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ferni5

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WordPress is more than a blog tool. It can be used to power an entire website when used as a CMS (content management system). You can power both your blog posts and "static" web pages all from within the same WP dashboard.

 

Google "WordPress as a CMS" for some interesting links on the topic.

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I've noticed that Wordpress is very popular with web designers. I understand it is a blog tool, but why is it so popular to create websites?

 

Mainly because it's very easy to set up and maintain, also very user friendly and got popular fast among people that maybe did not have the knowledge to publish their works online in a "professional" manner.

 

With years the Wordpress api has become a lot more powerful and today you basically can use it as already stated in a reply as a content cms for any page layout, if you got the imagination then you can get it working. So why it's so popular is mainly because of the blog hype that brought it into its golden age, and soon spread to other areas thanks to the team investing in further developing it, not to forget it's a very easy api to learn and use, mostly thanks to it's modularity.

 

And if you don't feel for wordpress you could check out joomla or other videly used CMS:s.

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I've noticed that Wordpress is very popular with web designers. I understand it is a blog tool' date=' but why is it so popular to create websites?[/quote']

 

Mainly because it's very easy to set up and maintain, also very user friendly and got popular fast among people that maybe did not have the knowledge to publish their works online in a "professional" manner.

 

With years the Wordpress api has become a lot more powerful and today you basically can use it as already stated in a reply as a content cms for any page layout, if you got the imagination then you can get it working. So why it's so popular is mainly because of the blog hype that brought it into its golden age, and soon spread to other areas thanks to the team investing in further developing it, not to forget it's a very easy api to learn and use, mostly thanks to it's modularity.

 

And if you don't feel for wordpress you could check out joomla or other videly used CMS:s.

 

What advantages does it offer over creating a static website? Are there any good links or tutorials on how to use Wordpress in this way? Thanks for the replies.

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What advantages does it offer over creating a static website?

 

I'm leaving in a few mins, so I don't have time to post links to tutorials (I'll do it later), but the #1 reason why I develop my clients' websites in WordPress (or other CMS) is because I want to give them the ability to log in and edit their content on their own. I don't have the time to perform small edits to all my clients' sites and this allows them to do minor changes themselves. If my client has a static website, chances are they don't know code and I would have to do all the updates for them.

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A couple tutorials:

 

-- http://wordpress.tv/category/how-to/ (take a look here: http://wordpress.tv/2009/01/23/css-tricks-designing-for-wordpress-part-one-of-three/)

-- Quite a few Wordpress tutorials: http://css-tricks.com/video-screencasts/

-- http://www.killersites.com/wordpress/

-- http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Lessons

-- http://net.tutsplus.com/articles/web-roundups/top-50-wordpress-tutorials/

 

One of the nice advantages of Wordpress is that it has a large user community, so a lot of people are familiar with it and can offer help if you get stuck.

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What advantages does it offer over creating a static website?

 

I'm leaving in a few mins' date=' so I don't have time to post links to tutorials (I'll do it later), but the #1 reason why I develop my clients' websites in WordPress (or other CMS) is because I want to give them the ability to log in and edit their content on their own. I don't have the time to perform small edits to all my clients' sites and this allows them to do minor changes themselves. If my client has a static website, chances are they don't know code and I would have to do all the updates for them.[/quote']

 

Susie,

 

I was thinking of using Wordpress the same way, not as a blog tool but for full websites. Do you modify or use a plugin to make wordpress act more like a CMS for your clients. From what I see, with Wordpress you can control your blog, but what if you want to give clients the ability to edit content on all their pages. I've seen hints that some coders modify the back end of wordpress to create their own admin panel, is this true?

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I don't use any special plugins nor do I modify the back end. You can use WordPress as is. Here's an example of a site using WordPress as a CMS that I just launched last week: http://tinyurl.com/yksu4lt .

 

Have you ever looked at the dashboard of WP? If not, maybe you could sign up for a free wordpress.com account just to get your feet wet. Either that or you could install the default on your own server somewhere.

 

To make it act like a CMS, just go to Settings > Reading > and then select a "static" page to be your front page. Then select whichever page you want to hold your blog. Of course, these pages should be created first before you can set them in the Reading settings.

 

So, on the site that I linked above, the front page is set to "Welcome to .... " and the blog page is set to "Blog".

 

To edit or add static pages, you would go to Pages > Edit or Add New. These would be like the regular pages of a website.

 

To edit or add blog posts, you would go to Posts > Edit or Add New.

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I don't use any special plugins nor do I modify the back end. You can use WordPress as is. Here's an example of a site using WordPress as a CMS that I just launched last week: http://tinyurl.com/yksu4lt .

 

Have you ever looked at the dashboard of WP? If not, maybe you could sign up for a free wordpress.com account just to get your feet wet. Either that or you could install the default on your own server somewhere.

 

To make it act like a CMS, just go to Settings > Reading > and then select a "static" page to be your front page. Then select whichever page you want to hold your blog. Of course, these pages should be created first before you can set them in the Reading settings.

 

So, on the site that I linked above, the front page is set to "Welcome to .... " and the blog page is set to "Blog".

 

To edit or add static pages, you would go to Pages > Edit or Add New. These would be like the regular pages of a website.

 

To edit or add blog posts, you would go to Posts > Edit or Add New.

 

So clients are only able to edit the "blog" page? Everything else is static?

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I don't use any special plugins nor do I modify the back end. You can use WordPress as is. Here's an example of a site using WordPress as a CMS that I just launched last week: http://tinyurl.com/yksu4lt .

 

Have you ever looked at the dashboard of WP? If not' date=' maybe you could sign up for a free wordpress.com account just to get your feet wet. Either that or you could install the default on your own server somewhere.

 

To make it act like a CMS, just go to Settings > Reading > and then select a "static" page to be your front page. Then select whichever page you want to hold your blog. Of course, these pages should be created first before you can set them in the Reading settings.

 

So, on the site that I linked above, the front page is set to "Welcome to .... " and the blog page is set to "Blog".

 

To edit or add static pages, you would go to Pages > Edit or Add New. These would be like the regular pages of a website.

 

To edit or add blog posts, you would go to Posts > Edit or Add New.[/quote']

 

So clients are only able to edit the "blog" page? Everything else is static?

 

wow this site is very neatly done, so you make a regular post add some bells and whistles and set it as the home i.e. static page and then link over to the main blog that looks like a regular bunch of entries huh. pretty slick. i shall have to try this out asap.

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and of course the main advantage of Wordpress (besides above mentioned) I think is the possibility of having very own template for practically each page ( or post) and the easiness of achieving that.

 

i think i understand how to set the static page, add new pages, and link to the regular blog page, but how do you prevent your clients from screwing up your templates?

 

are you able to designate which parts of the page they are allowed to edit? or are they only allowed to add/remove posts

while you deal with the actual pages?

 

i think it is possible to show only posts from certain categories on particular pages, so you could make templates for each page and just let them add/remove posts that will only appear on specific pages.

 

how do you allow them to do updates while not messing up the page templates, or are they restricted to just blog entries

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how do you allow them to do updates while not messing up the page templates, or are they restricted to just blog entries

 

Templates are done using a combination of HTML, CSS and PHP, and uploaded to the server. The client won't be able to edit them without opening up the files using a FTP program.

 

Clients will be able to edit/add/remove both pages and posts from the site, but they won't be able to edit/add/remove page/post templates through the Wordpress interface.

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Clients will be able to edit/add/remove both pages and posts from the site, but they won't be able to edit/add/remove page/post templates through the Wordpress interface.

 

Actually, they can edit the templates through the WordPress dashboard. All you have to do is go to Appearance > Editor.

 

When I launch a website, I provide a PDF tutorial on how to use the site. I let my clients know what to do to edit pages and posts, but I never mention the templates (unless they need to choose templates for the page/post which is done right in the page/post edit section). I've never had an issue of my clients messing things up. But, if they do, I have a backup and I can just reupload the templates to the server.

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Actually' date=' they can edit the templates through the WordPress dashboard. All you have to do is go to Appearance > Editor.[/quote']

 

Good point, I forgot about that.

 

well I see no harm in giving them access to an account with limited access, meaning they would not be complete admins to prevent them from doing everything. Just give them access to modify and add new content.

 

The downside would be that you would have to spend a lot of time in a worst case scenario every week as they need new changes and what not added.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I also think that being the blogging platform of choice for the majority of bloggers, WordPress is becoming more and more popular amongst website designers and small business owners. In the last coupld of months, I noticed a growing demand for website redesigns using WordPress as CMS. People want to ditch that old CMS or that not so easy to update static website and use WordPress to publish and manage their content online.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I don't use any special plugins nor do I modify the back end. You can use WordPress as is. Here's an example of a site using WordPress as a CMS that I just launched last week: http://tinyurl.com/yksu4lt .

 

Have you ever looked at the dashboard of WP? If not, maybe you could sign up for a free wordpress.com account just to get your feet wet. Either that or you could install the default on your own server somewhere.

 

To make it act like a CMS, just go to Settings > Reading > and then select a "static" page to be your front page. Then select whichever page you want to hold your blog. Of course, these pages should be created first before you can set them in the Reading settings.

 

So, on the site that I linked above, the front page is set to "Welcome to .... " and the blog page is set to "Blog".

 

To edit or add static pages, you would go to Pages > Edit or Add New. These would be like the regular pages of a website.

 

To edit or add blog posts, you would go to Posts > Edit or Add New.

 

 

Suzie, your site looks great. I've taken a look a wordpress and learned how to create custom templates, now I love it. The problem that I'm finding out is that I'm a more of a coder than a designer. Let me ask you, for the footer area where you have the newsletter area "ENEWS and Updates", is that a plugin? Do you save the user's email address in the database? Did you code that you self?

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All I did for that was to add a text widget to the footer "sidebar" (let me know if you'd like me to explain that further) and then I added my client's Constant Contact code to create the form. The email addresses that visitor input get stored in a database in my client's Constant Contact database.

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