term CMS, we are referring to a page.
A post is simply a short or long article written about a particular matter, while a page is typically a standalone piece of content. This can be somewhat confusing in WordPress, since they are closely related. The big take away here is if you are going to use WordPress like a normal website, you need to understand the difference between a page and a post and in some cases turn off pages and in others turn off posts. Depends on what you want out of WordPress.
So, in the CMS world how does WordPress stand in terms of CMS. It is a difficult question, because on a scale of 1 to 10 as a CMS, I would say WordPress is a 6… Now, you would think that I would recommend something else! But, on the other hand the CMS aspect of WordPress is just one facet of other issues, in which WordPress is a 10 (Posting and SEO and plugins). The benefit of having a CMS with all these features is what makes the package so powerful.
So let’s go over the CMS basic features:
- Ability to Create a web page.
- Ability to Edit a web page.
- Ability to Create Roles for specific users to create and edit pages.
- Ability to stage a page, and publish on a specific date.
- Ability to be able to access the system from a remote interface (The Web).
- Ability to revert a change.
- Ability to index, categorize, tag, what have you the content information.
Still, this is just the tip of the iceberg, because there are 100 decent paid (non open source) CMS systems on the market… And there’s more than that. There are probably 100 free CMS (open source) in addition to WordPress. There are probably another 2000 home grown CMS used by many a web consulting companies out there.
So, let’s get back to the question at hand… Why use WordPress for a CMS?
It’s straight forward. “It is not about WordPress today; It is about WordPress tomorrow.” The reason I say this, and you can quote me on this, is the system is being upgraded so very often and the plugins are increasingly so much filled with value add; You can’t find a softare movement like WordPress out there that compete’s with it. Here are the reasons:
- Constant Improvements
- Upgrades Are Relatively Easy
- Thousands of Plugins (another name for addons or extensions, and easy to plugin in!)
- Easy To Use
- Easy To Setup
- Easy To Move Around
- Tons of Online Documentation
I am sure there are a lot more reasons… Anyway, that’s it, there is your reason why…
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