A couple of weeks ago I created a post about using a self-hosted WordPress instance as a blogging option (“Self-Hosted WordPress for your blog?“). It is a fantastic tool for supporting a blog and is highly recommended as your option for your blog. Recently, the idea of using it for site’s CMS (Content Management System) has become very interesting to me. Based on what WordPress supports, it seems that it would be a great CMS tool for websites.
Some of the key features give businesses and people a huge amount of flexibility if they utilize WordPress as a CMS tool. There are five points that I find to be extremely valuable when considering using it as a CMS tool: user-friendly control of site content, SEO-friendly framework, templates, plug-ins, and the advanced customization features.
SEO Friendly framework
One of the key points that was considered in the creation of the WordPress architecture was that it had to be very search engine friendly. Significant effort has been exerted to create a framework that is designed to support SEO (search engine optimization) techniques. Being that this is a web site it is extremely important that the site can be found and that the search engine can efficiently and correctly index it. This is something that WordPress does quite well. Add to that a few of the SEO enhancement plug ins and your site will be very search engine friendly.
Full Control of Web Site content
WordPress was created with the idea that someone could create a blog and control the content. With that the need existed to control the look and feel and also the other pages on the site.
WordPress’s ability to apply templates to the site to control look and feel and functionality with a simple upload is quite amazing. This piece creates the base framework that the rest of the site will be built on.
It is truly amazing the level of control that is given from within the administration tool. It provides you with the ability to add/edit/delete pages and the content contained within them. Allows you to maintain posts. Maintenance of links, media gallery, templates etc. is also standard to the administration structure.
The WordPress administration tool also is extensible through the use of plug-ins. This allows developers to have the ability to add missing/needed pieces of functionality to the administration tool. There are plug-ins that add additional SEO features, security, forms maintenance, advanced email capabilities, etc. Each of these is items is simply installed and configured to support the necessary capabilities that you are looking for.
Taken a step further, the templates and pages that make up the site are also directly maintainable from within the administration tool. This means that if the administration tool can’t maintain a specific piece of the site, someone with a knowledge of HTML, PHP, CSS, and WordPress can alter or add the necessary capabilities directly in the page level code.
Between the built in capabilities, plug-ins, and custom code it really does give complete functionality control over the site. Each of the items gives distinct features to help customize the site. The foundation is the WordPress template.
Start with a Template
The idea of the template is quite simple. It provides a common look and feel throughout the site. WordPress makes this functionality very simple. It has a simple interface that that allows you to select from any of the uploaded templates. This allows you decide on what framework you would like to build from and what your site will look like. This is really the base of the site and the starting off point for customization.
Add capabilities with Plug Ins
The WordPress Plug In technology is focused on allowing developers to extend the existing WordPress framework with pieces of functionality that aren’t necessarily included in the base structure. This allows developers to customize the systems to meet their needs. There is a large group of developers who have created plug-ins that are available to add into WordPress. Many are free, some will cost a little money. Some of the great options out there would include: SEO Plug-ins, Analytics plug-ins, Security enhancements, RSS enhancements, integration with other social media tools (Twitter, FaceBook, etc.), and many many more.
The plug in functionality makes it quite simple to customize the functionality of your WordPress site. In places where someone can’t find the specific plug-in that they need they have a couple of options: build your own plug-in or utilize the advanced customization abilities.
Advanced customization available
WordPress allows for full access to the pages that render the site. Someone with a knowledge of HTML, CSS, PHP, and WordPress will be able to customize specific pages, parts, sections, styles, etc. from this level. It really gives the developer complete control over the site that is output. This allows a pretty infinite amount of customization to be available.
This type of customization is probably best left to web developers but it does give the site owners complete control over the site.
Can WordPress be a CMS?
Yes, WordPress can provide CMS capabilities. It has most of them already built in to support the needs that many businesses have. It is truly impressive tool and I think that people who decided to use it to support their content management will find it to be a very solid tool.
What are your thoughts on WordPress for your site?
UPDATES: Added a couple of WP resource posts to add to this post:
Additional Information about WordPress
12 WordPress Plugins That I Install
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