PDA

View Full Version : WordPress as a CMS



vangogh
05-06-2009, 02:21 AM
WordPress began as a blogging platform and I know that's how many people still see it and how it's mostly used. However it's evolved beyond it's blogging origins and WordPress can now be used as a full content management system.

Here's a post from Noupe, 101 Techniques for a Powerful CMS using WordPress (http://www.noupe.com/wordpress/powerful-cms-using-wordpress.html), with links to plenty of tutorials on using WordPress as a CMS. The post is the first in a 4 part series.

Over the last year more and more of my clients are using WordPress. Sites that a couple of years ago I might have developed without any CMS I'm putting on WordPress. The last site I developed was a three page site with no blog and it's being powered by you guessed it WordPress.

Anyone else using WordPress as a CMS?

Patrysha
05-06-2009, 08:47 AM
Yup...as a marketer it's the platform of choice that I recommend to my clients. I'm not a pro at it, and I manage client expectations by explaining that I am not a designer and that all I do is is customize templates - my skill is in the writing and the offline integration...but yup...all WP.

rezzy
05-06-2009, 11:31 AM
I often try to push, maybe to much as a cms for clients that need to do updates.

When I first started looknig CMSes, I liked Joomla. But after looking at the internals, I found it to be way over the top. Hence, I switched. Wordpress all the way.

vangogh
05-06-2009, 11:49 AM
Usually once I explain to clients that if they use WordPress it means they'll be able to add new pages on their own without having to pay me to do it, it helps make the sale. Especially when I tell them the price will be the same for me to develop the site with or without WordPress.

Even for clients who have no need to update their own content I might still use WordPress. From the outside looking in you can make a site that no one would ever know is using WordPress anyway. Looks just like an ordinary static site.

elsoft
05-07-2009, 09:48 AM
Wordpress as a CMS is something i came to knew very recently in this forum.Wordpress seems to be lot more than what it seems to a beginner.Vangogh,is it possible to add a shopping cart in wordpress...I heard something called Magenta.Can wordpress and magenta used together?

rezzy
05-07-2009, 10:55 AM
There are actually several different carts available for Wordpress. I am not sure if Magenta is one of them.

You can extend Wordpress features through using plugins. There are litterly hundreds of them avaliable to do anything you can imagine.

vangogh
05-07-2009, 12:07 PM
Magento is its own program. I haven't used it myself, but I've heard good things about it, but people who's opinion I respect. If you're planning on building a site that mostly needs to function as product display and shopping cart you might want to look at it.

Like Bryan said there are some plugins for WordPress to add shopping cart functionality. WP Ecommerce (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-e-commerce/) is the most popular one, but I think there are others. WP Ecommerce offers a free version and then a pay version with more functionality.

rezzy
05-07-2009, 02:02 PM
Steve, do you know of a plugin that allows selling of e-books or other download-ables through Wordpress?

vangogh
05-07-2009, 03:30 PM
I think WP Ecommerce does that. Here's their features page (http://www.instinct.co.nz/e-commerce/wp-e-commerce-features/). It mentions downloadable products.

You could of course just go through PayPal which should make it easy to have visitors pay and then lead them back to a page where they can download the ebook.