WordPress Not For Blogs: Turning WordPress Into A Website CMS

Now why do people want to use WordPress as a content management system (CMS)? There are a lot of other CMS out there, made from websites.
I have been looking into this myself. And I can tell you my reasons …

1. I don’t want a blog but rather a simple content-website
2. I like and used to the WordPress control panel or dashboard
3. I don’t know why but WordPress-powered blog (or site) rank high and fast
4. You can change template quickly and easily
5. You can have a content-site and a blog at the same time

Well, after surfing around looking for this, I found quite a number of good resources. Yes, there’s SemiLogic. I am sure it’s great. My friend, Bonnie Lowe uses it at her Best Earning Strategies. But I am also trying to find a non-commercial solution to this.

WordPress as CMS: How to build websites with WordPress (PDF file available)
http://www.mensk.com/tutorials/wordpress.html

This is a really good step-by-step tutorial. I am really amaze how generous this guy/gal is with the knowledge shared in here. This would be the first place I would recommend you look at if you want to build a WordPress CMS.

Five WordPress Enabling Plugins
http://www.blazenewmedia.com/articles/five-wordpress-cms-enabling-plugins

In this web page, you will find out about five really cool plugins that will help you transform your WordPress into a website CMS. There’s Filosofo Homepage Control, Fold-Page List, Search Everything, Role Manager and Site-map Generator.

I think, after putting together your website with the tutorial from Mensk, applying the plug-ins recommended at Blaze New Media would a good idea. Filosofo helps building the folder structure like having the blog on the “/blog”.

Fold-Page allows you to build hierarchical static pages in WordPress. Yes, you can build pages in WordPress, but Fold-Page helps you put it in a hierarchical manner. I think this is cool. Now you can have a pages under a pages, under a page, upto three levels deep.

Search Everything allows you to put a search box that searches everything, including pages, not only blog posts.

Role Manager allows you to define authorization and access rules. You can have administrator, editors, authors, etc …

And lastly … when you have a site, you need a sitemap. When you put this all together, you’ll have a site, and not a blog. Or maybe a site with a blog. And you don’t have to manage the site and the blog seperately.

If I do build this one, I’ll write another post …