Why Use WordPress as a CMS?
If you are new to programming jargons, then this blog might be very useful to you. First of all let me explain what is a CMS?
What is a CMS?
A Content Management System (CMS) is a software which allows those not endowed with too much technical knowledge to organize and manage web content. It helps in maintaining and updating a website in a quite simple and affordable way.
This is important for small businesses that do not have huge tech budgets. As the content creators get their websites back into their hands, and they can spend time on what really matters – creating relevant content. This saves valuable time and effort both for the content creator and software firm developing website for him.
Among number of CMS available, lets look at one of the better know open source system WordPress. This would be an introductory article and we shall see more of Wordpress in coming blogs.
What is WordPress?
WordPress initially started out for facilitating blogging, but because of its versatility it can be used for creating non-blog websites too. The fact that WordPress has support for pages, other than posts, renders it capable of acting as a CMS. Posts are dynamic whereas pages are largely static. And most websites (corporate, educational, entertainment, scientific) have most of their page content updated very infrequently.
It is WordPress’ administrative area that turns it into a CMS. The WordPress admin area provides a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor – similar to a mini-version of Microsoft Word. This allows virtually anyone to add and edit content themselves – all through their web browser – and without knowledge of HTML.
For more advanced users, there is a “code view” option where you can edit HTML code in a page, post or article, but it is not necessary for creating simple content.
Benefits of Using WordPress
The following are some compelling reasons as to why WordPress is being used by 202 million websites worlwide:
1. Its Free – WordPress is an open source software.
2. It Integrates With Your Blog Perfectly
There’s no need to worry about integrating your blog with whatever CMS you’re using for the rest of your site if you use WP for everything, as WP is first and foremost a blogging software.
3. Easy to learn
If you can send an e-mail, use Microsoft Word or set up a Facebook account, then you can use WordPress. That saves clients a great deal of time and money. Rather than paying a firm or freelancer to constantly update their site and waiting up to several weeks for those changes to be made, the clients can now make updates instantly on their own.
4. Tons of Themes
Themes are a “skin” of a look & feel that can be changed with 1 click. With some customization, themes can be updated to match your brand. It is difficult to find another CMS with a better stock of themes/templates in terms of both quality and quantity.
5. Search Engine Optimization
WordPress is designed to be very search engine friendly, with the help of features such as categories, tags, permalinks, etc. This means better Google rankings, and in turn more traffic to your website.
6. Plugins
There are literally hundreds of plugins that extend what WordPress does, so the actual functionality is nearly limitless. There are plugins for web advertising, flickr, twitter, e-commerce, newsletters, weather and surf reports, RSS feeds, SEO, Google Analytics and many more.
7. Multiple Authors
WordPress’ highly advanced user system allows up to 10 levels of users, with different levels having different (and configurable) privileges with regard to publishing, editing options, and other users.
There are a lot of other free CMSs available on the internet. Drupal is considered to be more powerful and developer friendly, whereas Joomla! is seen as more designer friendly. However, the beauty of WordPress is that it thinks like a writer and a designer at the same time, and this balance coupled with the small learning curve and vast technical support available is what appeals to most CMS developers.
CMS Team @ Software Associates
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