Wordpress And Content Management System: How To Make It Work by
Danny Wirken
Since the release of WordPress, web users have customized this blogging
software to suit their own needs. On of the most established needs in today's
computing world is the need for content management, particularly, a Content
Management System (CMS). With its rich set of features and flexibility,
WordPress can be customized into a major CMS.
Content Management System
Content management can be described as the process of creating, managing and
publishing online content sans any programming or technical skills. If used
properly, content management saves time and money. An effective content
management can be attained by utilizing a content management system.
A content management system is a web-based application connected to a database
that allows users to update a website without having to know any HTML
(Hypertext Markup Language, standard language with which all web pages are
built). It is software used to manage websites and web content. A CMS
facilitates the maintenance of content but not the design on a website.
Without CMS, updating a website say, posting a new article would involve
manually changing the home page and archives and creating a new page from
scratch for the article itself. Coupled with this, if a user wants other pages
to link to the article like a list of current articles in the sidebar of pages,
he has to change all these manually as well.
With CMS, a user just logs in and adds the article heading to a specific
category. He then enters the content and ends by selecting some tags to
describe the article. The CMS will automatically put the title, date and the
first paragraph on the home page. He then constructs a new page for the article
and adds the article to an archive by date and category.
As can be gleamed, CMS does away with inconvenient manual tasks and streamlines
the updating process. A CMS manages content efficiently from the time of
creation to publication. A content management system establishes a definitive
approach to effectively publish, store and organize content for the users.
Content management systems offered by different vendors have varied benefits
and functions that a user can select from according to his needs. A CMS can be
expensive or absolutely free like WordPress. It really depends on how complex
the site is and what needs to be done.
Most blogging software programs are considered a particular type of CMS. They
have CMS features for creating and maintaining a blog. They make publishing on
the Internet as easy as writing an article, giving it a title and setting it up
under one or more categories. Basic blogging software provides an interface
where a user can work in an intuitive manner while the blogging software
handles the presentation and publication. A blogger gets to concentrate on
writing and the blogging tool functioning as a content management system takes
care of the rest of the site operation. WordPress is an example of blogging
software.
WordPress - An Overview
WordPress is a well-structured personal publishing system written in PHP
(Hypertext Preprocessor, a popular open source server-side scripting language
constructed specially for integration with HTML available in Windows, Linux and
Mac OS X) and backed by MySQL (open source Structured Query Language database
implementation). WordPress is licensed under General Public License (GPL) and
is available for free. WordPress started in 2001. Since then, it has grown to
be the biggest self-hosted blogging tool in the world, utilized on a multitude
of sites. WordPress focuses on ease of use, speed and a wonderful user
experience. It is an open source program. Hundreds of people all over the globe
are working on it. It offers a service in
http://WordPress.com
that lets a user get started with a free WordPress-based blog in seconds.
WordPress is an advanced blogging software program that provides a
sophisticated set of features. Via its administration panels, a user can set
options for the presentation of his blog and be published on the Internet
instantly. WordPress focuses on aesthetics, web standards and usability.
WordPress as a Content Management System
A distinct characteristic of a CMS is that it singles out content from
presentation. Content consists of text, images or other information shared in
posts. This is separate from the structural design of a site which provides the
foundation into which the content is inserted and the presentation of a site
which involves graphic design. Content is stored in a database. A user can
change the look of a site with a few changes to style sheets such as CSS
(Cascading Style Sheets) and other layout features that define the font styles
and sizes, colors, backgrounds and positions. In like manner, WordPress stores
content in a database and the WordPress Theme (layout/design) controls the look
of how the content is displayed.
A CMS has control over what content shows up and where ads, related posts,
comments and other interactive elements appear on a web page. But with the
plug-ins and add-ons available in WordPresss, a user can also add these
features to his blog. A user can turn WordPress into a full-fledged CMS with
the many options, customizations and controls accessible to him.
There are a number of options a user can use to make WordPress works like a
CMS. Most CMS sites control what articles appear on the front page. In
WordPress, a user can make use of the Semiologic Opt-in FrontPage Plug-in that
lets him choose which post will appear on his front page. Podcasting,
videoblogging, adding music and images are possible with WordPress. There are
plenty of elements that a user can add to WordPress to enhance connectivity and
functions. Signing up for mailing lists, newsletters and other information to
be disseminated can be done with WordPress. A user can even set up e-commerce
with WordPress. Adding ads to a WordPress site is as simple as placing the ad
information into the proper template file. Forums and bulletin boards are
integrated with WordPress. Every WordPress user has a role that determines his
rights within the application. This is particularly useful to control the flow
of certain content. Another valuable feature of WordPress is its built-in
moderation feature. This allows the user to approve messages before they get
posted. The WP-ShortStart Plug-in renders Statistic monitoring. Lastly, a
user's CMS site won't be complete without a way to handle external and internal
links. WordPress has a number of plug-ins that can be used for this purpose.
Simply put, WordPress has sophisticated features that make it a powerful content
management system.
About the Author
http://www.theinternetone.net
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